#it makes 0 sense to spend more time learning abt Alexander Hamilton or whatever

[cruelsister-moved2]

its just constantly so extremely frustrating to be made aware of how absolutely awful most peoples holocaust education is/was (unless they are of a group who was directly affected) like in most cases it isnt really those peoples fault because they were never taught & in some cases taught actively badly so they were led to believe that they do know whilst actually being very ignorant; so how can you rectify what you don't know that you don't know. and the market is so saturated with ~inspirational gentile hero saves a handful of sympathetic acceptable passive jewish victims~ stories and other such Relatable Heartwarming content that even if you did try to educate yourself you could easily do more harm than good.

it feels like we have reached a point where there are now two holocausts, a specific historical one which is largely relegated to a niche academic field, and a monolithic cultural one that appears constantly as a shorthand for fantastical horrors & exists with little specificity or objectivity because it has become a spectre, a mindset,a cautionary tale, a 2D villain, rather than a real historical event which happened to (&was done by) millions of real human beings, thousands of whom still live today. (and also the 3rd which exists in the lives and minds of those who experienced it directly + their families). people can happily detach it from a long & currently thriving continuity of european antisemitism and anti roma racism because it has become just an abstract manifestion of Evil.

no space for the realities of camps liberated by segregated american regiments, of the holocaust of bullets, of the regular families who held their children up on their shoulders to get a better view of murders in the street while they sang the national anthem, operation paperclip, transports that continued to be used in poland for decades after the war to move regular goods and livestock until they were bought by american museums, gentiles quietly moving into the homes of their vanished neighbours once it seemed like they weren't going to come back, jewish labour movements, displaced persons camps, escapees from camps and ghettos who brought their stories to governments and international media from the start, anticipatory pogroms in occupied countries before the nazis even arrived, etc. no there was just one very evil guy, maybe 3 or 4 max, who with the help of advanced modern technology was able to kill millions all on his own just because he felt like it. and im sure people will draw very normal and intelligent conclusions from this understanding of things and it will lead to no problems at all

#it was weird when the maus thing was very big and everyone cared for like a couple of days and there was like #a lot of noise about people planning to educate themselves but then I still hear all the same misconceptions and ignorance as before #so it seems like they didn't actually at all #I don't want to come off preachy at all im just like. sits down and sighs very deeply and lays my head on the tavel #table* #shoah tw #im always somewhat wary of the like we should learn about the holocaust to like see how it is relevant in our own lives or w/e #because like. everyone should learn about it because it is one of the most major events in history it doesn't need justification #but we are living in the same world it happened in like 2/3 generations removed from the people it happened to and from and amongst #there is a sense that there is no continuity from it when in fact it is literally responsible for the entire shape of the modern west #looking at stuff from the 60s and realising they were like ~20 years removed from it like it's part of EVERYTHING #it makes 0 sense to spend more time learning abt Alexander Hamilton or whatever #it has all these psychological repercussions too even if it was something that happened 300 years ago #but it is also like..... all of our very foundational history and it is sooo not treated as that in the education system #for us I rmbr being taught abt ww2 as all like oh the great depression and d day and pearl harbor etc #and then the holocaust as like this completely isolated aside as though it wasn't part of that world and by extension our world but it was #like an obligation to teach us about it as its own like almost a curiosity #anyway.. I'm just like so tired and frustrated