Last night while finishing the final research component of my project, I came across something in my room. In 8th grade, I interviewed a Holocaust survivor for Hebrew school. While searching through my bookshelf for helpful Holocaust books, I came across the notebook where I wrote what the survivor, Sonia, told me. Finding this just made me more motivated to make sure the finishing product of my project was amazing. It also made me sad to realize that my generation will be the last one that will be able to meet Holocaust survivors, and the ones that will still be alive wouldn't have been old enough to remember anything from that time. It makes me feel fortunate to have had the experience to meet and talk with a survivor.

As for the project, my partner, Isaiah, and I decided to use the PowerPoint format. We feel that this would be the best way to get our information across. We are both familiar with this program, and feel like our best finishing product could be accomplished through this. Plus, most people will probably do Prezi. Isaiah and I wanted to be unique and not join the crowd.

Finding Sources

Today I started the process of finding primary source documents for my project. I started researching documents that address the objective asking me to compare the varying perspective of victims, survivors, bystanders, rescuers, and perpetrators during the Holocaust. The information that I'm finding is so interesting to me. I feel like this project will be a huge success because it means something to me. Being Jewish, it fascinates me to see how people (victims and perpetrators) felt during this time. This is one website that really caught my attention:
http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/document.htm#DocAusc2
It displays the varying thoughts and opinions of people during the the time.

Another source that I found to be helpful was a book called The World Must Know: A History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, written by Michael Berenbaum. In this book is a propaganda poster that says "In 1885 a Jewish historian predicted that a strong Jewry will arise in the 20th century. It has happened exactly that way. The Jews have reached their goal. They have reached their goal. They pushed the American people into war." This quote shows the motive for some antisemetics. Does anyone else feel as interested as I am in this project?

The Beginning of My World War II Project

In my project, I hope to answer the essential question, "Could the United States have done more to prevent the Holocaust?"

My three objectives are:
-Compare the varying perspective of victims, survivors, bystanders, rescuers, and perpetrators during the Holocaust.
-Assess the responses of the United States and other nations to the violation of human rights that occurred during the Holocaust and other genocides.
-Explain how World War 2 and the Holocaust led to the creation of international organizations (i.e., the United Nations) to protect human rights, and describe the subsequent impact of these organizations.

My three product ideas are a prezi, a poster, and a powerpoint.

I'm most leaning towards a Prezi. I'm thinking of making the background a swastika (the Nazi symbol), and putting my information on the tips. If I pursue the creation of a poster, I would probably stick a swastika in the middle of the poster, and have sections for each objective I will address. My last idea is to create a PowerPoint, which is my least favorite idea. I would just have generic slides, which wouldn't be very interesting to me.