Understanding Power

To maintain control, you must have power. I think that this statement is legitimate because in England during the Middle Ages, King William would've had no chance of staying king without control. I think this because none of the people in England really liked him and would have been happy to take his crown away due to the fact that he was a foreign king and he replaced all of the English lords and dukes with Normans. To keep his royalty, King William built Motte and Bailey Castles all over the country so that he could intimidate people around England and also keep an eye out on them. That is an example of someone that maintained control by having power.

I think that another example of a leader that has maintain his/her control with power is Hitler. After he was voted as the Fuhrer of Germany and started killing Jews, he used false propaganda to keep control. For example, in 'The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas' movie when Bruno's father was shown a propaganda video of what the Nazis were showing people about the concentration camps. Hitler made the video to make the concentration camps seem like a pleasant and enjoyable place to live really when he was killing masses of people daily. I feel that Hitler is a modern example of someone using their power to keep control.

Who Had The Best Claim?

In 1066, three men hoped to become King of England after Edward the Confessor died. These three people were Duke William of Normandy, Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex and Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway. One of Duke William's claims to the throne was that he had the Pope voting for him to become king. In the olden days if you had the Pope on your side, it was one of the largest advantages you could have. While Harold Godwinson had the recommendation of the previous king, Edward, and Harald Hardrada had an ancestor, King Cnut, that was a former king of England. Out of these three men, I think that Duke William of Normandy had the best 'claim to fame' and in the end Harald Hardrada and Harold Godwinson were killed leaving William the Conquerer with the crown.

Values and Choices

Think about a time you witnessed bullying/ostracism/peer pressure/exclusion/discrimination/violence. How did you respond? How do you wish you had responded? What stopped you from responding that way?

'Can I borrow some stickers too?' I had desperately asked at the age of 9 during lunch in Ms. Ludeman's third grade class. 'NO' Isabella Sullivan replied. Although it might not have been the worst scenario of bullying, the girls in my 3rd grade class had definetly made an impact on my life. A group of about ten girls had been trading stickers, dying to be 'in' with their group I tried to trade stickers with them. To start I simply asked, 'Can I borrow some stickers too?' Then I was shut down with a simple but productive 'No.'


I responded in an extremely bitter way, ready to yell in their faces. I wish I had reacted in a nicer way like my mum had told me to. I remember her telling me, 'When other kids are mean to you, respond to them in a nice way because that is what would make you proud.' Then she read me the Bible verse Proverbs 25:21-22. 'If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.' I wish I would have responded in a more honorable way to be able to do what the Lord says in the verse above. What stopped me from doing that is the hatred that I had stored in my heart and my unwillingness to forgive those girls.

The Courage of Le Chambon

What did you learn from the stories of rescuers?
I learn't that you don't always need to regard yourself as a hero when you have done a good deed, as the people of Le Chambon did. They taught me that some things are simple and it is common sense to do them. For example, should I save the Jews or let them get killed? It is sort of an obvious answer even if most people didn't do anything to help.




What do they teach us about human behavior?


'If we do not work towards developing confidence in our spiritual resources, we will be responsible for producing in due tima a world devoid of humanity.' This  quote explains that if people are to scared to do the right thing everything will change later. That I think this quote is relevant to the question because our generation is the future and if we do silly things in the past, it will change the future for the worse.

Victory by Sonia Weitz

Victory
by Sonia Weitz

I danced with you that time only.
How sad you were, how tired, lonely...
You knew that they would "take" you soon...
So when your bunk-mate played a tune
You whispered: "little one, let us dance,
We may not have another chance."

To grasp this moment...sense the mood;
Your arms around me felt so good...
The ugly barracks disappeared
There was no hunger...and no fear.
Oh what a sight, just you and I,
My lovely father (once big and strong)
And me, a child...condemned to die.

I thought: how long
before the song
must end

There are no tools
to measure love
and only fools

Would fail
to scale
your victory.




This poem touched me because I can imagine that if I was going to lose my father, how devastated I would be. One of my favorite lines in this poem is 'little one, let us dance, we may not have another chance.' I loved this because again, I can't directly relate to it but the despair that would've filled me if I had to have just one last dance with my father would be huge. When I read this poem, I pictured a withering away father and a withering away daughter enjoying their last moments together.  They were dancing for the last time, with hope in their eyes and the terrible background of 'ugly barracks' fading away. I think the mood or feel of this poem was hope. The name of this piece is Victory because Weitz might have finally felt like she had one small 'victory' against the Nazis and the terrible things they were doing to the Jews. The fact that she was able to sneak into the men's camp and find her father was most probably the treasure that gave her the will to keep holding onto life throughout the bad things that happened to her in the rest of the holocaust. 'Only fools would fail to scale your victory.'

Germany 1918-1933

I believe that the creation of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 was one of the factors that helped Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rise to power. This was vital because so many of the German Citizens despised the treaty because it was putting them in debt, and since Hitler claimed he would expel that law he won many votes that way. The other event that helped the Nazis start leading Germany was the Reichstag  Fire in 1933 because Hitler blamed the communists and due to the fact so many people believed him he also won the votes that the communists had. I think these were the two events that helped Hitler gain power the most.

Nuremberg Laws

1. Who could now be defined as a 'Jew'?

In the Neremberg Race Laws anyone that didn't practice Judaism would be considered a Jew if they had four Jewish grandparents.

2. What was meant by 'aryanizing' Jewish Businesses?

In those circumstances aryanizing Jewish businesses was meant by all Jewish managers of workers would be fired and their companies would be bought by Germans for a small price.

3.How were Jews who were professionals (lawyers, doctors etc.) restricted?

As a Jewish doctor, you wouldn't have been allowed to treat any non-jews and lawyers would be stopped from practising law.

4. What did Jewish identity cards need to include now?

Jewish identity cards needed to include a red J stamped on them and a middle name if the person's first name wasn't recognizably Jewish.

5. What was the 'Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health of German People'?

'The Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health of German People' was a ban on any marriages including a person with a hereditary disease.