The Holocaust 1933-1945

Auschwitz Concentration Camp Entrance

CHALLENGE!

          You have just been hired by CBS to do a documentary on the Holocaust.  Your job is to gather as much information on the Holocaust as you can and prepare this information for CBS.  The following are questions that you should answer in your report.  Some of the questions are personal questions, which are just as important as factual questions.   After you gather information answering the questions, create a report that can be given to CBS.  Good Luck!!!!!!!!

1. What is the Holocaust?

2. Where and when did it happen?

3. Who were the Jews in our research?

4. Define the terms: scapegoating, prejudice, racism, intolerance, genocide. Please give good examples of each.

5. How can we benefit by studying the Holocaust?

6. What does studying this topic mean to you personally?

7. Imagine for a moment that you are Jewish, and people that you thought were your friends are doing what was done in Germany in the 1930's to you and your family. What could you do? Where could you go? How would you feel?

8. Why is it so important to have freedom of religion and protect the rights of people?

9. Imagine that you know people who are being discriminated against in your neighborhood or at your school, because of their color, religion or belief. What could you do?

10. What is the most fascinating thing that you learned from this website?

WEBSITES

http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/people/people.htm                             

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

http://motlc.wiesenthal.org/pages/t055/t05575.html

http://motlc.wiesenthal.org/pages/fs.html

http://motlc.wiesenthal.org/pages/jw.html

Here is some background information that may help you as a reporter:

The Holocaust refers to the period from January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, to May 8, 1945 (V­E Day), when the war in Europe ended. During this time, Jews in Europe were subjected to progressively harsh persecution that ultimately led to the murder of 6,000,000 Jews (1.5 million of these being children) and the destruction of 5,000 Jewish communities. These deaths represented two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of world Jewry. The Jews who died were not casualties of the fighting that ravaged Europe during World War II. Rather, they were the victims of Germany's deliberate and systematic attempt to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe, a plan Hitler called the “Final Solution”.

Pictures of Hitler-http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitlerpictoc.html

Between 1941 and 1943, underground resistance movements developed in about 100 Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. Their main goals were to organize uprisings, break out of the ghettos, and join partisan units in the fight against the Germans. The Jews knew that uprisings would not stop the Germans and that only a handful of fighters would succeed in escaping to join with partisans. Still, Jews made the decision to resist. Further, under the most adverse conditions, Jewish prisoners succeeded in initiating resistance and uprisings in some Nazi concentration camps, and even in the killing centers of Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz. Other camp uprisings took place in camps such as Kruszyna (1942), Minsk Mazowiecki (1943), and Janowska (1943). In several dozen camps prisoners organized escapes to join partisan units. 

This Web Quest is best designed for students in 5th or 6th grade.  If you have any questions or suggestions, you can email me at mapeters@uvm.edu    THANKS!  ENJOY!