The Holocaust: Does History Repeat Itself?

The Holocaust was a period in time lasting from 1933-1945, where Adolph Hitler tried to exterminate people that he considered to be inferior to him. He wanted his country to be full of Arians, his perception of the perfect person. An Arian is described as a blonde haired blue-eyed person. More recently, history teachers in Germany are trying to avoid teaching about this event that killed close to 12 million Jews, homosexuals, invalids, and gypsies. Why is this?

Many Germans probably aren’t in agreement with the views of the Nazi’s who guided this event. Therefore, they may not want to be stereotyped as prejudice Nazis. This may be a possible explanation of why the history teachers may be unwilling to teach about this horrific event in history. Not only may they be stereotyped as being prejudice, but this may be a hard topic to teach, considering some may have lived through the pain and suffering, and thus, might not want to relive it through their teachings. Additionally, those who lived through World War II may feel that they were easily influenced or pressured into the mind frame of a Nazi. By teaching the event, they may assume that they are injecting this mind frame into the beliefs of their pupils. One point that they may not have realized is that history repeats itself, and for this subject not to be taught, the future could turn out worse than the past.

Elie Wiesel wrote a short novel, Night, about his recollection of the Holocaust. On page five, a character named Moshe the Beadle, was trying to warn the Jewish people of his town about the Holocaust, but no one would listen. The people of the town did not pay attention to the history that he was teaching and then history became life. They were already being put into concentration camps. In the story it was too late for the people to do something. Today can stop things like the Holocaust from happening again by teaching it to our youth.

If can we learn from the mistakes of this past generation, then it will make our generation stronger and less apt to follow in their footsteps. The Holocaust should be taught in all upper level schools, including the ones in Germany. I am a firm believer that we can learn from our historical mistakes, and improve upon them. It may be in the world’s best interest to learn from others mistakes, by teaching what happened during the Holocaust, and why it happened. By teaching this we are not trying to justify the loss of 12 million people, but by educating our youth, we are trying to insure that an event such as the Holocaust won’t happen again.

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