Holocaust webquest:

Essential Question: What societal factors contributed to the execution of the Holocaust by Nazi Germany? To what extent do these factors exist in today's society? (In other words, how different is our school, state, national, and global community today than what people and life were like in the 1930s and 1940s in NAZI Germany?)

Use the web links below to research the following questions. As you gather information, think about what helps you to develop a response to the essential question. (Consider, for instance, who was involved, what drove them to act as they did, did they have a choice to act as they did?)

What was the role of the Hitler Youth?
What was the Gestapo? Who was in it?
What groups aside from the Jews were subjected to Nazi discrimination?
What happened at the Wannsee Conference? Who was there?
Where were the Camps located? In what areas? In what countries? Were they near towns? Do we know anything about the people who lived nearby?
What were the Mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) and what were they designed to do? Who ran them?
Who were they used against?
What was the Evian Conference? When was it called and for what purpose did it meet? Who was there?
Describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Who was involved?
What were the reactions of foreign countries to what was happening in Germany?


http://www.ushmm.org/

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Gestapo.html

http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/timeline.htm

http://www.remember.org/secrets/

http://www.remember.org/educate/elman.html


http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/hitleryouth/index.html

Update on Due Dates

Found Poem due Friday (for Yellow, due Monday)

In-class writing (quiz) will be on TUESDAY

New link to Found Poem assignment:
(click here to take you to the BHS page; go to my page and to files -- for some reason (which is making me very frustrated) I cannot get the link to take you directly to the page with the assignment on it; it keeps automatically shortening the URL. If any of you can save my sanity by helping me figure out how to make it do what I want it to, let me know!).

Hitler/Holocaust Continued

During CAPT week, with the schedule so confusing, it's been harder to stay on the pace I had planned as we study the years between Hitler taking power and the somewhat official start of the Holocaust. Last week we focused on wrapping up Mein Kampf, and discussed the questions. Anyone who then wanted to re-write their responses to make them more complete was allowed to do so.

We then read an article entiteld Hitler's Charisma and discussed it in detail, examining how the author used literary techniques (similes and metaphors in particular) to express her ideas. On the flip side of the same handout was the reading on Burning of the Books, which we discussed in terms of what the event symbolized. Both readings come with questions to be answered -- be thorough -- explain and support your answers!

Today (Monday) we analyzed a clip of original video footage from the book burning, with Goebbels speaking to the crowd. We then examined the Nuremburg Laws on Race and Citizenship, and briefly discussed the impact of them.

This week will also include a discussion of Kristallnacht, the somewhat "official" mark of the beinning of the height of the Holocaust.

Your big assignments for this week are:

1. create a "found poem" based on the readings we have been studying (due Thurs), and
2. a quiz on Hitler and the readings we have been studying (Friday)

You can get information on the found poem at my BHS webpage under files, or cut and paste this URL into your web browser: http://branford.bch.schoolinsites.com/?PageName=TeacherPage&Page=