I think it's more important to look at what led to these events rather than the Holocaust itself.

Just hammering everyone's minds with "TIS BAD BAD BAD!" doesn't do any good, as they'll just shut down their brains after the 5th time hearing it, this is especially true over here in Austria. As cocky as it sounds, I usually skip the Holocaust parts in most docs, first of all because I know enough about it (and I've been to a couple of KZ's myself, most frequently at the Mauthausen class III KZ [Death through work, the only camp of this type] just outside my city Linz) and second, because I'm growing tired of hearing the same things over and over again without them actually mentioning the important things... what made this happen.

Very true.

Of course it's very important to teach people what the Holocaust was, and what took place, so they will understand why it was so wrong. But the point really makes itself, what happened was just so many flavours of wrong, that you don't really have to tell them twice, just one look at what happened is enough to make any sane person feel sick to his/her stomache, there is no moral ambiguity about the Holocaust, the whole thing was just vile to the very bone.

But how it all got started, how it could get that far, how it could be kept so secret, why nobody stopped it, thouse are the most terrifying questions about the whole thing, because when you look into the reasons, it becomes so very apparent that it could happen again, and people woulden't even know it was happening before it's to late..

The worst thing for me is how double things are.

Today for information about 1st 2nd and 3rd degree burns, detailed lethality information with electricity, and organ transplants we all still use information researched by Joseph Mengele camp doctor at Auschwitz.

He came up with the idea of using zyklon B to gas inmates and did the most horrific experiments on them. But by now successful parts of his research have already saved more lives than he took in the end.

What he did should never have happened, and if one guy should have been executed or tortured for life it should have been him (he was actually able to flee the country and live). But in the end its a weird duality that his gruesome research is saving people every day.

And it brings the question as well where do you draw the line with things such as research experiments. Is there ever for instance a point that should morally allow you to make a human sacrifice to safe the lives of loads of others.

Another terrible thing that came from the WWII were the true heroes. Not the heroes themselves but how most today are completely forgotten. I'm speaking of those who risked everything to save everyone they could. Schindler's List put these people on the radar of the public at large but many still remain forgotten by the world.

People like Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the only Portuguese I truly consider a hero, who saved 30000 people in 15 days and saved millions indirectly by forcefully opening the refugee route to Lisbon, and for that he paid a very high price. Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish who jumped on the trains to Auschwitz to give visas to those inside, despite being fired upon, and for that he paid with his life. Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese consul who obeyed his conscience first and saved thousands and for that he paid highly. John Rabe, a member of the Nazi party who did everything he could to save lives amidst the raping of Naking, and died in abject poverty.

If WWII had any heroes, they were them. Amidst the insanity and cruelty some risked career, life and limb to save his fellow man. The causes and consequences of the many atrocities perpetrated during WWII all over the world must never be forgotten, nor should these men who mostly have been consigned to memory's oblivion.

Very true, in fact asking my brother (he has just learnt about it at school) about what he knows about "why it happened?" he knows very little, he also knows little about why did no one stop it, the schools need to change that.

Another aspect of this is who is truly to blame for the Holocaust, most schools just teach it was all Hitler and it is no where near as simple as that.

And Joseph Mengele is not taught about in school (not here anyway) most likely as he was such a monster, it is a strange shift that his research is used to save people now when they coursed so much pain to some.

Everyone has different morals I'm shore no one could agree on a definitive line that should not be crossed, but i think we all agree that a unwilling person being forced to die for research is not right. But what if some one willingly wants to die to further research into solving a problem such as cancer? It is a very hazy subject area (at least for me it is).

I think that a lot of the actual research papers and origins are being hidden away from schools in general. As a lot of it is rather gruesome and morally "incorrect". Beside that often in medical and engineering schools the focus lies more on applying knowledge and the proof of it rather than the history behind it.

The first guidelines about ethical principles for medical research involving human test subjects came in 1964 in the declaration of Helsinki. Using prisoners and mentally ill people in madhouses for weird experiments was not uncommon before that.

If there is one thing that I don't like in general is that often material provided to people is too black and white, while the truth is somewhat more a shade of grey. Things are hardly ever as simple as they appear to be.