CHECK OUT the animated maps on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website. WATCH at least five. TAKE NOTES on the history being presented. Note also the role of geography. Then ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

1. FORMULATE a thesis about the role of geography in the Holocaust that uses at least two of the maps as evidence. WRITE UP a defense of your thesis that explicitly references the information presented in the animated maps.

2. This resource comes to us from a museum – and a self-proclaimed memorial museum at that. What evidence of memorial do you see in these maps? What bias might the information be presented under? What assumptions, if any, is the website making about its visitors and what does that tell you about the memorial. Does a website – and a museum – count as a monument? WRITE UP your answer.

Europe, a large continent, has many countries. Because they are so close together, Germany and the Nazis were capable of slowly taking over the countries that surrounded Germany. Because they had their army prepared, they were able to take over Poland and France quickly. As the Nazis were uprising, they started the Holocaust and deported thousands of Jews to hundreds of different concentration camps. In the Warsaw Map, most Jews were occupied in Poland, or more specifically, Warsaw. When German forces took over in 1939, they forced the Jews into Ghettos where they had to struggle for survival everyday. In 1941, Jews were deported to the Ghetto from surrounding communities. In 1942, Germans forced massive deportations of the Jews to go to the Treblinka extermination camps, about 50 miles north of Warsaw. When the deportees got to the Treblinka camp, most of them were killed. As the war wore on, allied forces were able to take over some concentration camps and liberate the prisoners. For example, in the “Liberation of Nazi Camps” video, the Soviet Union advanced on Germany and took them by surprise. Because of the sudden attack, the Germans attempted to hide their brutalities by demolishing their camps. They were able to liberate Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec killing centers in 1944. Because Germany was between certain Allied Forces, they were able to liberate certain camps that Germans were just not able to protect. As the Liberators worked their way into Germany, the more camps they were able to free.

In all memorials and monuments, there is a bias to make the audience believe what is the artist’s belief. Even if the belief is true, it is a form of propaganda. The memorial is to show the people who visit how good or bad something is. For example, the Holocaust museum is obviously biased towards the Allied Forces, or the victors of World War II. It is biased in the way to make the viewer pity the victims of the Holocaust and glorify the allied forces. The images they show to the visitors at the museum are meant to make them feel disgusted at the German’s actions. I think that it is a monument because it respects all of the dead Jews who had to suffer through the viciousness of the Holocaust.