LamontJan 31, 2023
DidiQ
“"In Germany, teaching the Holocaust is mandatory. It includes visits to concentration camp, museums, etc. They don’t shy away from their own ugly history. Yet the kids aren’t damaged; they’re strengthened, matured, humbled. US needs to do same re slavery. Not that complicated.”
Siggy Rose.
Jan 27, 2023 at 2:45pmWeb
Show threadRev. GothAliceJan 27, 2023

@DidiQ As Canada is reckoning with the past horrors of residential schools.

Truth. And reconciliation.

Show threadCatherine SchmidtJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ when I come across people who resist our true history; I say the Germans courageously acknowledge their history. So can the U.S. unless we are just too weak to face the truth. Waiting to see…..another test.
Show threadOtownKimJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ I hope DeathSantis loses BIGLY!
Show threadsandywb14Jan 27, 2023
@DidiQ This makes so much sense.
Show threadSörenJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ @donmelton German. Can confirm. Holocaust education is broad and extensive, for multiple years and in multiple subjects (not just history, but German, English, etc., because “how did I affect culture? What did it do to families across Europe?” is a key point), and it doesn’t hurt kids; it builds character.
Show threadDidiQJan 27, 2023
@chucker @donmelton Thank you for adding your first hand experience learning about the Holocaust in Germany.
Show threadraphaelJan 28, 2023

@chucker @DidiQ @donmelton +1 to this.

the older i get, the more i am astounded how much that part of education became a solid and useful foundation. i even find its lack in some folks from other countries disconcerting.

and yet, at the time, it felt so dreary and useless. turns out, even when kids in puberty can be really ungrateful little shits, energy spent on them isn’t necessarily spent in vain.

Show threadSörenJan 28, 2023
@gekitsu @DidiQ @donmelton yeah, but I do think my schools (OS and then Gym) may have overdone it a bit, and I will say we got fairly little history education about other regions. Mostly Eurocentric; some US and Aus. Way too little South American, Africa, Asia.
Show threadraphaelJan 28, 2023

@chucker @DidiQ @donmelton yes, full agree to the latter part – it did come at a cost of less time spent on other important subjects. but i’m sure that sort of encompassing coverage of nazi germany could still be maintained while on a less eurocentric history curriculum.

at least in my school (gymn. in bavaria), it wasn’t just a matter of history lessons, there was a lot of it in german as well, and other subjects as it fit in. (plus excursions, visits from survivors, etc.) didn’t make it any less ‘come on, again?’ to teen-age me, but in retrospect, that interdisciplinary approach allowed for more chances of something grabbing here, something else gaining a foothold there.

Show threadNils 'Kojote' HitzeJan 28, 2023
@chucker @DidiQ @donmelton same here, German and we had roughly three years of history only on this topic including a visit to Dachau. Since I live in Dachau I think it is our responsibility
Show threadSörenJan 28, 2023
@kojote @DidiQ @donmelton we never went to a camp but I know a lot of people my generation who did. Sounds scary (and important)
Show threadPaulina Jan 27, 2023
@DidiQ I agree. Problem is that here, these disgraceful children of Shitler, haven’t overcome their defeat.
Show threadKristin ZettlemoyerJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ German here. Completely true. Learning about history based on facts and understanding how something like that could happen was part of our basic education. I live in the US now and when my kids were old enough, we made sure to visit a concentration camp so they can learn and see what happened. It was certainly a somber visit to experience what humans have done to other humans who were different from them.
Show threadDidiQJan 27, 2023
@kkz Thank you for sharing. I visited a concentration camp once when I was in Germany as a teenager, and it has stayed with me.
Show threadNils 'Kojote' HitzeJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ @kkz I'm worried about the people that aren't moved by a visit
Show threadKristin ZettlemoyerJan 28, 2023
@kojote @DidiQ I think it’s impossible for anyone who visited a former camp and actually paid attention during their visit to not be moved by the pictures and the general sense of doom you experience being in a camp.
Show threadNils 'Kojote' HitzeJan 28, 2023
@kkz @DidiQ that's what I thought too but than I regularly see people doing selfies on the Holocaust memorial in Berlin and hear people talking on the bus when coming from there (we have a bus line in Dachau that goes from the train station to the memorial site) and there are some that aren't.
Show threadAnglophilia 🇪🇺😼🥧🥤🎧🇬🇧Jan 27, 2023
@DidiQ Very true
Show threadShield MaidenJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ I wish this kind of direct experience of true history was common and practised everywhere, in every country.
Show threadGene BlishenJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ Thx for the post. In Canada we have the Truth and Reconcilliation process. There is a 1500 page public PDF which describes the atrocities of the past between the First Nations & Canada. You mention ‘shy away from their own ugly history’. That publication is very difficult to read because of its ugliness. It is vile what was done. One has to deconstruct that culture which presented these previous lies. It’s the ugly colonialism, racism, and greed that supported this regime. It’s tough work
Show threadAgoraJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ #desantis belives that white kids are fragile eggs who need protection from history!
Show threadKristinJan 27, 2023
@Agora @DidiQ The Governor has also made it a *3rd Degree felony* for a teacher to have a book in her classroom that he & his administration hasn't specifically approved and listed in a database. My county issued a warning to all our teachers, asking them to proactively box up everything in their little classroom libraries just to be safe. Many K-8 school libraries have been decimated.
Show threadAgoraJan 28, 2023
@anicat @DidiQ, isn't there a teacher’s union? Why isn't anyone intervening?
This is beyond insane!
Show threadBat SaraJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ Maybe a bit more complicated: the Holocaust had a clear endpoint, while legal enslavement was followed by sharecropping, chain gangs, lynchings, segregation, redlining, voter suppression, etc. The 13th amendment exception for involuntary servitude of prisoners still stands. All of this should also be taught.
Show threadAndreas KJan 27, 2023

