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Feature: Italian students make blunders on World War II facts

Xinhua, July 14, 2015 Adjust font size:

World War II was among the essay topics assigned to almost half a million Italian students writing their final high school exams this year, but their knowledge of the topic was not always excellent.

A website named Orizzonte Scuola (School Horizon) has collected the most incredible mistakes made by students in their exams, which started in the second half of June.

"During World War II, Germans invaded Germany," wrote one candidate, while another was convinced that World War II "started when Germany invaded Croatia," according to the website.

The names of the students were not disclosed.

The year 2015 marked 70 years since the Nazi defeat and the end of a war that ravaged the European continent, with a number of celebrations and appeals for the international community to work for peace.

However, several Italian students seemed to not have realized the seriousness of this conflict. The answer to the question "How did World War II end?" was, "With the victory of Germany," Orizzonte Scuola read.

There was one who believed Adolf Hitler was a "protagonist of World War I."

Another student claimed that World War II ended with the landings in Lombardy, an industrialized region of northern Italy, which incidentally is not even touched by the sea, rather than Normandy in northern France.

It was not only students, however, who were foggy on their World War II facts. Another website, named Skuola (School), gathered the mistakes made by professors in Italy.

One professor affirmed, while examining a student, that "World War II broke out in 1958," that is to say during the years of the economic boom in Italy, Skuola noted.

Despite the blunders, the subject of World War II is well taught in Italian schools, a high school professor of history and philosophy in Rome, Silvia Fasciolo, told Xinhua.

In her view, World War II was an epic event which needs time and dedication to be comprehended in its complexity.

Previously in Italy, Fasciolo added, the subject of World War II was taught to students from a Western point of view, but today's pedagogical objective is to present the conflict in its entirety. Endit