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April Is Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month

AdamBernstein — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:35:05 +0000

April 12, 2012

In several states, April is designated Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. In honor of this, we have compiled a collection of resources relevant to each of the genocides that have commemorative dates this month.

Explore:
Genocide Resource Collection

Early April 1945: Buchenwald

As US forces approached Buchenwald concentration camp, thousands of prisoners were forced to join the evacuation marches. Approximately one third of these prisoners died from exhaustion en route or shortly after arrival, or were shot by the SS.

April 11, 1945

In expectation of liberation, organized prisoners seized control of the camp. Later that afternoon, US forces entered Buchenwald. By April 12, 1945, journalists, including Edward R Morrow arrived at the camp.

Between July 1937 and April 1945, the SS imprisoned some 250,000 persons from all countries of Europe in Buchenwald.

Explore:
Leon Bass remembers when he, a nineteen-year-old African-American sergeant, arrived at Buchenwild
Edward R. Murrow's report from Buchenwald

April 5, 1992: Serbia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina

As Yugoslavia began to unravel in the late 1980s, ethnic tensions and nationalist attitudes grew. The Serb leader Slobodan Milošević went on an offensive in an attempt to keep its republics together and to unite Serb communities in the region.

When Bosnia and Herzegovina defied Milošević and declared independence on April 5, 1992 Bosnian Serb leaders began a military campaign to clear all the Muslim communities that stood in the way of this vision of a “Greater Serbia.” The violence reached its tragic peak in the summer of 1995 in Srebrenica, where Serbs massacred over 8,000 Muslim men. After three years of indecisive actions, NATO forces finally began an aerial bombing campaign that halted the violence. All told, the Serbs were responsible for the deaths of as many as 100,000 Bosnians.

Explore:
Worse Than War: Genocide and Eliminationism
Larisa Kasumagic on the Culture of Silence

April 7, 1994: Rwanda

In the 1980s a group of Tutsi (and some Hutu) formed an army—the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA)—which invaded Rwanda in 1990 with the hope of repatriating refugees who escaped the Hutu dominant regime to nearby countries. This led to a civil war and then to a power-sharing agreement in 1993. The next year, the plane of the Hutu president of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, was shot down. Hutu extremists seized control of the government and use this opportunity launch a genocidal campaign against the Tutsi. Between April and July 1994, Hutu extremists brutally murdered as many as 800,000 of their fellow Rwandans.

Explore:
Worse Than War: Genocide and Eliminationism

April 17, 1975: Cambodia

The Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia and immediately began to expel to the countryside hundreds of thousands of people suspected of connections with the former government or with the West. As many as 1.7 million of them died in agrarian camps (commonly known as the “killing fields”) and in prisons and interrogation centers. The genocide ended in 1979 after Vietnam invaded Cambodia.

Explore:
Biography: Arn Chorn Pond
Everybody has a Story
Worse Than War: Genocide and Eliminationism

April 19, 2012: Yom Ha'Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day

Facing History observes Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, by encouraging schools and communities to engage in conversations about the importance of memory and the legacy of difficult histories in today's society. In the words of Facing History executive director Margot Stern Strom, “The stories of our survivors are not lost in their passing...We hear their voices and we will honor them as we look to future generations take up her mantle. We need young people to be interested in their community and to not be bystanders in a world that needs the strong voices of upstanders.” Learn more about Yom HaShoah and Facing History in your community.

April 19, 1943: Warsaw Ghetto uprising begins.

Explore:
The Jews of Poland: The Warsaw Uprising
History, Memory and Memorials: Willy Brandt’s Silent Apology

April 24, 1915 - Armenia

Armenian Genocide begins. On this one day, Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. By 1923, more than one million ethnic Armenians had been killed.

Explore:
Crimes against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians
Armenian Genocide Resource Collection
Taner Akçam: Why is the Armenian Genocide Important?

