Will the holocaust ever be forgotten?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22892783

Interesting article I thought - Tl;DR is basically that Israel keeps trying to remember the holocaust, but as the number of actual survivors dwindle, some fear that it will be forgotten...

What do you think? Will it be forgotten?

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Reply 1

Some random guy

It's a historical event that's been documented. Dunno what there is to forget, it's early 20th century history.

Reply 2

stuart_aitken

I'm bored of it. Terrible event, but so was the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, and who knows much about that?

Posted from TSR Mobile

I hope not.

Original post by stuart_aitken

I'm bored of it. Terrible event, but so was the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, and who knows much about that?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Also the Canadian holocaust.

Reply 5

bugsuper

I think, unfortunately, yes it will.

I'm not having a go at anybody's historical heritage here, but it's well-documented that the Mongol conquests under Genghis Khan killed a similar number of people to the Holocaust (and, at a time when the world population was smaller, although that doesn't really detract from the horror of either event.) But nowadays, people are starting to write histories about how Genghis was a great liberator - revisionist history talking about the benefits of his rule. So, by that metric, it will only be a few centuries before people start trying to get a more "balanced" view of Hitler, as mad as that sounds to us today.

If we humans had longer memories then there would not be the vast array of atrocities we see documented throughout history, and the patterns and cycles that seem so apparent in hindsight would not carry on occuring. But we don't, so they do.

Reply 6

bugsuper

I don't mean that it will be "forgotten", but the percieved importance of it will diminish over time. No-one sheds any tears over the people of hundreds of years ago.

Reply 7

Elcano

Original post by bugsuper

I don't mean that it will be "forgotten", but the percieved importance of it will diminish over time. No-one sheds any tears over the people of hundreds of years ago.

Well yes, but maybe that's because the grief of people hundreds of years ago couldn't be documented in the same way as today. I doubt people will like looking at a foto of a pile of near-skeletons at Auschwitz in 200 years.

Reply 8

scrotgrot

Of course it will be - but the war has provoked an unprecedented era of international co-operation and socialism which we can hopefully cling onto for another generation. After that though, it'll be the same old oppression till something else happens

Reply 9

Chlorophile

It will be remembered until the next holocaust happens. History always repeats itself and as soon as the horrors of the 20th Century genocides are no longer perceived as relevant by people, similar situations will arise again. We're currently in a depression - not a particularly significant event in the greater schemes of events - but even now, the popularity of racist groups has shot up as people look for scapegoats for the problems. At the moment, most people still remember the Holocaust and World War Two and intrinsically connect racism with something extremely negative, so are deterred away from it. However, when this congenital thought process starts to wean, the popularity of these groups will become more and more volatile and eventually something similar will happen again. It is completely inevitable, in my view - I don't understand why some people think we have entered an age of enlightenment and that we are now invulnerable to racism or political extremism.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 10

OedipusTheKing

It probably won't be forgotten so long as Israel still exists and keeps banging on its idealogical drum. However, for the rest of the world – yes, it probably will be forgotten for a vast quantity of people. I imagine in 20 years most people will probably think the 'cold war' was a global drop in temperatures; documentation is no guarantee of remembrance. Historical focus always jumps to the next crises at hand, which is why I feel humanity never learns.

Reply 11

username987102

It won't, nothing is forgotten in history when it is something as major as the holocaust.

Reply 12

DeepWaters

Original post by TheHistoryStudent

I hope it does, only then the world will truly find peace.

Reply 13

Hal.E.Lujah

Inevitably, yes, one day it will be forgotten about.

Reply 14

OedipusTheKing

Original post by bobbieare

It won't, nothing is forgotten in history when it is something as major as the holocaust.

Do you know what is at Choeung Ek?

Reply 15

WhyteBoar

A couple of years ago I went to Auschwitz and Auschwitz II–Birkenau.

When you walk around outside of the Auschwitz camp you don't really get a feeling of how terrible life in the camp would have been. It is very green with lots of trees. Then you go inside the barracks and you begin to fully appreciate the human suffering. The prison block is a particularly difficult place to be - beyond words.

The Auschwitz II–Birkenau camp a few miles away had a different feeling; here you get a feel of numbers... to look out at the remains of the camp and see ruins of barracks as far as the eye can see is humbling to say the least.

When I got back I read Rudolf Hoss' diary which he wrote in prison whilst awaiting trial. What a pathetic delusional little man.

I saw a documentary quite recently about Treblinka extermination camp and the prisoner's revolt. One of the survivors revisited the camp and talked of his experiences and how he managed to escape after years at the camp, at the time of the revolt. You don't forget these stories once you have heard them.

Considering how well documented the holocaust is with pictures and film, I don't think it will be forgotten, but I think the impact will diminish very slowly as the survivors pass on.