Year 10 Humanities 

Focus on Year 10 Humanities – Term 3 – World War II

Everyone knows that there is a teacher shortage. As Humanities Learning Leader, I am very proud of our all our Humanities’ classes who have been working with our Casual Relief Teachers to develop key skills and knowledge in their designated areas of study. I would like to share with you some of the responses Year 10 students had when they viewed a presentation of Holocaust photos set to music. These responses showed that our students were able to make strong connections to the victims and to reflect how learning about the Holocaust has shaped and strengthened their own values.

Response 1

One of the most sickening aspects of the holocaust’s concentration camps was the sheer vulnerability of the victims – children, families, innocent and unknowing. As they were forced to stitch on yellow stars, they were scarred with dehumanisation, stripped of their individuality, now identified as nothing more than an entity of their beliefs. These are people who stood alive only physically, as their souls have long since been slaughtered by the mental turmoil they experienced. With trauma carved into their minds, their memories, emotions and any remaining love bled out and drained from their conscious. From beneath their sunken eyes, they witnessed their families grasp for a chance of survival, their expression unmoving. In order to cope with their conditions, they had become desensitised; unable to laugh, to smile, to cry, to feel. Now unhealthy to the point of being incapable to recognise themselves, hope was impossible. Most then awaited death, many describing it as an easier option now that their perception of the world was forever warped. This is the doing of hate. Hate is a disease that rots away your humanity. Something that acts in your head as a justification for the unjustifiable. Hitler was no longer human once he allowed the hate to lead his actions. No longer a holder of a mind that deserved to be labelled as a man’s. He was an embodiment of evil.

Response 2

The Holocaust, led by Hitler and his Nazi followers brought despair to many Jewish families and individuals and forced them to work in harsh environments. The Jews were stripped of their rights and sense of self to be considered as “less then human”. This led to them being used as expendable tools, forced to obey Hitler and the Nazi’s words otherwise death would lay before them. Punishments would vary from starvation to death by the gas chambers helping Hitler’s end goal, the extinction of Jews. Haunted by the cruel satire of the motto “work makes free”, the Jewish selected fit enough to work are forced to hold onto the hope of that motto when all else is lost. The motto posed as a constant reminder that they are neither living nor dying, the word “free” in that context meant they would be excused from death for as long as they work. However, due to the inhumane torture experienced the question that arises is: “What pushed Hitler to use such brutal torture punishments?” and “How can one hate a group of people so much to the point of wanting extinction of a specific group of people?” Furthermore, the way Hitler is able to use such methods as way of torture without arousing suspicion of neighboring countries makes me wonder if there were others involved behind the scenes that were unidentifiable and have not been put down in the history of the Holocaust. 

Response 3

In the video where the image shows where the Jews ‘left their marks, it shows that they were that desperate to get out of the gas chamber that they were scratching at the concrete walls to escape. Hitler had the idea to do a mass murder and kill all the Jews for taking all the Germans jobs back in the Great Depression, Hitler blamed the Jews for losing WW1 and the economic crisis. During the Holocaust, the old, very young, and the weak were killed off first, like in “The Boy in Striped Pyjamas” We can see the similarities from the movie and the holocaust; the gas chambers were quite similar, the way they were dark and a strange blueish colour as well as looking gloomy. Another thing that’s similar is the clothing. In the photos we can see how only the middle aged people were wearing striped pyjamas and there were no very young or old people as they were killed off first.