Today, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center's (FSWC) Education Department facilitated a Lessons and Legacies of the Holocaust workshop at a private school in King City. FSWC Educator Daniella worked with Grade 10 students today, and began with an overview of the Holocaust. The classes had previously studied the Holocaust, so Daniella was able to add additional information and really work with the students in building their learning. When she showed the map of Europe in 1942 and explained that this marked the height of Nazi occupation, one student was curious about Switzerland’s neutrality during the war – so Daniella explained that a lot of it had to do with geography (the Alps were hard to traverse) and that Switzerland has always had notoriously closed borders, meaning they do not let refugees into the country.  Many students had never seen the Nuremberg Race Chart, so Daniella spent some time explaining the lengths to which the Nazis went to classify someone as either Jewish or German. 

Following Daniella's presentation, two students came up to speak for a few minutes. One had been to Poland and Israel with her grandmother this past November, and the other is leaving on March of the Living next week. They spoke about the importance of never forgetting the Holocaust and honouring the memory of the six million Jewish people who perished. 

Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter then spoke to the group for over an hour and a half and shared his story of living in the Warsaw Ghetto and later being deported to Majdanek with his family, and subsequently being transferred to numerous other camps after losing his family. Faculty and students hung on to every word and the questions at the end showcased how closely they were paying attention. One student was curious how someone spent any “downtime” they had in the concentration camps – i.e. when they weren’t working. Pinchas explained that it varied from camp to camp, but for the most part prisoners tried to make themselves invisible and keep a low profile because drawing attention to oneself usually ended badly.

The Tour for Humanity spent its second day at a private school in Toronto today. FSWC Educator Elena was working again with Grade 10 history students as well as Grades 11-12 students and taught 4 workshops in total, all Global Perspectives on Genocide. With the Grade 10 students Elena spent the majority of the time talking about the Holocaust and the prelude to World War II. The students have a test later this week on the rise of Nazism and events of the late 1930s so Elena quizzed them on the Anschluss with Austria and Munich Agreement, Kristallnacht, Stalinism, the Berlin Olympics of 1936, as well as antisemitism as a force in Europe in the decades leading to World War II. 

In the third group of the day, there was one student who was clearly very interested in history but also a bit of a contrarian in his approach. He first took issue with the fact that we talk about how evil the Nazis are but rarely hear about Stalin or Mao in the same terms. He said that people talk about their achievements as well as cruelty but no one ever talks about the significance of Nazi contributions to Germany. Elena stopped him at that point and pointed out that the Nazis really didn't make a ton of lasting contributions to Germany. Elena also pointed out that while you could argue that the Nazis pulled Germany out of an economic slump, war will do that. This war also led to the death of 80 million people. Elena also agreed that Stalin and Mao get far less attention than the Nazi regime but pointed out that the reason for this is partly due to the fact they are viewed more ambiguously by their respective countries than Hitler. Stalin is arguably guilty of some of the greatest atrocities in modern history, but Elena pointed out that he is also remembered by many as a strong leader in one of the greatest struggles ever fought in Russia. World War II is known by many Russians as the Great Patriotic War and Stalin is viewed as key to this hard-won victory. You could also argue that Stalin's status as an ally of Britain, France, Canada, etc. has meant that history has been less critical of his crimes against humanity. A number of questions arose when we spoke about the history of Indigenous Canadians. Elena spent time explaining that a lot of indigenous groups were allied with different European groups and treaties were signed (the Iroquois confederacy with the British for instance). However, Elena also pointed out that while some Native groups signed treaties, many did not (very few signed in BC, the province with the largest indigenous population) and even when they did, treaties were frequently violated. Elena's last point was that the history of war and treaty-making had little to do with the Residential School system and other policies of cultural genocide. Children were being removed from reservations so that they could be forced to abandon that way of life, a direct violation of the rights supposedly protected through treaties.