@DidiQ Sigh, same here in Austria. We actually even discuss in school the not so popular detail that most of our subject ethnicities from the days we were an Empire not exactly have loved us.

Side note, at least in Austria, history is a mandatory class, you cannot simply deselect it.
(we do have an almost infinite variety of school types, but the school types come with basically fixed class schedules, and perhaps some subjects like languages one can choose)

Show threadMax Leibman has moved!Jan 27, 2023
@DidiQ Right on. I always take the argument about guilt-tripping kids to be disingenuous. If conservatives don’t want their kids to feel bad about slavery, how *do* they want their kids to feel about slavery?
Show threadYusuf ToropovJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ #reparations
Show threadJulesfinnJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ fuck fascist DeSantis. It's time for massive protests.
Show threadIndy Richard 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Jan 27, 2023
@DidiQ The teaching of history is seen as a powerful tool of control. In Scotland when I was a boy there was a push to try and suppress any feelings which might lead to independent thought. In history classes when I was at school we weren't taught about the Scottish enlightenment, Scottish / English wars, the Highland clearances or Red Clydeside. No, we were taught about the Aztecs. Could they have found a subject further from Scottish history?
#ScottishIndependence
#ScottishDemocracy
Show threadMidwest BobJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ Yes, thank you. When I was in Germany in 2015 it was explained to our group that it is MANDATORY that the schools teach the children about the holocaust and that by age 14 children must go to and see one of the camps. The people do not want this piece of their history to ever be repeated.
Show threadGeoJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ Unfortunately, education is not a guarantee. Germany today still has fascist groups. But if we tried to cover our history up our lied about it, it would surely be so much worse.
Show threadVictoria McIntoshJan 27, 2023
@DidiQ Canada also needs to do this with indigenous history.
Show threadjoe•iuculano Jan 28, 2023
@DidiQ
Booommm!!!
Show threadDoug Baker - Elbows Up! 🇨🇦Jan 28, 2023
@DidiQ Japan, on the other hand...
Show threadcostrikeJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ hear, hear!
Show threadShar_sharJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ ...it is with denial of events we doom ourselves to relive those atrocities over and over.
Show threadPalinJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ
Maybe this is what it will take to wake up the people in Florida....
By people I mean Democrats because the stupid Resputlikkkans aren't anything more than slugs.
Show threadDan ShickJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ and why doesn’t America do this? because the supposed winners of the Civil War never succeeded in truly holding the losers to account; the will has never existed to acknowledge that enslavement was an atrocity that must never be revisited. at its base, even today too much of America still approves of slavery.
Show threadMorganaJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ Ignorance and want beget fear and poverty….Only education and tolerance will allow everyone to move forward in understanding…
Show threadKimboJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ sorry, but me as a german, I have to disagree. The humongous focus on holocaust in history lessons is breaking the German self view, destroying society at its core. Don’t think it has no bad impact!
Show threadKris StarkJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ The only way you can learn to avoid making the same mistakes over and over is to know how those mistakes were made, and what led up to them...
Show threadPacky AndersonJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ https://fosstodon.org/@packy/109765001491315992
Packy Anderson (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image Quote-tooted due to lack of image description in original toot. https://mstdn.social/@DidiQ/109761708440056795 “"In Germany, teaching the Holocaust is mandatory. It includes visits to concentration camp, museums, etc. They don’t shy away from their own ugly history. Yet the kids aren’t damaged; they’re strengthened, matured, humbled. US needs to do same re slavery. Not that complicated.” Siggy Rose

