Tender Childhood Memory
>be me
>be in fifth grade
>the scholastic book fair comes to our school every year
>the kids in my class were really into "I Survived" books
>"I Survived the Holocaust" is being sold
>kids correlate Nazis being German with me
being German and start calling me a Nazi
>ask them what a Nazi is, but no one will tell me
>too poor to buy the book
>ask my stepmom at the time and she screams at me because "I'm too young to know about Nazis" and gets mad at me
>too scared to ask teachers or my dad after getting yelled at
>kids keep calling me a Nazi for weeks
>get pissed
>plot revenge
>have fake cereal brand with my friend for some reason
>never actually made the cereal yet, just pretend it exists and made fake ads for it and shit
>tell people I'm finally going to make it
>mix the most vile, abhorrent shit I can find in my kitchen together with red food dye and frosted flakes
>feed it to the people calling me a Nazi, so most of my class ate it
>gave them explosive diarrhea and food poisoning
>somehow didn't get in trouble for biological warfare and was never punished by the school
>W
>forget about it for eight years
>randomly remember
>tell my dad cause I think it's funny
>”Anon, that's exactly what a Nazi would do."
>InterpersonalExpectancyEffect.jpg
I guess those kids called it.
I don't think German 5th graders know what Nazis are either, besides being bad if they've heard the term before. At school, history is being covered chronologically, so it takes until 9th or 10th grade to reach WW2. Outside of schools, there's genuinely not that much children will learn about Nazis, if the parents don't decide to actively teach them.
I personally learnt about them first in third grade in school. In "history" we visited local landmarks and statues in our village, and out teacher told us the history behind them. There was a memorial for ww1 and ww2 soliders as well as a Holocaust memorial nearby, so he told us about that. But I sure knew about nazis before then. Just not from school.
Here in Germany, education about WW2, Holocaust and Nazis is taken rather seriously from a young age. I don’t think I knew anyone by the time I was 10-ish who didn’t have at least a rudimentary understanding that Hitler and the Nazis were the bad guys in WW2, that they tried to kill all jews and that we should strive to not be like that anymore. I can remember that in 3rd or 4th grade we visited the local Synagogue with my clsss and the holocaust certainly was a topic around that time. Child friendly of course, but nonetheless.
Unlike many US states who still don’t teach about slavery, we in Germany try to be aware of our past and our education system reflects that.
I see we still live rent free in the krauts heads.
They way you phrased that you could be jewish, American or perhaps a Nazi…
Honestly, could be all three.
If you were educated in Germany, then I don't think you can accurately speak about what the US school system does. I learned about a lot of negative things in America's history including slavery. Whether or not most students absorbed it is a different discussion.
Since education isn’t federally managed but rather falls under states’ authority, what you learn about slavery, etc., varies extremely widely from state to state.
That burn at the end ...
I'm from Germany and me and my classmates deffenetly new what a Nazi is. Not as detailed, but the general concept of Nazis and the holocaust is something you learn very early and that is strongly linked with our culture. We do many things differently, because of our history and on top of that is a never forget attitude, which has the effect that it is regulary talked about, even with kids.
I wish. Unless parents proactively do anything, children will not be aware of anything. Yes, the general concept of "Nazi = bad" is known to most children but I'd wager that's pretty much it. For instance, there's not a single memorial in the towns I went to school in about WW2 that I know of.
Unfortunately, you're also severely exaggerating the "Never forget" attitude, seeing as millions support the "The Holocaust is nothing but a minor stain on German history"-party.
Yeap, my wife moved to the US from Germany when she was younger. She was called a Nazi by the kids in her class. It was kinda traumatic for her, because the 90's German education system really hammered down just how inappropriate it is to misrepresent what Nazism was really all about.
Oh you have no Idea. We definitely do know. We not only have this in history but in many other subjects too.
I'm surprised having gone through the German education system fairly recently doesn't give me any idea.
The earliest I can remember anything Nazi related being covered was in 8th grade with the book "Damals war es Friedrich".
In fact, I've double checked the entire curriculum (of my state) and nearly nothing is covered in other subjects prior to grade 8.
I'm confident that most 5th graders whose parents failed to teach them in detail don't know anything about Nazis besides them being evil and hating Jews. That's it.
Im pretty sure at the 5th Grade we read "Nachts schlafen die Ratten doch" 🤔