A Study On The Writing Of History Of Holocaust In History Textbooks Of British Secondary Schools(1991-2015)

The Holocaust that occurred during World War II was one of the most notorious atrocities in World War II.This is not only a purgatory disaster for the Jews,but also a painful historical memory for the entire human society.However,with the declining number of survivors,the intergenerational differences in the memory of the Holocaust have become prominent.How to remember the traumatic historical memory of the Holocaust has become one of the important issues in today.As the main material for young people to learn,textbooks are an important tool for passing on historical memory.This article selects 21 representative British middle school history textbooks and compares the changes in 5 history national curriculum.Based on the original textbooks and combined with a large amount of historical data,this article uses peace theory and history theory to analyze the problems in the writing of the Holocaust history,summed up four key issues for judgment,and put forward certain suggestions on how to change the history education to peace education.The paper studies writing problems of Holocaust in history textbooks of British secondary schools.Since the setup of national history curriculum in 1991,after revision of five times,students are forced to learn Holocaust at the key phase 3(KS3)of national curriculum.The first history national curriculum launched in 1991 included Holocaust in the teaching module of “war experience”,which was of great significance.This showed that the British government acknowledged the importance of learning Holocaust and knowing the history.During this period,Holocaust education has gotten government support and become legal education content,but outdated teaching method,lack of educational materials and complex teaching contents made Holocaust education fail to achieve obvious achievements.The second history national curriculum launched in 1995 included Holocaust in the teaching module of “main events”.1995 was fiftieth anniversary from the end of the Second World War.This year,the European people's enthusiasm of Holocaust education commemoration activities was quite high,and British positively participated in postwar history education exchange activities,which promoted Europeanization of Holocaust memory.At this time,the emphasis of Holocaust education transferred to the problem – how to learn from experience and lessons from the trauma.After the Labor party came to power in 1997,the Labor greatly promoted the citizenship education to become a required subject.The labor government thought that Holocaust education guided students to reflect on the duties and rights of citizenship,and drove the mutual promotion.At this period,“Holocaust Memorial Day” became the systematized commemorative activity,which promoted development of Holocaust education.The third history national curriculum launched in 1999 put Holocaust into the module of “important events”.The fourth history national curriculum launched in2007 reduced the weight of world history in the history subject,but Holocaust was still required.In the fifth history national curriculum launched in 2013,Holocaust was the only required history event in the 20 th century.Holocaust occupies a prominent position in the national curriculum.The author selects 21 textbooks which are prepared for students(11-14 years old)at the key phase 3(KS3)and published from 1991 to 2016,and then analyzes the writing from 4aspects in 4 chapters with the Peace Studies theory.The second Chapter analyzes the writing of prewar life of Jew in the textbooks,and points out that student's failure to understand prewar life of Jew and neglect of the historical fact that Jew have made contributions to their homeland due to lack of description on the prewar life in the existing textbook narration.The textbooks uncritically use Nazi propaganda materials not in accordance with historical facts,which might be easy to mislead students and exaggerate the German social influence of Jew.The third chapter discusses and analyzes the writing of historical background of Holocaust in the textbooks.Most textbooks are lack of clearing the structure of the anti-Semitism history,which has caused lack of knowing historical background,and has been not good for understanding historical origin of anti-Semitism.In nearly half of textbooks,there is no explanation on racialism and religious antipathy,so students are difficult to understand the theoretical basis of Nazis slaughtering Jew.Most textbooks fail to introduce special economic and political situations in German.Lack of explanation on the historical background of Nazis slaughtering Jew in textbooks is not good for students to know reasons of Holocaust in a comprehensive way.The fourth chapter discusses the writing of the image of Jew victim in textbooks.Most textbooks take the perspective of offenders and show the image of Jew with tragic experience in the concentration camp.Such writing likely emphasizes hateful Nazis and evil Hitler,and fails to achieve the purpose of peace education.Some textbooks start to focus on reaction of Jew during the period of persecution,including restrictions on normal life of Jew at early stage,and Jew resistance.Some textbooks take the victim perspective to write history turning.The writing style can make students truly understand victims' pain,bring the justice to victims that they deserve,and restore the truth of the event,which can promote reconciliation between the two parties and complete the transformation from trauma history education to peace education.The fifth chapter discusses reflective teaching of textbooks for Holocaust.Current popular textbooks attribute Holocaust to Hitler and Nazis High-level.However,such writing style is not helpful for prevention of the genocide.Some textbook also discusses responsibilities of ordinary Germans,Nazi party members and allies.Some textbook shows the turning trend from history education to peace education,and its teaching core shifts to assurance of human rights and creating a peaceful life in the future from crimes of the Nazis.Summary based on peace education theory,proposes three advices for education of Holocaust in British secondary schools.the first is that the teaching of Holocaust focuses on the victims,students should not only remember the number of deaths,but should try to restore the specific images of the victims,inspire empathy among the students,and avoid the recurrence of the massacre.The second is that Holocaust education should be related to other genocide education;taking the education of historical facts of Holocaust as a model,leading other historical education of genocide to gradually turn to peace education.The third is combination of Holocaust education and peace education.Holocaust education should be beyond simple trauma history education and change the sorrow to the driving force of peaceful construction.