4º ESO Social Science- Activity - Holocaust – Geography and History Dept. – Beatriz Vega

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WHY WE REMEMBER THE HOLOCAUST?

Vocabulary: Holocaust: systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators during the WWII. Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire”, but in fact, different methods were used: ghettos, Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) in the USSR, forced-labor, concentration camps and, after the Final Solution (1942), the extermination camps. During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority": Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. Genocide: The term “genocide” did not exist prior to 1944. It is a very specific term, referring to violent crimes committed against a group with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of European Jews. He formed the word genocide by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. Match the images:

Mauthausen liberation - extermination camp – Auschwitz entrance – Warsaw ghetto – Einsatzgruppen massacre -

ACTIVITY 4º ESO NAME: Nº:

MARK:

HOLOCAUST

4º ESO Social Science- Activity - Holocaust – Geography and History Dept. – Beatriz Vega

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1. WATCH AND LISTEN CAREFULLY TO THE VIDEO WHY WE REMEMBER THE HOLOCAUST? FROM THE USA HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM. THEN ANSWER THE QUESTIONS.

Estelle Laughlin, Holocaust Survivor: Memory is what shapes us. Memory is what teaches us. We must understand that’s where our redemption is.

Do you agree with this idea?

What is the role of History in this redemption?

Raye Farr, Film Curator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: And it’s made up of so many people who participated in different ways, who made it possible.

Name four “different ways” you can imagine:

Rev. Dr. Chris Leighton, Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies: It’s so mind-boggling that the temptations to forget and to repress,

to just put it out of mind, are very real.

Name two ways to remember the Holocaust.

Sara Bloomfield, Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: We are remembering, first and foremost, all the victims, and that is not only the Jewish victims, but

there were many non-Jewish victims. Of course, the Jews were the primary target.

Name others victims.

Col. Michael Underkofler, U.S. Air Force Reserve: Those that arrived at the camps in 1945 and were just horrified at what they saw.

Which country’s forces liberated most of the camps?

Margit Meissner, Holocaust Survivor: In 1945, at the end of the war, I would have thought that there would never be another Holocaust,

that the world was so shocked by what had happened that the world would not permit that.

Which other genocides mention the Margit in the video?

Bridget Conley-Zilkic, Genocide Prevention Educator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Those who suffered and died in the Holocaust, we can honor them today

by not being silent. Remembering ties the past and the present together with a powerful, simple thread: “This is not right.”