A pre-reading activity for a Historical study of the Holocaust

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The Triangle Which Role Would You Choose?

• A pre-reading activity for a Historical study of
  the Holocaust
• Youll need a blank sheet of paper labeled Night
  Journal No. 1. Keep this in the journals section
  of your binder.

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Engaging Issues

• While the realities of the Holocaust cannot be
  compared to everyday experiences of pain,
  camaraderie, suffering, or even death, a study of
  the Holocaust can raise issues of individual
  choices and responsible citizenship.
• The following exercise was created as part of the
  educational program at Holocaust Museum in
  Houston.

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The Role of Victim

• European Jews, along with other people who
  were considered not good enough to live among
  Hitlers Aryan people, were targeted with death
  during the Holocaust. These people were victims
  and although innocent, they had no choice
  regarding their selection to be persecuted.

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VICTIM
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Choices

• It is important to understand that all the
  other individuals were in a position to choose
  the role they wished to follow in the Holocaust.
  People chose to be either perpetrators, rescuers,
  or bystanders.

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RESCUER

• VICTIM

BYSTANDER
PERPETRATOR
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Percentages

• In your journal, make an educated guess about
  what roles people chose to take during the
  Holocaust.
• What percentage of people chose to be
  perpetrators?
• What percentage of people chose to be rescuers?
• What percentage of people chose to be bystanders?

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RESCUER
VICTIM
less than 5
about 10
about 85
BYSTANDER
PERPETRATOR
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Journal Questions

• Based on your own prior knowledge of this
  subject and time period, answer the following
  questions.

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• What occurrences during this time period
  influenced individual decisions as to the roles
  they selected?
• Why do you believe so few decided to be rescuers?
• What qualities do you believe the rescuers had?
• What qualities do you believe the perpetrators
  possessed?
• What changes do you think would have occurred
  during this time period if the bystanders had
  helped the rescuers in the war against the
  perpetrators?

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Connect to Your Life

• What percentage of people today play the role of
  bystander when a decision has to be made?
• Make a list of the kinds of actions, words,
  problems, that youve witnessed in the last few
  years.
• Choose one of these. Were you a bystander,
  perpetrator, or rescuer? If you could change your
  role, what would you change it to?

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Respond in your journal

• How does this quotation relate to your ideas
  about bystanders? Is Einstein right?
• The world is too dangerous to live in not
  because of the people who do evil, but because of
  the people who sit and let it happen.
• - Albert Einstein

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The Holocaust take notes in the notes section
of your binder
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Holocaust a Greek word meaning sacrifice by
fire

• The systematic persecution and murder of approx.
  6 million Jewish people by the Nazi regime and
  its collaborators

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The Holocaust

• The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in
  January 1933, believed that Germans were racially
  superior and that the Jews, deemed "inferior,"
  were "life unworthy of life."
• Other targeted groups were the Romas (gypsies),
  the handicapped, Polish, Russians, Communists,
  Socialists, Jehovahs Witnesses, and homosexuals.

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The Holocaust

• 1933 more than nine million Jewish people lived
  in Europe
• By 1945, nearly 2 of every 3 Jews had been killed
  as part of the final solution the Nazi policy
  to murder the Jews in Europe

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Concentration Camps

• Jews from Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the
  Netherlands stand for roll call in the Buchenwald
  concentration camp soon after their arrival on
  February 28, 1941.

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The Holocaust

• Nazis established concentration camps to imprison
  Jews and others before WWII began in 1939

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Concentration Camps

• View of the kitchen barracks, the electrified
  fence, and the gate at the main camp of Auschwitz
  (Auschwitz I). In the foreground is the sign
  "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work makes one free).

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The Holocaust

• Jews were also forced into ghettos (enclosed
  city districts where Jews were forced to live)
  and forced labor camps

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The Holocaust

• In the final months of the war, guards forced
  camp inmates on death marches in an attempt to
  prevent the Allied liberation of large numbers of
  prisoners

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Liberation

• WWII ended in Europe with the unconditional
  surrender of German armed forces in the west on
  May 7 and on the east on May 9, 1945

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Liberation

• As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series
  of offenses on Germany, they began to liberate
  concentration camp prisoners, many of whom had
  survived the death marches

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Final Words

• The last words of inmates at the death camp at
  Stutthof are carved into these walls.

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Elie Wiesel

• Night is Elie Wiesels true story about his and
  his familys capture by the Nazis and their
  journey through the Nazi death camps

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Journal (continued)

• Why do people often ignore signs that something
  is dangerous even when it seems clear? Give an
  example of how this is part of human nature.

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Homework

• Read The Perils of Indifference by Elie Wiesel
  and complete the assignment. This is due on your
  block period on Wednesday or Thursday. Start this
  assignment in class if you finish before the
  period is over.
• STOP HERE FOR TODAY!

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Reading

• Today we will begin to read Elie Wiesels Night,
  a memoir of one young mans experiences as a
  victim of the Holocaust.
• Assignment Read Section 1 and do the following
  things
• Identify/name the characters in chapter 1
• Summarize the chapters plot in about 5 sentences
• Name about three clues that things are much worse
  that Wiesels family thinks. What does this say
  about the nature of man?
• Two other questions/discussion ideas

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Section 1 Night

• Assignment Read Section 1 and do the following
  things
• Identify/name the characters in chapter 1
• Summarize the chapters plot in about 5 sentences
• Name three changes that occur in Sighet. Why
  dont they concern people at first? What does
  this reveal about human nature?
• Two other questions/discussion ideas