Susanne Siegert: Understanding the Holocaust Matters More Than Just Knowing Facts

Aleksandra Krzysztoszek: How did researching the history of your own local surroundings change your understanding of the Holocaust?

Susanne Siegert: Until then, the history of the Holocaust had felt geographically very distant to me, certainly not something that reached into the comfort zone of my own home.

In my mind, former sites of Nazi crimes looked like places such as Auschwitz or Dachau: large main camps with reconstructed barracks, crematoria, barbed wire fences, and slogans such as “Arbeit macht frei” above the entrance.

When I stood in the former subcamp of Mühldorfer Hart, just 20 kilometers from my parents’ house, I found myself surrounded by what seemed like an idyllic forest, birdsong, and nature. That moment made me want to start researching in order to understand how this place – my home – could nevertheless be part of the Holocaust.

Actively engaging with this history myself, especially through original camp documents, trial records, and testimonies from survivors, helped me to understand my hometown as a crime scene. It also made clear to me that the German population must have known about the crimes, given how incredibly dense the network of concentration camps and subcamps was across the entire German Reich.

How would you assess young people’s knowledge of the Holocaust today? What aspects are most often misunderstood or unknown?

I am aware of the many surveys showing how little young people know about the Holocaust, and of course those statistics should alarm us. Still, I don’t think the goal should be for people to be able to list as many camps as possible or to know every victim group and exact numbers by heart. What matters more is understanding the broader historical context – and that is where I see significant gaps.

I have received comments asking how it could be that Ukrainian Jews were deported, because some people believe that “only German Jews” were murdered during the Holocaust. Others (and not only young people) assume that every camp had a gas chamber. I can understand where these misconceptions come from, often shaped by major films and TV series.

At the same time, the fact that people watch these shows demonstrates genuine interest – just often in different aspects than those emphasised in school education. Especially on platforms like TikTok, where many young people spend a lot of time, there is space for different forms of engagement.

I’m glad I can offer a space where people feel comfortable asking questions such as: How did the Nazis determine who was Jewish? Why did they use gas rather than shootings? Or: What did the German population actually know?

Can platforms like TikTok meaningfully contribute to historical education, or are they inherently at risk of oversimplification?

I am convinced that social media platforms can – and must – contribute to historical education. People (and not only young people) spend enormous amounts of time on these platforms, and historical-political education can benefit from platform logic as well.

Algorithms curate content for users without them actively searching for it. Most users would never look up topics like “Soviet prisoners of war” or “Nazi ‘euthanasia’ programs” on their own – and yet my videos on these subjects appear in their feeds.

Of course, in a 90-second video I have to leave out certain aspects or focus on just a few. But I don’t think this necessarily leads to harmful oversimplification. What matters is choosing topics very specifically from the start, narrowing them down to a clear sub-aspect that can be examined from multiple perspectives within a short amount of time.

Should social media platforms take responsibility for the accuracy of historical content? If so, how?

Unfortunately, I don’t believe this is truly realistic – although of course I would wish for it. The current rise of AI-generated content, including content about the Holocaust, makes it increasingly difficult for users to distinguish between authentic historical representations and low-quality AI output.

Since platforms themselves are unlikely to take meaningful action, this makes media literacy in schools all the more important. Students need to learn how to identify misinformation and AI-generated content, and how to evaluate sources critically.

At the same time, it is crucial that established institutions – museums, foundations, memorial sites, and similar organisations – are present on platforms like TikTok. They are perceived as credible sources and therefore carry a responsibility to adapt their educational content to where people actually are.

Do you see a connection between gaps in historical knowledge and the rise of antisemitism today?

I am not entirely sure whether there is a direct connection. However, when users lack basic historical knowledge, they may be more susceptible to antisemitic conspiracy narratives – for example, the claim that “the Jews” started the 2nd World War. In that sense, having more historical knowledge can certainly help. At the same time, knowledge alone does not protect against antisemitism, as numerous examples of right-wing extremists show, people who often have a strong theoretical knowledge of the history of the Second World War, yet still hold deeply antisemitic views…