if you are interested in psychology or wwii history (or like me, both), i highly recommend this interesting article about how german child-rearing practices had a role in the holocaust. it makes sense. children who are abused — whether emotionally, physically, sexually, or through neglect — almost always grow up to act out based on those early life events in one way or another.

…the cruelty suffered in childhood remains stored in the brain in the form of unconscious memories. For a child, conscious experience of such treatment is impossible. If children are not to break down completely under the pain and the fear, they must repress that knowledge. But the unconscious memories drive them to reproduce those repressed scenes over and over again in the attempt (and with the false hope) to liberate themselves of the fears that cruelty and abuse have left with them. The victims create situations in which they can assume the active role in order to master the feeling of helplessness and escape the unconscious anxieties.

anti-semitism, economic catastrophe, and religious extremism are not enough to explain why the holocaust and other genocides took place. it’s hard to ignore that the way we raise our children is an important factor as well.