April 2003 – Darfur

In 2003 violence broke out in Darfur, a region in western Sudan, between local tribes and government-backed militia. In April, Sudanese refugees begin arriving in eastern Chad to escape the fighting in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

April 25, 2003 - Rebels, later becoming the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), attack a Sudanese government airfield, destroying multiple Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships, and seizing a large amount of ammunition and heavy weapons. In retaliation, the Sudanese government began a systematic campaign to destroy the people of the western region of Sudan and their livelihood. It is estimated that by 2005, the Sudanese government and its forces had contributed to the death of more than 300,000 Darfuris and to the rape, torture, and displacement of more than 2.5 million people.

Explore:
Darfur Resource Collection
Worse Than War: Genocide and Eliminationism

April 29, 1945: American forces liberate the Dachau concentration camp

Explore:
Holocaust Resource Collection
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Dachau

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Remembering 9/11 Ten Years Later

Nicky Enriquez — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 20:21:55 +0000

August 29, 2011

In the coming weeks, the world will mark the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3000 people in and around the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and on flight 93 over Shanksville, PA.

Schools, houses of worship, and communities are exploring their own ways to remember the attacks and consider their legacy. How will your community remember? A critical part of the Facing History and Ourselves program considers how we choose to remember the past, and what those choices say about who we are.

Will your community have a public commemoration? How is the anniversary being talked about in the various media that you follow? Does your community have a monument or memorial to remember the attacks? If not, are there any monuments or memorials in your community? What story do they tell?

Below are links to several different websites that explore attempts to remember 9/11. As you view the sites consider:

Who is telling the story?
What story do they hope to tell?
Who is the audience?
What choices were made by those choosing to remember?
How do those choices impact the story they tell?
Compare the different choices individuals or groups made in their attempt to remember?
What is the message that you take away?

Memory, History, and Memorials: 9/11 Case Study

This link to the Facing History and Ourselves website Memory, History, and Memorials discusses the spontaneous memorials that people created after 9/11, alongside links to several resources about the challenges of memory in the first few months after the attacks.

9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center

Website for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center, which will open on September 11, 2011 on the site of the former towers. The memorial site contains extensive resources on the new memorial and museum, on those who died as well as survivors and rescuers, on the history of the Twin Towers, and on responses, memorials, and tributes from many communities and schools.

Tribute Center WTC

Tribute WTC Visitor Center offers visitors to the World Trade Center site a place where they can connect with people from the September 11th community. Through walking tours, exhibits and programs, the Tribute WTC Visitor Center offers "Person to Person History," linking visitors who want to understand and appreciate these historic events with those who experienced them.

Pentagon 9/11 Memorial

The Pentagon Memorial is designed so that the nation may remember and reflect on the events that occurred on September 11, 2001. The Memorial will be free and open to the public seven days a week. Groups and individuals are welcome in the Memorial each day, but guided tours are not offered; the Memorial is meant to be experienced on a more personal level.

Flight 93 National Memorial

Flight 93 National Memorial has a place on the nation's honor roll of iconic places which includes Gettysburg and Pearl Harbor. Why is this ground so special? Why is this story so important? What began as an ordinary morning ended as a historic day when a common field in Pennsylvania was forever changed. Discover a story of courage, action, and honor.

Lesson Idea: Creating Your Own Memorial to the September 11 Attacks

For years, Facing History and Ourselves has helped teachers design memorials projects. After establishing an understanding of the potential power of memorials and monuments, teachers and students construct their own personal monuments or memorials. In many cases, these projects are guided by a series of questions including:

What would you like people to feel or think about when they visit the monument that you are designing?
Who is it built for? Where would you want it to be constructed? Who will be the audience?
What message will it convey? What point of view will it assume?
How can your monument be most effective in connecting the public to the point in the past that you have chosen to remember?

Facing History’s Educator Workshop: How to Talk with Students about 9/11, Ten Years Later

This summer, to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the 2001 attacks, Facing History offered a special workshop to New York City area educators. Facing History Senior Program Associate Tracy Garrison-Feinberg told an interviewer: “This event shaped the 21st century, and is to continuing to shape it. It’s is a crucial part of who we have become.”

