The Age of Rights?
World War II brought a new awareness of human rights around the world. After the horrors of the Holocaust came to full light, few people could deny the dangers of racism. The anti-colonial movement was growing stronger around the world, and with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by the newly formed United Nations, many turned their attention to the rights of colonized people globally. In Africa, Asia, and the Americas, liberation movements helped bring the plight of millions under European colonialism to public attention.
Aggressive Assimilation
Facing the resilience of indigenous traditional education in Canada, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, who was also Minister of Indian Affairs, commissioned Nicholas Flood Davin, a journalist, lawyer, and politician, to go to Washington, DC, in 1879 to study how the United States tackled the same issue.
Taking Austria
Learn about Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938, the Anschluss, and the world's response to this act of open aggression.
As the War Ended
Eisenhower, a general during World War II, describes his shock and horror at touring a Nazi concentration camp liberated by US troops.
The Voyage of the St. Louis
Consider why countries including the United States refused to accept Jewish refugees aboard the M.S. St. Louis who sought escape from Nazi-occupied Europe.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Learn about the largest act of resistance by Jews against the Nazis, mounted by prisoners of the Warsaw ghetto.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (en español)
Learn about the largest act of resistance by Jews against the Nazis, mounted by prisoners of the Warsaw ghetto. This resource is in Spanish.
We May Not Have Another Chance
Holocaust survivor Sonia Weitz processes an experience she had in a slave labor camp through a poem and writing.
What Did Jews in the Ghettos Know?
Consider how Jews living in the ghettos got information about the outside world, and how much they knew about the mass murders occurring across Europe.
What Did the World Know?
Consider what people around the world knew about the mass murder occurring during World War II, and the role of journalism in the spread of information.
What Do We Do with a Difference?
A poem by James Berry invites us to question the ways we as individuals and societies react to difference.