Survivors of the Holocaust

1. Survivors of the Holocaust

2. What do you know about the Holocaust?

3. Journal Entry Write a journal entry to record your feelings about the video. Use the following questions to help you write. • Describe your thoughts about the Holocaust. • Why is it so important to record what happened in this way? • What lessons can be learned from the Holocaust? • How did the Holocaust influence the Civil Rights Movement?

4. How was it possible for something like this to happen? • Do you think something like this could ever happen again? • How can you “be involved” in order to try and prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again? • What are the effects on the survivors? • Should a person be excused for wrong doing simply because he/she is following orders? • What safeguards exist in the U.S. to prevent this from happening in the U.S.?

5. First they came for the communists,and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the socialists,and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists,and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews,and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics,and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me,and there was no one left to speak for me. • Martin Niemoller • 1892-1984, Lutheran Minister and early Nazi supporter who was later imprisoned for opposing Hitler’s regime.

6. Martin Niemöller was a German pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. Niemöller was an anti-communist and supported Hitler's rise to power at first. But when Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned. He became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was arrested and eventually confined in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. His crime was “not being enthusiastic enough about the Nazi movement”[citation needed]. Niemöller was released in 1945 by the Allies. He continued his career in Germany as a clergyman and as a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after World War II. His statement, sometimes presented as a poem, is well-known, frequently quoted, and is a popular model for describing the dangers of political apathy. The statement was published in a 1955 book by Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, based on interviews he had conducted in Germany several years earlier. The quotation was circulated by civil rights activists and educators in the United States in the late 1950s. Some research traces the text to several speeches given by Niemöller in 1946.[1] Nonetheless, the wording remains controversial, both in terms of its provenance, and the substance and order of the groups that are mentioned in its many versions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

7. Lessons to be Learned • Be involved • LOVE - don’t hate • Avoid rumors and stereotypes • Tolerance

8. Entrance to Auschwitz • Read “Massacre” • Extermination techniques: shot, burned, suffocation, gas, disease, experiments

9. Charlotte Observer article Maiden preacher suggests putting gays and lesbians in concentration camps. What are your thoughts about the article? Explain why you agree or disagree with the preacher. Write about the “concentration camp” connection with the Holocaust and Japanese Internment Camp.

10. What caused this event to happen? • Amendment one was voted on in May of 2011. 60% of voters favored the amendment which defined marriage in NC as between a man and a woman only. • How many of you think it is possible within the next 20 years to have concentration camps for homosexuals? • If so, what group of people do you think would be next? • What are the common themes of the Holocaust, Japanese-Internment Camps and article? • hate, intolerance, fear