Additional Resources

From Newsday: Teachers: 9/11 'our history, generation'

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Pope Warns Against Antisemitism in New Book

IlanaKlarman — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:51:27 +0000

March 29, 2011

Pope Benedict XVI, the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church, has taken an important step in recent months to combat antisemitism. He is publishing a new book in which he devotes extensive theological argument to making the case that there is no basis in Christian scripture for blaming the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, defusing a long-held source of religious bitterness.

For centuries, some Christians used parts of the New Testament to blame all Jews for the death of Christ, and to justify the persecution of Jews. Beginning in the 1960s, the Catholic Church officially abandoned this belief.

But now, a reporter writes, Benedict goes further in an effort to correct this wrong:

The Catholic Church issued its most authoritative teaching on the issue in its 1965 Second Vatican Council document “Nostra Aetate,” which revolutionized the church’s relations with Jews by saying Christ’s death could not be attributed to Jews as a whole at the time or today.

Benedict comes to the same conclusion, but he explains how with a thorough, Gospel-by-Gospel analysis that leaves little doubt that he deeply and personally believes it to be the case.

The book, Jesus of Nazareth II, is the second installment to Benedict’s 2007 Jesus of Nazareth, which described the early years of Christ’s life and teachings. The new book, set to be released in March, concerns the final part of Christ’s life, his death, and resurrection.

“Holocaust survivors know only too well how the centuries-long charge of ’Christ killer’ against the Jews created a poisonous climate of hate that was the foundation of anti-Semitic persecution whose ultimate expression was realized in the Holocaust,” said Elan Steinberg of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants. The pope’s book, he said, not only confirms church teaching refuting the deicide charge “but seals it for a new generation of Catholics.”

Discussion Questions:

Who is responsible for speaking out against antisemitism and other forms of racism? What are the consequences of a strong stand? What are the consequences of silence? What might the consequences be of the Pope’s stand?
What power do words have to turn neighbor against neighbor? When hateful words have been spoken, what can individuals, groups, and leaders do to mitigate their effects?

Related Facing History Resources

Theme - Antisemitism

Video: Father Robert Bullock
Father Robert W. Bullock, a founding leader of Facing History and Ourselves, was dedicated to building bridges between the Catholic and Jewish communities. As a scholar, he delved into the Holocaust and the roots of Christian antisemitism.

External Link

Pope exonerates Jews for Jesus’ death in new book, The Patriot Ledger, March 2, 2011

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Most States Pass Bullying Laws, But Will They Work?

IlanaKlarman — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:24:08 +0000

February 11, 2011

Bullying stories with tragic outcomes and anti-bullying campaigns alike are frequently in the news.

But a new Education Week article says the new state laws vary widely in design, with "measures seen as ranging from effective prevention to mere window dressing."

Some state laws, such as those in Massachusetts, specifically include online cyberbullying as one of the behaviors they aim to stop, while several state laws have yet to deal with the phenomenon. New Jersey provides one of the toughest and most detailed plans, mandating specific training and prevention programs, while in other regions, new state laws are little more then resolutions with no funding or programs to support school change. Public opinion in Massachusetts and New Jersey has been influenced by high-profile suicides of students who had suffered severely from harassment (the cases of Phoebe Prince in Massachusetts and Tyler Clementi in New Jersey, respectively).

The Education Week piece also cautions that some state laws may go to extremes in their attempts to punish. Louisiana's strict law threatens criminal conviction and up to six months in prison for cyber-bullying offenses, and Massachusetts attempts to punish bullying that happens outside of school hours and grounds, and outside of school networks and technology.

In winter 2011, Facing History and Ourselves is launching a new resource for students and teachers called Bullying: A Case Study in Ostracism, which provides tools for classrooms to launch thoughtful, in-depth discussions of inclusion, exclusion, and bullying.

