so are Indians lol. I did not know anything after independence (or the Indian contribution in ww2) because our books didn’t teach us that or that India and Pakistan were two dominions till June 1948 and all efforts were made by the brits to prevent an all out war… well… till Mountbatten left (even then it did not escalate to all-out-war).
And yes… Some brits loved India… but I hardly see that in the media (movies to be precise). For eg : there is show on Amazon called the India’s forgotten Army about the INA (don’t watch it… it is bad. The very first episode shows Japanese surrendering and the Indians counterattacking in Singapore which did not happen. On top of that they force a love story into it. If you still wanna watch it… go ahead… but don’t say I didn’t warn you).
I can confirm that as a foreigner. I’ve seen how teachers over at India (or at least the southern Indian state of Kerala) teach history and it almost always stopped at August 15, 1947 (and even prior to that, barely anything was taught on the Indian war effort in the World Wars other than the independence movement and the Bengal famine). There were only select events after 1947 that were taught – if I remember at the top of my head: the Non-Aligned Movement, the status of women (though that was covered separately)… that’s all I remember.
This was the fall of 2003, so I don’t know how things have changed since then.
It is the Indian education system… The stuff taught hardly changes. My father (almost) studied the same thing , I studied the same thing and my sister studied the same thing.
Even ww1 and ww2 are poorly taught. WW1 in 2 paragraphs (I am not kidding). WW2 topics- Hitler, Fall of France, Invasion of soviet union, Stalingrad, pearl harbour and nuking of Japan. (And a personal gripe of mine) And the teacher who taught us history made even WW2 boring as heck.
But I think we are digressing too far… The thread was about how WAH 055 betrayed its own principles which went to… well… the Indian education system. I am sorry for digressing.
Not just WAH 055, TimeGhost as a whole did that. They claim to present a fair picture for the war and the people involved, but – as an example – one of the later episodes – their special on Hollywood – portrayed Joe Breen as an “avid antisemite,” despite the lack of a primary source to fully verify that (he did write those words Sparty quoted, but even the men he wrote those letters to never saw him as an embodiment of an antisemite). Breen’s actions are also more evidence of him not being an antisemite.
If angry remarks are evidence of bigotry, then I might as well be a bigot because I said a lot of unsavory stuff when I was playing hockey and/or when I’m angry. But it doesn’t work like that. You would have to put a huge percentage of the population into that basket if that were the case.
It’s important to focus more on the actions rather than the words. And Joe Breen was no Gudrun Himmler.
And this isn’t the only time TG pulled off stuff like this.
I will say this, they did not say the name of Dimitar Peshev, but they did mention the Bulgarian parliament passed a Motion to stop Jewish deportation. I did a quick google search on the guy and got three different ways he stop the deportation. So i will agree sparty could have done better but its hard when i google the story and get 3 different stories.
The segment from the video where Sparty mentions that, for anyone curious:
…To fulfill the German quota, Jews in Bulgaria proper were to be included as well. Before that can happen though, on March 17, the Bulgarian Parliament refuses to deport its own Jews. Still, Bulgarian Jews continue to be imprisoned in camps and ghettos and continue to be used as forced laborers by their fellow countrymen.
Your story is actually very relatable. Last year I checked out my nephew’s text book and the amount of material they cover in 1 year is insane. Mid-1850s to late 2000s. WW1 is slightly better. It is two pages rather than two paragraphs (though one page is basically just pretty pictures).
You know, I was so caught up in the initial problems that I didn’t notice this.
There was no such thing as Jewish ghettos in Bulgaria. Are you sure that was the exact word? Because if it is, then this is just a blatant lie and propaganda.
Come to think of it, there are some other elements that suggest deliberate propaganda. Real scummy on their part.
In that case, remaking the video should be mandatory. This is either blatant propaganda or they did 0 research. This makes the whole thing even more shameful and deceitful.
Mr. @Spartacus , can you please share your source on Bulgaria’s Jewish ghettos?
would have been a good start, or any other German/English wikipedia entry about Bulgarian history. It would not be a valid basis for a doctor thesis, but they would not been completly clueless about what has been the difference of the history of all this “little Balkan things”.
From Bulgaria in German:
When I was in junior high school WW1 was hardly covered but then again we were neutral. The books also didn’t mention the Asylum of the Kaiser. Probably embarrassed that we limited asylum seekers but welcomed him. (At least the Royal family did that).
Having watched the Timeghost video now and rereading your comments, I am not sure if I agree on the ‘betrayal of history’ you claim. They may not have mentioned his name, but they mentioned the deed. From further reading I found that ghettos and camps may be a bit of dramatization, forced labor and general marginalization was definitely part of the Jewish fate in Bulgaria. Surely, most of them didn’t fell to the worst fate of Nazi crimes, Bulgaria was hardly a jewish paradise.
That’s the thing tho. Only mentioning it isn’t good enough. Especially given how complex the situation was, as explained in the article (very good article by the way).
Let’s take the part of the article that suggests political bias leads to glorifying certain figures over others (although I would argue that, objectively, Peshev and his MP group did have a larger influence than illegal partisan radio station “Hristo Botev”):
Why were the public protests not mentioned?
Why was the opposition to the canceling not mentioned?
By oversimplifying everything with ‘Bulgarian Parliament decides…’ they make the whole thing sound trivial and unimportant. Meanwhile, in other parts of Europe, they have covered pro-Jewish protests in major detail.
This leads to an ever bigger problem: is the deliberate oversimplification in Bulgaria, contrasted with the overly detailed coverage in Western Europe, a sign of geographical bias? A team of professional historians should be well above these trivial biases.
And look, it’s not like they needed to dedicate 30 minutes to it (in case the argument of ‘they didn’t have time’ pops up), they could’ve covered it properly in just a few sentences. Here:
“Having witnessed the deportations from Yugoslavia, some members of the Bulgarian Parliament become uneasy and petition to have their own deportations cancelled. This faces fierce resistance from the pro-German politicians, but after protests from the local population, they relent; and decide that the Jews will be better served as forced labor instead. But at least they won’t have to face extermination.”
See? Not difficult, and much more accurate. And it didn’t require any dramatization or making up of Jewish ghettos. It’s why I’m leaning towards this being a decision based on regional bias. The fact that they have chosen to completely ignore the feedback also lends credence to this theory.
The thread was about how WAH 055 betrayed its own principles which went to… well… the Indian education system. I am sorry for digressing.