World History

CONNECTIONS TO MANDATE/MISSION:

To create a heightened awareness of fundamental rights and responsibilities. 

CORE CONCEPTS:

• Change: interrelationships of groups in a democratic and pluralistic society.
• Conflict: cultural, personal, political, and socioeconomic conflicts resulting from remaining silent. 
• Culture: discrimination, prejudice, anti-Semitism.
• Interdependence: economic, social, political, and/or personal ramifications of remaining silent in the face of human injustice.
• Perspective: analysis of various human reactions, taking into consideration varied personal, cultural. and political backgrounds and histories.
• Responsibility: how roles of individuals and analysis of events have affected the quality of life and democracy.
• Scarcity: the impact of limited resources on political and social decisions.

During this unit, lesson, or activity, students, individually or in groups:

• Examine current news articles illustrating the personal, social, or political consequences of remaining silent and/or of speaking out.
• Examine political cartoons which have examined political, societal, and personal apathy.
• Research and compare instances when an individual, community,  state, or nation should have advocated a change, but remained silent.
• Examine the collection of drawings, paintings, and poems depicting life in the Terezin Concentration Camp from I Never Saw Another Butterfly.
• Read poems and literature which explore themes of silence, apathy, and/or indifference.
• Use a Venn diagram to compare historical and personal instances in which silence was not the solution.
• Utilize a problem-solution format to examine specific instances from history.
• Write a personal account of an instance which involved a decision to remain silent.
• Analyze the historical causes leading to the rise of Fascism in Germany.
• Assess the historical and philosophical ideologies and methodologies of Totalitarian Societies.
• Understand that there were Christians who risked their lives to save Jews.
• Learn about those who helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust and why they helped.
• Evaluate the process by which the "Righteous Among the Nations" is selected.
• Discuss the meaning of the terms "rescuer" and "rescued".
• Analyze the reasons why diverse people such as atheists, government officials, German soldiers, anti-Semites, devout Christians and those who collaborated with the Germans could be rescuers of Jews.
• Examine other examples of genocide in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

• Yad Vashem
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Ghetto Fighters House
• Jewish Foundation for the Righteous

Several students in a world history class are reading "Not Citizens, Only Subjects" an excerpt from Milton Meltzer'sNever to Forget: The Jews of the Holocaust. The classroom teacher is facilitating group discussion of a student anthology, From What the Nazis Believed.  Several other students are watching a movie"Confessions of a Hitler Youth."  Other students are writing a critique about an excerpt,"The subject: Definition and Contours (The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945) by Lucy Dawidowicz. Several other students leave class to work in the media center researching and planning a mock trial based on the Nuremberg Trial of Albert Speer.  As they exit the classroom door, they stop and read a poster with Martin Niemollier's quote."First They Came For.."

Edie Loebenberg talking about Hitler Youth

At the conclusion of units, lessons, or activities students might:

• write essays based on historical research analyzing the Rise of Fascism and its effects in the 1930's and 1940's.
• create portfolios with newspaper articles, internet research, visual documentation that contain modern day examples of genocide.
• hold mock trials based on documented evidence of historical figures prominent during the Holocaust. Nuremberg Trials
• produce newspapers or editorials analyzing the historical and modern day consequences of Nazism, Fascism, Racism, Intolerance (religious, political, etc.).
• read and analyze research papers on historical figures and their response to the Holocaust.
• read Holocaust literature, and then write a position paper evaluating its effectiveness.
• write reports of historical evidence of genocide and assessment of why it occurred and what could have been done to avoid or put a stop to it.