Victims Discussion Questions
- Many laws that limited the freedom of Jewish citizens were written in Germany when the Nazis came to power. Select one of those laws and examine the reason for the law, its impact on Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, and its relationship to other events taking place in Germany at the time.
- Identify examples of current human rights violations. Research and discuss. Include the use of documents.
- Define the concept of genocide. Discuss examples of genocide over the history of mankind to the present.
- Identify some twentieth century precursors to the Holocaust.
- Discuss the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany from 1933-39.
- Discuss how you can act against prejudice in your neighborhood or school.
- The Crusades and Inquisitions were times when religious persecution resulted in the torturing and murder of masses of people due to the victims' religious beliefs. Look further into these events. Can you think of other similar events in more recent history?
- Identify some of the danger signs that were evident in Germany preceding the genocide of the Jewish people.
- Investigate the reasons why specific groups became victims of the Nazis, including children, Gypsies, Blacks, Jehovah's Witnesses, the handicapped, homosexuals, and others, and investigate the reasons for their respective treatment.
- Many marked for persecution by the Nazis remained in Germany even after Hitler took power and his extreme ideas began to be law. Discuss some of the reasons That many peope stayed in Germany.
- Who qualified as Slavs under Nazi racial theory and why were they considered undesirable?
- Who were Kapos? Were they perpetrators of Nazi crimes, victims, both? Explain.
- Focus on the lives and experience of children forced to endure the extreme hardships and unspeakable cruelty during this period of time.
- Who were the victims of Nazi persecution? Choose one victim group and research in depth.
- The Diary of Anne Frank is one of the most popular pieces of Holocaust literature ever written. Examine how Anne Frank's diary came to be published.
- Many Jewish families in Germany had roots in their towns and villages for generations. Research the contributions of German Jews to their country through the arts, sciences, government, education, or military. To narrow your research, focus on a particular area or town, contributing area, or specific people.
- Research and read testimony of women in the Holocaust. Discuss women in the Holocaust.
- Describe the conditions of the concentration camps including how people were processed into the camp system. Use text from survivor memoirs.
- What widely differing reactions to freedom did liberators encounter among the survivors in the crucial days that followed liberation?
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