Who+Are+They?

media type="file" key="Who Are They.mp3" width="240" height="20" Part 1 Each one of the quotes below came from one of: 1. Holocaust Prisoner 2. Holocaust Guard 3. Local Bystander 4. International Bystander 5. Nazi Elite

In our lesson today we'll be examining these in more depth. The question we'll be asking for EACH of these is;

"Who is this person and what evidence do I have to support my answer". The answer for this question will look like;

"This person is (insert number 1-5) and I think this because (provide the evidence for your answer here). We'll do these together, but please record your answer on a document.

1. In September 1938, in a letter to the Prime Minister, when Jews are extremely desperate to leave Nazi Germany and escape the violent escalation there he writes, "Pressure by Jewish people to get into Canada has never been greater than it is now, and I am glad to be able to add that after 35 years of experience here, that it has never been so carefully controlled".

2. What do you mean, made a mistake? No... I'm not quite sure I should answer that. Did I make a mistake? No. The mistake was that it was a concentration camp, but I had to go to it, otherwise I would have been put into it myself. That was my mistake"

3. “The struggle for world domination will be fought entirely between us, between Germans and Jews. All else is facade and illusion. Behind England stands Israel, and behind France, and behind the United States. Even when we have driven the Jew out of Germany, he remains our world enemy.”

4. "Near the end of March 1942, sizable groups of Jews were herded here, groups of fifty to one hundred people. The Germans made them work extremely fast. Seeing the pace they worked at - it was extremely brutal - and seeing the complex being built, and the fence, which, after all, enclosed a vast space, we realised that what the Germans were building wasn't meant to aid mankind. Early in June the first convoy arrived. I'd say there were over forty cars. With the convoy were SS men in black uniforms. It happened one afternoon. I had just finished work but I got on my bicycle and went home."

5. If somebody knocks on your door at four in the morning and you see a little eight year old boy alone, shivering in the cold, who was separated from his parents, who didn't have anything to eat, and he's begging you to let him come in. Would you open the door...knowing that if you did do that, that you'd lose your life...you and your family would lose their lives...by taking that little boy in? That's not an easy thing to answer. Or would you shut the door and go to sleep?

Part 2 <span style="font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">Below you'll find two longer passages that you'll work on individually. Choose the one that bests suits you and answer the questions at the end.

<span style="font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">1. "It has repeatedly come to our notice recently that persons of German blood continue to maintain friendly relations with Jews and appear with them in public in a blatant fashion" my orders are that in such cases the person of German blood concerned is to be taken into protective custody for educational purposes or in serious cases to be transferred to a concentration camp, Grade 1."

<span style="font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">2. My colleagues stated: “Well, don’t you know? That’s the way it is here. Jewish transports arrive, and as far as they’re not able to work, they’re got rid of.” Until that moment, he had thought Auschwitz functioned as a “normal” concentration camp. <span style="color: #0b0b0b; font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">“It was a shock that you cannot take in at the first moment,” he says. But once he had been at Auschwitz for several months, the work, he says, had become “routine”. “The propaganda had for us such an effect that you assumed that to exterminate them was basically something that happened in war. And, to that extent, a feeling of sympathy or empathy didn’t come up.” <span style="color: #0b0b0b; font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">“I would like you to believe me,” he says. “I saw the gas chambers. I saw the crematorium. I saw the open fires. I was on the ramp when the selections took place. I would like you to believe that these atrocities happened, because I was there.” <span style="color: #0b0b0b; font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">Later, he witnessed the burning of bodies: “This comrade said, ‘Come with me, I’ll show you.’ I was so shocked that I stood at a distance. The fire was flickering up and the kapo [a prisoner in charge of work details] there told me afterwards details of the burning. And it was terribly disgusting – horrendous. He made fun of the fact that when the bodies started burning they obviously developed gases from the lungs and these bodies seemed to jump up, and the sex parts of the men suddenly became erect in a way that he found laughable.” <span style="color: #0b0b0b; font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">When we arrived in Dachau dragged from the train to the camp and beaten into a corner there, a dkind of public interrogation began from an entire herd of so called officers….Every nasty joke was reveived with applause. Every bit of indecency was met with vile laughter.

<span style="font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">Questions <span style="background-color: #e1dfdf; font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">a) Identify the speakers role and provide 2 pieces of evidence from the text (using the model above) <span style="background-color: #e1dfdf; font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">b) How do you think the speaker felt? Use evidence from the text.

<span style="background-color: #e1dfdf; font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">Extension: <span style="background-color: #e1dfdf; font-size: 150%; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Arial Black'; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px;">c) How would you feel in this situation? Explain with evidence from your own life...think of a situation from your own life you believe was unjust.