Thought I would share something that happened the other day and made me really tearful. Currently I'm researching my Grandad's service history in WW2 and have had some great help from these forums. During this my Husband and I have decided that we would like to pay a visit to Auschwitz, nothing to do with my Grandad - he was never near there (thank god). We know that there is many sites relating to WW2 that we would like to visit so this is probably the first of many. It's not a 'disneyland' visit (as I know some tourists do) but more to pay our respects to the millions of the people killed by the Nazi's (we were so moved by the BBC4 program). So in the office the other day my husband mentioned to some 20 year old people and they asked SERIOUSLY " is that a Ski resort" (my husband loves Skiing). 4 out of 5 20 year olds didn't know what Auschwitz was. Now that made me cry.......... Something is seriously wrong when 2/3 generations below don't know what their grandparents/great grandparents went through.
i don't think many of them even see the News, or even read a newspaper! I was returning from Remembrance day RBL Parade, giving my WW2 medals an annual outing, when a boy said, "Look Dad, that man's got a lot of BADGES"!
Kat - Mustn't be surprised now - IF they are not taught - how do they know ? My wife was once asked if she fought in the BOWER WAWER - she took exception to that as she was still in her 30's ! BUT she went into her lecture of how she spent five years in the WRAFF...did many jobs including looking after dead and missing airmen's effects - until she found her own brother's kit..those things can't be forgotten.....but meaningless to many to-day...we just put up with it and do our best through forums such as this to try and educate them- and that is a real challenge Cheers
Katrb & Tom, My mother, God bless her had, a similar experience with 1 of her grandnephews when he found out mum served, asked what the WAAAF was & what mum did in it. He then asked what did the Japanese do that was so bad...well he got a 3 hours history lesson (read tirade)..lol Tragic but true, I think in many a case, it goes to "What the teacher/school feels in the curriculum s important". Regrettably, education (formal) is probably "over" ww2, and educators wish to concentrate on the "Brave new world" of a united Europe Et-Al. Fortunately, there are books (if they bother to read these days) online sites (such as this),re-enactors, & other opportunities through extra curricular activities to fill the void left by the educational systems & parents for the young to at least be given the opportinuty to understand. This old saying appplies "If you do not know where you came from, you can't expect to know where you are going" Regards Simon
Thought I would share something that happened the other day and made me really tearful. Currently I'm researching my Grandad's service history in WW2 and have had some great help from these forums. During this my Husband and I have decided that we would like to pay a visit to Auschwitz, nothing to do with my Grandad - he was never near there (thank god). We know that there is many sites relating to WW2 that we would like to visit so this is probably the first of many. It's not a 'disneyland' visit (as I know some tourists do) but more to pay our respects to the millions of the people killed by the Nazi's (we were so moved by the BBC4 program). So in the office the other day my husband mentioned to some 20 year old people and they asked SERIOUSLY " is that a Ski resort" (my husband loves Skiing). 4 out of 5 20 year olds didn't know what Auschwitz was. Now that made me cry.......... Something is seriously wrong when 2/3 generations below don't know what their grandparents/great grandparents went through. Yes, it is extremely sad that there is so much ignorance about, which make revisionist views easier to be aquired as the truth, which is even more disturbing. Regards Tom
Kat For many years now, one of my hobbies is writing letters to The Times. They rarely get published, if I'm lucky it's once every couple of years, but I find the very act of writing the letters is cathargic and it's always fun when I do get to see one of my letters on view on the letters page. Back in 2006 I dashed this one off and I reprint it now under your excellent thread title: Sir John Doughty’s salutary tale of his granddaughter asking “Who were the suffragettes” (Letters to the Editor 21st April) rang bells for me. I was recently round at a friends house, where I was paying my weekly visit to help him brush up his computer skills. He had a particular problem on his computer that needed a solution from the company that had sold him the system and I found myself, on his behalf, chatting on the phone with a British computer expert. When the expert proceeded to operate the PC by remote control, he was interested to see that the screen saver showed my friend visiting a war cemetery. I pointed out that the photo displayed was that my friend re-visiting the CWGC Cemetery at Cassino and mentioned that he and I had both served there in the same Light Ack-Ack unit . The conversation then went something like this: Expert: Where did you say that was? Me: Cassino Expert: Where's that? Me: May I ask how old you are? Expert: Thirty-nine Me: Are you seriously telling me that you've never heard of Cassino? Expert: No, where is it ? Me: Italy.... and tell me, did you not have any relatives who served in WW2? Expert: Yes, one in the Navy and one in the RAF, but they have both since passed away. I got him to promise me that he would look up "Cassino" on the internet after he had put the computer problem to rights and then when he eventually hung up my friend and I simply stared at each other. Please tell me that other people of a similar age group have heard of Cassino, or am I asking too much ? Ron Goldstein [FONT="][/FONT]
I have a 23 year old son, I have answered as many questions about the war as I can. If there is anything (and there are many) I dont know about I send him to this site. When he was still at school his class was visiting WW1 battle sites in France. Someone asked the teacher about the history of WW2 the teacher didnt know much, even saying Chamberlin was PM throughout the war!.
