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.
“Me being German” yet doesn’t know what a Nazi is. So I assume anon is a ‘Merican of German descent. So not really German German.
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’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.
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.
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.
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.
That burn at the end …
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.
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.
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” 🤔
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.
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Didn’t stop me from getting Nazi and Hitler jokes in elementary school because I have a German last name.
You can be a German living in America. I knew someone who was born in Germany but moved to the US at the age of 3, spoke German at home, visited Germany over the summer, etc.
Same, but not Germans, but a bunch of other countries (Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, and India come to mind). I went to a pretty diverse school.
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Europeans and their weird entho-gatekeeping.
fuck ethnicities, fuck skin colours, fuck nationalities.
If you can speak a language of a country and put effort into understanding and immersing yourself in the culture of said country you are German/Polish/Danish/Swedish etc etc.
Quite frankly I don’t give a shit if your grandmother was Polish if I can’t even complain with you how the prices of butter are too high in Polish, or laugh together at stupid fucking memes in Polish.
This is my hot take, and I’m tired of hiding it
You can be Polish and German at the same time.
My wife was born and raised in Korea, and she’s a naturalized US citizen, so she’s both Korean and American. My kids were born and raised in the US, but they have that Korean heritage through my wife, so they’re also born Korean and American.
Cultural heritage is important, so don’t give that up just because you live in another country, speak another language, and maybe have never actually been to your ancestors land. Imo, you can claim whatever your ancestry is from, plus whatever citizenship(s) you hold.
yeah, heritage and ancestry, but not “I am Polish :) my great great grandma was polish (:”
I’d go as far as to say first generation natives with foreign born parents already aren’t their parents’ nationality anymore (if the don’t bother to learn the language and engage in the culture)
They’re absolutely not their parents’ nationality, but they are their parents’ ethnicity. They’re only their parents nationality if they get citizenship in that country.
My kids are not Korean citizens because they would be required to serve in the military. But I consider them ethnically Korean because their mom is ethnically Korean (and grew up in Korea). I probably wouldn’t consider their kids Korean though, assuming they don’t marry another Korean. They don’t speak Korean and have no desire to live in Korea, but it’s part of their heritage and we sometimes read to them in Korean.
So as long as you have actual ties in the other country or actively practice its culture (and you have ancestry from there), I think you’re good to claim that ethnicity. Otherwise it’s a bit of a stretch for me.
by nationality there I didn’t mean the legal definition of citizenship, but the more vague sense of being able to confidently say “I am [insert country]-ish/ese/an”
if they don’t speak Korean then I personally wouldn’t consider them Korean, as without the language they are disconnected from the history and culture of Korea. Even when you translate said history and culture, it’s just not the same thing, every language conveys untranslatable nuance to stories said in that language.
I disagree. They eat primarily Korean food at home, they hear a lot of Korean being spoken (their mom with friends, their grandparents), and there are certain other cultural habits and whatnot they got from their mother (different “home” clothes from “outside” clothes, take off shoes when entering house, use chopsticks for eating, etc). They’re certainly different from their American friends.
I would argue that if they spoke Korean but otherwise didn’t partake in any Korean cultural heritage, that they shouldn’t be considered Korean. I speak a foreign language (other than Korean), but I would never consider myself “from” that culture because I have no ancestral or legal ties, I just lived there for a couple years to improve my language skills. I’m also very interested in that country’s history, but only academically. I don’t see them as “my people.”
seems like a difference of perspectives then. I’ve felt more commection and sort of “oneness” with an Egyptian guy who’s been to Poland once but spoke near perfect Polish, than with any of the Polish Americans that could barely pronounce dzień dobry. There’s enough differences in upbringing within a single country anyway, “how do you do things where you’re from” could apply to anything from the town next door to the country on the other side of the planet