museum's project focuses on articles about the holocaust · 2019. 12. 5. · museum's...
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Museum's project focuses on articlesabout the Holocaust
Holocaust survivor Israel Loewenstein, 91, looks at a photo album at his home in Yad Hana, Israel, April 6, 2016. Photo:
REUTERS/ Nir Elias
PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Beth Moody recently noticed an online ad from the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum. It asked "citizen historians" to help the museum with a
special research project.
The museum wanted help tracking down old newspaper articles about the mass killing and
imprisonment of European Jews during World War II. The terrible series of events is known
as the Holocaust. It was carried out by German Nazis and was responsible for millions of
deaths.
The museum said it was interested in finding articles published in local U.S.
newspapers from 1933 to 1945, the years the Nazis were in power.
Moody quickly decided to help out.
By Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, adapted by Newsela staff on 05.09.16
Word Count 841
Some Newspapers Did Not Run Certain Stories
Moody put in six hours over two days searching online. She looked through articles that
had been published in the Altoona Tribune, a Central Pennsylvania paper that is now out of
business. She found stories connected with six of the 20 Holocaust-related events the
museum is asking people to look for.
It was what she did not find that will probably get the attention of the museum and
scholars.
The Altoona Tribune did not publish anything about the deadly anti-Jewish riots in 1938
known as Kristallnacht, she said. Nor did it write about the yellow stars Jews were forced
to wear to identify themselves, or the extermination camps where Jews were taken to be
killed. "There was nothing, and I looked very closely.”
Why papers like the Altoona Tribune chose not to run stories about such historic events —
when other papers did — is something experts will study closely. Scholars also want to
know what effect the lack of coverage had. Did it undercut efforts to get the U.S.
government to allow endangered European Jews to resettle in the United States?
History Unfolded To Be Included In Database
The project, dubbed History Unfolded, was officially announced on April 5. The museum
hopes it will inspire thousands more volunteers like Moody to do similar research over the
next two years. Some of the material that is gathered will be presented at a 2018 exhibit
entitled “Americans and the Holocaust.”
So far, more than 1,000 submitted articles have been placed in the museum's permanent
online database.
Technology has made such a project possible, because more and more old newspapers
have been put online.
However, the museum hopes people also will search offline. It is encouraging volunteers to
dig into those forgotten small-town papers stored at local libraries.
There already have been several studies of how larger newspapers such as The New York
Times and Chicago Tribune covered the Holocaust. However, “we don’t really know
anything about what small-town newspapers and regional papers told their readers,” said
historian Aleisa Fishman, who is working on the project.
Too Broad A Subject
It would be almost impossible to ask volunteers to just research “the Holocaust” because
the subject is too broad. Instead, the museum has come up with a list of 20 significant
events during the 1930s and 1940s. The events range from the U.S. decision to participate
in the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, to Kristallnacht in 1938, to the deportation of
Hungarian Jews in 1944. Volunteers are asked to look for any coverage of these particular
events.
The goal, said Elissa Frankle, who is leading the project, is “to get at a question historians
have been posing for a long time: What did Americans know about the Holocaust and
when?”
Journalism professor Laurel Leff says finding out "what Americans knew about the
Holocaust at the time is a really important project.”
She is the author of “Buried by The Times,” a widely praised 2005 book. In it, she argues
that The New York Times downplayed coverage of the Holocaust.
Leff, who is Jewish, said she grew up being told that “Americans did not know about the
Holocaust” while it was ongoing.
The Events Are The Same, But The Coverage Is Not
When she lectures, she often hears two opposite stories from audience members: One
audience member will say there was nothing in the newspapers about the Holocaust.
Another will say they knew about it and went to rallies because of the stories.
“Maybe there were two Americas, and maybe even two Jewish Americas,” she said.
Perhaps some did know and some did not really know about the Holocaust at the time.
Some of the first articles submitted to History Unfolded seem to support her viewpoint.
They reveal very different coverage of the same events.
For example, an article about the March 23, 1933, opening of the Dachau concentration
camp appeared in Bangor, Maine’s Daily News under the headline: “Mistreatment of
Jewish Race in Germany Ends.”
Meanwhile, that same day in a paper in Fredericksburg, Virginia, another article on the
opening of the camp appeared under a very different headline: “Sympathy Service by
Friends of Jews.” The second article treated the camp opening as a distressing event and
noted that a local Presbyterian church had held a service to pray for the safety of German
Jews.
“Those are very different views,” Frankle said.
Quiz
1 The researchers in the article would be MOST likely to agree with which of the following
statements?
(A) The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum does not have enough
significant information on the Holocaust.
(B) Small-town newspapers were not as important as the larger papers in terms
of providing Americans with information.
(C) Most Americans knew about the Holocaust and they still did not want
endangered European Jews to move to the United States.
(D) Some Americans knew about the Holocaust while others did not because
newspapers reported it very differently; some did not report it at all.
2 Why did the author mention the two newspapers that each printed articles relating to the
Holocaust on March 23, 1933?
(A) to show that at least some newspapers in the United States wrote about the
Holocaust
(B) to show the only two local newspapers in the country that paid attention to
the Holocaust consistently
(C) to show that in some cases, small-town newspapers were actually writing
more news about the Holocaust than the bigger newspapers
(D) to show how differently newspapers would write about about the same
Holocaust event, leaving their readers with extremely different ideas about
what was going on
3 Read the sentences from the section "Too Broad A Subject".
Journalism professor Laurel Leff says finding out "what Americans
knew about the Holocaust at the time is a really important project.”
She is the author of “Buried by The Times,” a widely praised 2005
book. In it, she argues that The New York Times downplayed coverage
of the Holocaust.
Leff, who is Jewish, said she grew up being told that “Americans did
not know about the Holocaust” while it was ongoing.
Which word in these sentences MOST helps to define the word "downplayed"? What does the
word "downplayed" convey?
(A) important; "downplayed" gives the sense that The New York Times
recognized how important the Holocaust was and tried to get their readers
to care
(B) buried; "downplayed" gives the sense that The New York Times did not treat
the Holocaust as an important issue like it should have
(C) praised; "downplayed" gives the sense that The New York Times was highly
admired for its thorough coverage of the Holocaust
(D) ongoing; "downplayed" gives the sense that The New York Times did not
write many articles about the Holocaust because it was a confusing issue
4 Read the paragraph from the section "Some Newspapers Did Not Run Certain Stories".
Why papers like the Altoona Tribune chose not to run stories about
such historic events — when other papers did — is something experts
will study closely. Scholars also want to know what effect the lack of
coverage had. Did it undercut efforts to get the U.S. government to
allow endangered European Jews to resettle in the United States?
Which answer choice is the best replacement of the word "undercut" as used in the sentence
above?
(A) support
(B) weaken
(C) criticize
(D) encourage