Somewhere in the dear old USA there is an expert on the Scots Guards! 1981 we were back on public duties - Chelsea Barracks. A letter arrived at the palace addressed to the 'Queen's Guards' - my boss happened to be Captain of the Queen's Guard. He asked if we could send some booklets and other information, he would pay any postage - silly lad! History of the Scots Guards (booklet) along with a few other publications the postage cost him a quid or two! We got a letter from the lad and his teacher, both very pleased.
I'm thirty nine and that does make me wonder, I was always brought up with the story's of both wars, my grandfather, I even went to his Grave in France at fourteen and studied it at school so I can't under this thirty nine year old, my daughter and son even went to Ypres when they were in secondary education and studied the holocaust, even though it is put in religious Studies now. That really sadness me that the youth's of today think that way, but some do get educated and its great when some do come on to these sites and remember.
I don't see what the problem is-Not everyone has an interest in WW2. I could get equally annoyed by how many people think Dunkirk and D-Day are the same thing. Thinking back I'd say I always thought Auschwitz was in Germany until I joined this forum. Cheers Andy
Andy, I do not think it is so much to do with having an interest, but more to do with what is now NOT taught within the confines of formal education. We have generations that now, have no living lnk from WW2 within their family. Combine those 2 factors & you have a recipe for ignorance, not in any specific in depth way, but lacking in baisc historical knowledge of last century. Regards Simon
I was taught about WW1 in history lessons at school twenty something years ago-Damed if I can remember anything I was taught about it other than it happened though. I thought WW2 was being taught in schools now? I don't have any kids but I'm sure some parents on here can confirm if it's on the curriculum now in Secondary Schools?
It is certainly taught in Primary schools. I go in every year to my Grandson's school and spend several hours talking to year 3 (7-8 year old) about WW2 and showing them some artefacts and my models. We also go on a trip to a local steam railway as evacuees where they learn about life in the war.
It is worth bearing in mind that today's ten-year-olds were born sixty years after the Second World War. It is as distant to them as the Franco-Prussian War was to the ten-year-olds of 1940. I too find it baffling and frustrating that people younger than me don't share my preoccupations. For some reason - sheer wilful contrariness, I suspect - they insist on having their own ... Best, Alan
The whole of History has become a Politically Corrected subject. They get a vague idea that there were Romans and horrid Vikings with a bit of luck the downtrodden Villeins and then off to the Tolpuddle Martyrs, slavery and satanic mills. My Grandson (11years old) asked me what had become of the Vikings? My daughter (very bright) got an A in A level History without touching on battles or kings and queens. I bought her Churchill's 4 volumes of the "History of the English Speaking Peoples" to fill in the gap. Is it important - I think so. Without curiosity and a major one is how did we get here, surely we would be still be bunch of ignorant monkeys.
