GCD 2021

This was the first year of a District 113-wide event, made possible by the pandemic hybrid learning mode, with Mondays as asynchronous remote learning days. The District supported us dedicating the entire day to genocide education, and we had a rich online program. Both the DHS PTO and the District 113 Foundation supported this work with grants.

We also created a website - https://www.historyunfolding.org/

Christian Picciolini

Former Extremist and Peace Advocate

no recording available


Christian Picciolini is an award-winning television producer, a public speaker, author, peace advocate, and a former violent extremist. Christian chronicles his involvement and exit from the early American white-supremacist skinhead movement in his memoir, White American Youth, and is the featured subject in season 3 of WBEZ’s 'Motive' podcast. He now leads the Free Radicals Project, a global extremism prevention and disengagement network, and has helped hundreds of individuals leave hate behind. He showcases his disengagement work in a second book, Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism, published in 2020 by Hachette Books, as well as the MSNBC documentary series of the same name.

View his Ted Talk here.

Louisa Coan Greve

Director of Global Advocacy for the Uyghur Human Rights Project

see YouTube recording

Louisa Greve is Director of Global Advocacy for the Uyghur Human Rights Project. Previously, Ms. Greve was Vice President for Programs and East Asia Director at the National Endowment for Democracy. She has served on the Amnesty International USA board of directors, the Virginia Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and other nonprofit boards. She is the author of several book chapters on ethnic issues and human rights in China, and has testified before Congress on China's digital censorship, forced labor, Uyghur refugees, and related issues.

Kurt Gutfreund

Holocaust Survivor

see YouTube recording


Kurt Gutfreund was born in Vienna, Austria, in January 1938. His father, Heinrich, was deported on June 9, 1942 to Malytrostinec and murdered upon arrival. Kurt's grandfather, Sigmund, was deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt on June 6, 1942, and was deported to Treblinka and murdered. Kurt and his mother, Hildegard, were deported on Kurt's 5th birthday, January 6, 1943, to Theresienstadt and were liberated by the Red Army on May 8, 1945. After liberation, Kurt and his mother went back to Vienna and then emigrated to the United States in 1958. He has three children, and two grandchildren, and he dedicates much of his life speaking about his experience in the Holocaust.

View a recent talk he did for the Illinois Holocaust Museum here.

HISTORY UNFOLDING RESEARCH PROJECTS

Hate across the US

Hate is happening on college campuses and across the US. See the research compiled on this epidemic of hate below. (The map on our original website historyunfolding.org was a dynamic map, searchable for content that we had crowdsourced from DHS Social Studies classes. In the coming years, we will work on making that research accessible through this new site.

The Uyghur Genocide - history unfolding

Similarly, the work on our original website historyunfolding.org included searchable content that we had crowdsourced from DHS Social Studies classes. We compiled news stories on each topic and include them below in slide presentations. In the coming years, we will work on making more of that research accessible through this new site.

What is East Turkestan/Xinjiang?

According to the Uyghur Human Rights Project, "East Turkistan has a rich and distinctive history, enhanced by its position along the Silk Road bridging mainland China and the ancient Arabic, Persian and European cultures to the west. Since 1949, East Turkistan has become a nuclear testing ground for the Chinese military, it is home to large numbers of Chinese military and paramilitary units, and it is the site of numerous forced labor camps administered by the Chinese authorities."

Who are the Uyghurs?

According to the Uyghur Human Rights Project, "Uyghurs (alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs, etc.) are ethnically and culturally a Turkic people living in the areas of Central Asia commonly known as East Turkistan."

USA Response to Uyghers

USA response

The USA has been horrified by the Ugyhur Genocide. There have been proposed sanctions on China to stop financial transactions with those who are involved in the Genocide. The United States is waiting to see what Biden will do next to take a stand against this injustice.

Forced Labor Ughurs Slides

Forced Labor

Human Rights Watch shared that, “all of the one million arbitrarily detained Turkic Muslims ring hollow as evidence suggests that some are now subjected to forced labor instead. The mass surveillance systems also tightly control the movement of Xinjiang’s purportedly ‘free’ residents.”

Slides Uyghurs Children

Uyghur Children & boarding schools

According to NYT , “Nearly half a million children, many of them ethnic minorities, have been placed in boarding schools in Xinjiang.” At these schools authorities ensure that the children are loyal to China and the Communist Party.

Slides Uyghurs reeducation

Re-education Camps

detention, detainment, internment, indoctrination

Reeducation camps are involuntarily places where Uyghurs are held to be brainwashed, locked up, and punished, according to Data Leak Reveals How China 'Brainwashes' Uighurs in Prison Camps. Amnesty International reported that, “those who resist or fail to show enough progress [at the reeducation camps] face punishments ranging from verbal abuse to food deprivation, solitary confinement, beatings and use of restraints and stress positions. There have been reports of deaths inside the facilities, including suicides of those unable to bear the mistreatment.”

Slides Uyghur (Murder, Killings, Genocide)

Murders, Killing, Genocide

The Chinese Government is looking to kill ⅔ of the Uyghur population in China and convert the other ⅓ to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Ideology. The Chinese Communist Party is sending Uyghur people to concentration camps in order to exploit them by forced labor, Covid-19 vaccine testing, organ harvesting, biological weapons testing, or proof of life (effort to cover up C.C.P’s actions). The awful actions of the Chinese Communist Party are being echoed from Hitler’s efforts to erase Jewish people during Nazi Germany in the 1900’s. Like Hitler once said he was pursuing a final solution on the Jews, the CCP has said they’re doing the same.