A brief history to help you understand Freedom Writers better The Holocaust A brief history to help you understand Freedom Writers better

Who was Adolf Hitler? Hitler rose to power in Germany in 1933 He was the leader of the Nazi party and ruled as a dictator. This means he had all the power and no one could stop him

Hitler wanted to establish a new order where the Nazis ruled Germany Hitler believed in racial purity and killing off people who were ‘unworthy of life’ This lead to the holocaust

Hitler

A year after Hitler came to power... He convinced the Germans that Jews were corrupting them. He launched his real terror just one year after rising to power. Many Jews left and hid in other countries to get away from Nazis

Hitler began by eliminating children with obvious deformities and disabilities. He believed people with disabilities didn’t deserve to live because of their condition

He wanted to create a superior human race without disabilities and other problems. He also viewed Jews as not deserving of life

The Nazis used propaganda to spread their message of hate

Look at this picture of a Jewish man Look at this picture of a Jewish man. It is very similar to the one drawn of Jamal in Freedom Writers

This might not seem so bad This might not seem so bad. But this kind of intolerance can have devastating consequences.

Between 1939 and 1945, somewhere between 11 million and 14 million people were systematically killed This included about 6 million Jews They were killed in concentration camps, ghettos and mass executions In addition to those gassed to death, many died as a result of starvation and disease while working as slave labourers

It wasn’t just Jews that were killed. The killings also included... Non-Jewish Poles (Polish people) Communists and political opponents Members of resistance groups Homosexuals Romani people The physically handicapped and mentally retarded Soviet prisoners of war (possibly as many as three million) Jehovah's Witnesses Adventists Trade unionists Psychiatric patients

An American soldier stands near a wagon piled high with corpses outside the crematorium

Gas chamber from a concentration camp

One of the biggest centres of mass-killing was the industrial extermination camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau

Children and an old woman on the way to the death barracks of Auschwitz-Birkenau

Hitler’s role... The Holocaust was planned and ordered by leading Nazis While no specific order from Hitler authorizing the mass killing has surfaced, there is documentation showing that he approved the killing squads that went through Poland and Russia, and that he was kept well informed about their activities The evidence also suggests that in the fall of 1941 Hitler decided upon mass extermination by gassing

How does this relate to the Freedom Writers? The holocaust is just one example of the damage that hatred and intolerance for others can cause It starts small (like with the the caricature of Jamal, or one man’s idea of the ‘perfect race’) but it can grow to be as devastating as the holocaust

Think about the scene with the caricature of Jamal In your books, answer the following in complete sentences: Why do you think Miss Gruwell was so concerned when she saw the picture of Jamal? Why did she then discuss the holocaust with the class? Name one film technique that shows the racial intolerance in this scene (look over yesterday’s notes) Explain how the technique shows that there is intolerance for others amongst the students Name one film technique that shows Miss Gruwell’s shock and concern about the picture Explain how the technique shows her concern