Orwell, Such, Such Were the Joys, on state-of-the-art history teaching c. 1914: "There was in those days a piece of nonsense called the Harrow History Prize, an annual competition for which many preparatory schools entered. It was a tradition for St Cyprian's to win it every year, as well we might, for we had mugged up every paper that had been set since the competition started, and the supply of possible questions was not inexhaustible. They were the kind of stupid question that is answered by rapping out a name of quotation. Who plundered the Begams? Who was beheaded in an open boat? Who caught the Whigs bathing and ran away with their clothes? Almost all our historical teaching ran on this level. History was a series of unrelated, unintelligible but — in some way that was never explained to us — important facts with resounding phrases tied to them. Disraeli brought peace with honour. Clive was astonished at his moderation. Pitt called in the New World to redress the balance of the Old. And the dates, and the mnemonic devices. (Did you know, for example, that the initial letters of ‘A black Negress was my aunt: there's her house behind the barn’ are also the initial letters of the battles in the Wars of the Roses?) Flip, who ‘took’ the higher forms in history, revelled in this kind of thing. I recall positive orgies of dates, with the keener boys leaping up and down in their places in their eagerness to shout out the right answers, and at the same time not feeling the faintest interest in the meaning of the mysterious events they were naming. ‘1587’ ‘Massacre of St Bartholomew!’ '1707' ‘Death of Aurangzeeb!’ ‘1713?’ ‘Treaty of Utrecht!’ ‘1773?’ ‘Boston Tea Party!’ ‘1520?’ ‘Oo, Mum, please, Mum—’ ‘Please, Mum, please Mum! Let me tell him, Mum!’ ‘Well! 1520?’ ‘Field of the Cloth of Gold!’ And so on."
unfortunately, the school systems have only a limited time frame to go over every thing in the course books. back when i was still in school my history teacher (who was also the football coach er, american football that is)didn't have time to cover ww2 at all.
I posted earlier in the thread - message #2 - about a Great Granddad who was in the [Royal] Northumberland Fusiliers and this is a follow-up based on a subsequent post by Geoff (of 'search engine' fame). During my schools years most references to the horror of WWI focussed on the Somme - 1 July 1916 - and what happened to the Accrington Pals (11Bn East Lancs Regiment). They lost approx half their number KIA and only approx 136 men of the battalion survived the battle uninjured. What I had never realised until reading the 'By Regiment' link in Geoff's post (above) was that the [Royal] Northumberland Fusiliers had by far the most number of soldiers KIA on that day. Reflecting on this, I feel that as a child growing up in Northumberland I should have been taught about my country's history, which I was, but also about my local community's part in shaping it. The latter was missing. Anyway, feel cheated by the statutory education providers and am grateful to the freely provided education obtained on this forum. Thanks Geoff! Getting back to the Somme theme, here is the British Order Of Battle for 1 July 1916. OrderofBattle-BritishInfantryUnits.pdf Best, Steve. I've commented on this on these pages before and here is an example - the quote - from a few weeks ago. Now I studied history at school to 'A' level standard, but it all stopped at 1919. What, no WWII? No WWII, can you imagine that? But WWII is my interest and I have learned - self taught through reading, and what I learned has been enhanced through this forum and more reading. Doubtless, some will say that it shows. Now my two children are all grown up and do not share my interest, they have other interests and that is fine. They do not riot and are good subjects. But I am a little sad though that they do not share this interest of mine, but I have a cunning plan... ... It calls for an outflanking manouvre. My grandchildren, of which I currently have one, WILL be interested Best, Steve.
Hate to admit it but I was watching a daytime quiz show on Monday called 'Pointless'. A question was put to two young girls in their late teens/early twenties, "Name a Labour Prime Minister". The conversation between them went something like: "Winston Churchill?" "Not sure. Was he even a Prime Minister?" "Not sure. Oh well, let's say Winston Churchill then." OK I can forgiven them slightly for not knowing his party affiliation but seriously how can you grow up in Britain and not know whether Churchill was a Prime Minister or not?
