April2008-WISP-Assg2: Pitfalls of Political Apathy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/europe/02/euro_borders/img/map6.gif

Why Are We Interested in Looking at This Conflict

The Holocaust was a horrific example of how badly humans can treat each other. However, when one studies this event, the focus shouldn't simply be on Hitler but on why was he allowed to come into power in the first place. Here are some questions you should have when you are researching this topic: Where were majority voices who didn't believed that genocide was the thing to do? Where were the Allies like the British or the Americans when the Holocaust first started in the late 1930s? What were the characteristics of 1930s German political structure that made it almost impossible for any opposition to the Nazi Party to rise against it?

Questions that You MUST Answer for Your Presentation

What happened in this conflict? You may wish to consider the following:

Historical timeline
Profile of the main players/parties involved in this conflict (You are to exclude Hitler from your presentation. Concentrate on all the other relevant parties that created WWII and the Holocaust)
Impact on the country, neighbouring countries in the region and the world.
Or anything else you find significant.

What do you think are the KEY REASONS that led to this conflict becoming full-blown?
But this conflict wasn't triggered by race alone. What other forces have contributed to the creation of this conflict or helped to worsen it?
What are your group's reflections after completing your research?
There are some similarities to problems or challenges faced by present-day Singapore. Please share with the class what these are. (DO NOT COMPARE WITH SINGAPORE’S RACE RIOTS; )
Bonus question: Mention solutions that have not yet been implemented by Singapore.

You may wish to start your research by getting to know this conflict using the sources below. However, you are encouraged to add your own sources as you do additional research on this topic.

A Wikipedia Summary

The persecution and genocide were accomplished in stages. Legislation to remove the Jews from civil society was enacted years before the outbreak of World War II. Other groups were persecuted and killed by the regime, including the Roma, Soviet POWs, disabled people, gay men, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholic Poles, and political prisoners. Concentration camps were established in which inmates were used as slave labour until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where the Third Reich conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings.^[7] Jews and Roma were crammed into ghettos before being transported hundreds of miles by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were killed in gas chambers. Every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal nation."^[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

Visions from the Past

A video montage of Nazi Germany