Fosstodon
Show threadPygoscelis PapuaJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ it is mandatory, but as always, the details depend on the school and teacher. Some are able to make it interesting, others just spend a semester listing atrocities and leave their students without a way to approach the complicated relationship we have with our history, thus giving birth to a fairly widely held belief: “I’m not responsible, I wasn’t even born. Why should I feel guilt?” And that’s the problem, teaching that knowing history is not a debt, but a responsibility.
Show threadProfessor Junhong XiaoJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ All the invading countries in World War II need to do the same.
Show threadPieJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ The way Germans teach history makes it much harder for fascism to be seen nostalgically. That’s exactly why US history is not taught the same way. It really is that simple.
Show threadByron Whyte,MD Jan 28, 2023
@DidiQ “Yeah, but, yknow… Blacks.”
- Americans
Show threadBarefoot in kitchen feministJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ Come to America and learn something about laziness, sloppiness, angst and almost everyone on drugs - legal or illegal. Then you’ll understand, why what you ask is crying for the moon. America is in eternal puberty.
Show thread  Jan 28, 2023
@DidiQ
They should really abolish slavery first though. And provide reparations.
Show threadShoq 🌿Jan 28, 2023
@DidiQ It absolutely infuriates me. Banning books as close to fascist practice as any society can engage in, and yet we're all sitting on our asses watching them do it, as politicians and pundits prattle and pontificate ad nauseum with absolutely no ideas for how to respond. But we need a response. A global response. And right away.
#ConditionRed
Show threadParanoid FactoidJan 28, 2023

@shoq @DidiQ The right is fighting a war. They take specific bits of governmental power, for specific reasons. The same can be said about media and platforms, they coordinate and take a loss for a greater purpose. They are organized and well funded.

We need organization. First and foremost.

Show threadShoq 🌿Jan 28, 2023
@ParanoidFactoid @DidiQ
💯 And since they are now seizing social networks, the safety, sanctity, security and ubiquity of the emergent fedivese is absolutely essential to that goal.
Show threadParanoid FactoidJan 28, 2023

@shoq @DidiQ We should take a closer look at Copyright. So much the right is doing uses DRM and copyright to sew up control of areas in the economy and engage in monopoly extraction.

Seems unrelated. But their goal is a feudal economy, using monopoly and control of the state to extract from a public turned into slaves (Serfs). Copyright is central to their tactics. More so than mere corporate consolidation.

The FSFs old GPL license is something to rethink in new contexts.

Show threadJustinmwhitakerJan 28, 2023
@ParanoidFactoid @shoq @DidiQ we’re already behind. I’m not going to say we’re too late, but we’re already behind.
Show threadWndlBJan 28, 2023
@ParanoidFactoid @shoq @DidiQ Not at all sure that the law underlying what’s going on in FL, the ‘don’t say gay’ bill, would be found UNconstitutional by the 11th Circuit, and this #SupremeCourt.
Show threadParanoid FactoidJan 28, 2023
@wndlb @shoq @DidiQ But that just goes to corruption on the court by packing.
Show threadBijanJan 28, 2023

@DidiQ seeing this makes me think about this https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-giftschrank/

In the last few days it has occurred that culturally Germany had concepts of dealing with toxic ideologies, so post WW2 they had a path dealing with these ideologies and various artifacts from it.

However here in the US it doesn’t exist, as a result there is no unified cultural approach to deal with it. imo we as a country need to develop or adopt a methodology for dealing with this. Thus better learning from our ugly past.

The Giftschrank - 99% Invisible

On May 8, 1945, the Allied powers declared victory in Europe, putting an end to the Nazi regime. There was much to be done, and figuring out what to do with Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”), Adolf Hitler’s fictionalized autobiography, was prominently on the list. In the years leading up to and through the war, one in five

99% Invisible
Show threadChrisMJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ ditto here in Canada as regards to residential schools. Even though what happened to indigenous people was starkly absent from any curriculum when I went to elementary school, i'm glad it's a part of my kids' requirements today.
Show threadBrennan StehlingJan 28, 2023
@DidiQ @cd24 It should also be done for the history of the native people across US and Canada. We shoupd know what has been done to these people and what continues to be done. It has to stop.
Show threadtravelgirlJan 29, 2023
@DidiQ