Discussion Questions:

This workshop asks:

What is the role of young people and adults in preventing and responding to incidents of bullying and ostracism?
How can young people and adults make better choices to help create and sustain schools that are safe for everyone?

Visit ostracism.facinghistory.org to explore.

Related Facing Today Resources:

How Do You Stop A Bully?
Bullying on the Rise in Lower Grades 11-Year-Old Hangs Himself after Enduring Daily Anti-Gay Bullying

Related Facing History and Ourselves Resources:

Bullying: A Case Study in Ostracism
Bullying and Ostracism Theme

External Links

“State Cyberbullying Laws Range from Guidance to Mandate,” Education Week (February 4, 2011)
List of State Laws, Stop Bullying Now!, U.S. Department of Health and Human Serivces, Health Resources and Services Administration

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The Moral Dilemma in Witnessing Acts of Violence

IlanaKlarman — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:56:05 +0000

January 11, 2011

This week we've seen brave acts of heroism in response to the shooting in Tucson, Arizona and we have also seen video of bystanders witnessing, but not responding to, violence on the DC subway.

Listen to Michel Martin’s piece on NPR titled “Can I Just Tell You?: The Moral Dilemma in Witnessing Acts of Violence.”

Discussion Questions:

Why do some people act to help others in times of crisis while other people stand by?
How are people in your community responding to the shooting in their classrooms and communities?

Related Facing Today Resources:

Security Guards Do Nothing As Girl Is Beaten

Questions of Responsibility in the Aftermath of Chicago Teen's Death

Bystanders Watch Gang Rape

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The Power of Slurs

IlanaKlarman — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:28:44 +0000

November 8, 2010

Ernie Lepore’s “Speech and Harm,” an opinion piece on the New York Times website, examines the power of slurs.

Discussion Questions:

What gives slurs power?
Why are slurs so offensive?
Why do some slurs have more power than others? How do you explain why different people respond to the same slur differently?

Related Facing Today Resources:

Racist Speech in the Workplace

Free Speech or Hate Speech: Dutch MP on Trial

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Vichy Leader Said to Widen Anti-Jewish Law

IlanaKlarman — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:47:30 +0000

October 9, 2010

"A draft of the law that first established discriminatory practices aimed at Jews under the Vichy government includes notes made by Marshal Pétain."
—New York Times

Continuing discussion over the new evidence suggests the challenges societies face in coming to terms with their pasts. In Pétain's case, some had argued that the wartime leader was a feeble man, easily manipulated by the Nazis after their conquest of France.

“We used to say that Pétain himself had never truly participated in the policy of state anti-Semitism, exclusion and discrimination,” the historian Jean-Pierre Azéma told the daily newspaper Le Parisien. “We discover today that Pétain was very much involved in the drafting of a text that destroys freedom.”
—New York Times

The debate over Petain's personal involvement in the sacrifice of French Jews to the Nazis by some of their countrymen belongs to a much broader historical dialogue about why some people actively collaborated in the Holocaust, while others resisted.

Discussion Questions:

What role did antisemitism play in the choices made by French leaders during the Holocaust?

Related Facing Today Resources:

A Protestant Town's Conspiracy of Good in Vichy France

Comprehensive World War II and Holocaust Website Published by Spiegel Online

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New Life in U.S. No Longer Means New Name

IlanaKlarman — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:22:56 +0000

August 25, 2010

The New York Times published an article last week noting that, in the past, immigrants to the U.S. sometimes changed their name to make it more American-sounding. Nowadays, the vast majority of immigrants keep their names.

Discussion Questions:

In what ways does your name reflect your identity and your history?

Related Facing Today Resources:

Immigration Stories

Immigration in the 21st century: Identity, Membership and Belonging

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Youth Venture

AdamBernstein — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:24:40 +0000

December 7, 2007

Youth Venture's mission is to help young people participate in addressing social needs. Their website provides guidance about how to start a "Youth Venture" aimed at improving communities at the local and global level.

