Welcome to your unit on comparative genocides in the twentieth century! Genocide is defined as the deliberate killing of a specific group, usually a religious or ethnic group, with the goal of eliminating the entire group.
We will be comparing three genocides:
The Armenian Genocide, which took place in the Ottoman Empire during World War I (1915)
The Holocaust, which took place in Europe during World War II (1941-1945)
The Rwandan Genocide, which took place in Rwanda in central Africa in 1994
In this unit, we will be examining a few key questions:
What motivates people to commit genocide? (Why?)
How do others, individuals and countries, react to acts of genocide?
What can we do to prevent genocide in the future?
We will also be completing your documentary project during this unit. Each student will be researching an individual or group who attempted to save people from genocide. We will complete research to understand what they did to help, why they did it, and what impact it had on their life. Then, we will create a documentary using iMovie to teach others about how people were upstanders in the fact of genocide.