CENSORSHIP AND BOOK BURNING USHMM Museum Teacher Fellowship Lesson
Our Essential Questions How is censorship today similar to book burning under the Nazi’s? Is there ever an appropriate time to censor or burn books? Who decides who has the right to censor books for you? Who or what determines your ideology?
Key Terms to Know censorship: examination of books, plays, news reports, etc. on moral, political, military or other grounds ideology: body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class or group anti-Semitism: discrimination against or prejudice or hostility toward Jewish people
More Key Terms to Know genocide: the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group indifference: lack of interest or concern propaganda: information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution or nation enlightenment: the state of being enlightened
Our Favorite Books Do you like fantasy? Non-fiction? Mysteries? Biographies? How about science fiction? Horror? Any favorite authors? What are YOUR top 3?
Our Faves
Imagine this: From now on, you are not allowed to read your favorite book or a new book by your favorite author. Someone else has decided these are now forbidden………… Seems crazy, doesn’t it?
Why Would Anyone Ban Books? In America? In the 21 st Century???? In America? In the 21 st Century???? How do YOU feel about this? This happened in a very big way in the 1930’s. It went way beyond banning books and into terrifying actions in Germany.
USHMM clip Nazi Book Burning
How many German cities “hosted” book burnings in 1933?
Book Burnings and Censorship= WHAT? Loss of free thinking Reading and thinking what the government tells you Possibly betraying people who do not comply Freedom of speech? Freedom of expression? USHMM What was the Holocaust?
Defining the Holocaust The Holocaust was the systematic, state- sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews, deemed “inferior,” were an alien threat to the so- called German racial community.
During the Holocaust, German authorities targeted other groups because of their perceived “racial inferiority:" Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). They also persecuted other groups— Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals—on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds. PREZIPREZI
Why book burning and censorship?
Final Thoughts What does this mean for us all today?