Be The Change: Upstanders for Human Rights

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Revealing the Young Bureaucrats Behind the Nazi Terror

IlanaKlarman — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:36:36 +0000

May 20, 2010

Facing Today reflects Facing History and Ourselves’ primary goal: to honor history in the particular and allow for universal connections that are timely and relevant. Its framework of history and ethics guides our search for current websites, articles, films, and blogs that reflect universal themes such as identity, membership, historical legacy, and civic participation. These themes are represented in Facing History and Ourselves’ primary resource book, “Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior,” and in our organization’s Scope and Sequence—a journey of discovery about connections between history and today. Each Facing Today post is linked to related Facing History materials, including study guides, videos, and lessons. As educators it is our challenge to help students make the essential connections between history and the world today without encouraging facile comparisons or simple parallels between the past and the present.

Revealing the Young Bureaucrats Behind the Nazi Terror

Facing History and Ourselves’ core resource book “Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior” examines the rise of the Nazis and the Holocaust with a focus on the moral and ethical questions behind people’s choices.

On Thursday, May 6, the new Topography of Terror museum opened in Berlin “at the site of the former Gestapo and SS headquarters,” Der Spiegel writes. The museum, “designed to highlight the role of the perpetrators, those managers and bureaucrats who from their Berlin offices administered mass murder across Europe,” displays index cards with the details of some of the 7,000 former employees of the SS paramilitary group members and Gestapo secret police force—employees who “worked at the very epicenter of the Nazi terror regime.” Der Spiegel notes that the employees at this “most historically contaminated place in Berlin”—the “headquarters for the Third Reich’s brutal repression”—were not what we think of today as stereotypical Nazi war criminals. The employees were “ambitious university-educated men, aged around 30 and more likely to be ideologues than technocrats,” working their way up the career ladder. After the war, most of them “simply faded away into the background.” Just 16 of the 7,000 “former employees of this terror headquarters” faced prosecution, and of the 16, only 3 were eventually convicted.

Discussion Questions:

Unlike the nearby Holocaust Memorial, the Topography museum is meant to “highlight the role of the perpetrators.” Who were the perpetrators that the museum is highlighting? What was their role? What do you think we can learn from the stories of the perpetrators?
The Guardian writes that the museum, which was the Reich Main Security Office, “was the most feared address in Berlin.” What significance, if any, does this add to the museum?
Der Spiegel explains that the employees were “ambitious university-educated men, aged around 30 and more likely to be ideologues than technocrats.” How does this influence the way you understand who is responsible for the Holocaust?
How do you explain that only 3 out of 7,000 employees who “worked at the very epicenter of the Nazi terror regime” were convicted for their crimes?
Topography of Terror museum director Andreas Nachama, a rabbi and a historian, is quoted in the Guardian as saying that “ ‘our aim is to show the topography of how the Nazi-initiated terror was implemented and how both the Nazi party and state institutions merged together. . . . It holds lessons about the workings of other dictatorships as well. . . . The Pinochet dictatorship in Chile or the military junta in Argentina.’ ” How might the history of how “the Nazi party and state institutions merged together” hold lessons about the workings of other dictatorships, such as the Pinochet dictatorships in Chile or the military junta in Argentina? Facing History and Ourselves’ resource book "Stitching Truth: Women’s Protest Art in Pinochet’s Chile” covers much of this history.
The preface to Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior includes a letter written by a Holocaust survivor that a school principal shared with his teachers on the first day of school. It reads:

Dear Teacher:

            I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness:
            Gas chambers built by learned engineers.
            Children poisoned by educated physicians.
            Infants killed by trained nurses.
            Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates.
            So I am suspicious of education.
            My request is: Help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters,
            skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns.
            Reading, writing, arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

         What is the message of the letter? How might education help children become more humane? What do you
         see as the relationship between the letter and the bureaucrats whose stories are highlighted at the
         Topography of Terror Museum?

Related Facing Today Resources:

Nazi Atrocities, Committed by Ordinary People

86-Year-Old SS Killer Faces Murder Charges

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