Activity 1 - Your teacher will show you this clip at the beginning of the lesson
View I'm Still Here- start at 6:00-9:16 (Peter Feigl, 13, France-Austrian by birth)
This is the story of a child during the Holocaust in their own words from their diary
Activity 2 - Read and copy the blue text into your workbook
The Einsatzgruppen (task forces, special action groups) were units of the Security Police and SD (the SS intelligence service) that followed the German army as it invaded and occupied countries in Europe. Often referred to as “mobile killing squads,” they are best known for their role in the systematic murder of Jews in mass shooting operations on Soviet territory.
With the assistance of the Waffen SS, police units, the army, allied Romanian forces, and local collaborators, the Einsatzgruppen conducted mass shooting operations in the Soviet Union. The mass shootings targeted Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Communists, and Soviet civilians.
The mass shootings were resource-intensive, requiring many shooters and escort guards as well as guns, ammunition, and transport. Concerns about the inefficiency of the shootings and their psychological impact on the shooters led to the development of special vans outfitted with engines that pumped carbon monoxide into sealed passenger compartments. Jews were packed into the compartments, then driven to a mass grave, asphyxiating during the journey.
It took much longer to kill very large groups of victims with the gas vans, however.
Einsatzgruppen personnel were required to remove bodies and clean the compartments. Throughout the German occupation of seized Soviet territories, mass shootings continued to be the preferred method of murdering Jews. At least 1.5 million and possibly more than 2 million Holocaust victims died in mass shootings or gas vans in Soviet territory.
Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
Activity 3 - Think and Investigate questions
What pressures and motivations may have affected these soldiers to volunteer for the Einsatzgruppen and later murder innocent civilians?
Why did the Nazis start using gas vans? Was this effective from the Nazi perspective? Give evidence from the passage above (quote).
Investigate what penalties there may have been for refusing to shoot Jews.
Activity 4 - View this clip