Over 70 million people died during World War II. This video explores the meaning behind the numbers, to reveal the staggering toll of this global conflict. Millions of soldiers were slaughtered in the war, but civilians were targeted and killed in equal number. While the Soviet Union and China suffered astonishing numbers of casualties, millions of civilians were murdered in the Holocaust and Japanese war atrocities. In terms of total number of deaths, the Second World War is the deadliest in history. Since 1945, wars have become less deadly and less common, resulting in what some call the “Long Peace”.

This video explores the statistics of World War II casualties and should help you understand the cost of the conflict at a variety of scales. This video will also help you contextualize World War II in the broader arc of world history to understand how it relates to past conflicts, and also, what it might tell us about the future.

Preview—Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas—Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video.

1. What was the general profile up people who make up military deaths as opposed to civilian deaths?
2. Where did the most Nazis die?
3. What country lost the most casualties as a percentage of its population?
4. Who lost the most soldiers and civilians in the war and why?
5. Which side purposely targeted civilians during World War II? Give some examples?
6. Was World War II the deadliest war in history?
7. What does this video mean by “The Long Peace”?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. The video concludes that, since World War II, large conflicts have been less common and less deadly. How do you explain this trend?
2. Do you think World War II was the most devastating event in world history? Why or why not?

During the Second World War, the Nazis and their collaborators murdered tens of million people. Their victims included Jews, Roma, prisoners of war, and other groups. Many, especially the Nazi’s Jewish victims, died in concentration camps. The Nazi’s slaughter was carried out on an industrial scale made possible by modern science and technology. Today, these atrocities are collectively called “the Holocaust”. This article addresses the difficult, but necessary, task of discussing this horrific event.

This article serves as an overview of the Holocaust. It should help you respond to the Unit Problem by addressing how these atrocities were possible, who carried them out, and who was affected. It will also prepare you for other articles you might read in the course, which deal with global reactions to the horrors of the Second World War.

Preview—Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas—Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What policies made persecutions of Jewish German citizens official?
2. What was Kristallnacht?
3. What was the T4 program?
4. Who committed the atrocities of the Holocaust?
5. How does the author explain the willing participation of women in fascist regimes, even those regimes limited their public and private freedoms?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. The Holocaust was a horrific event that shattered communities in Europe. The author makes the point that, “in many ways, we are still recovering”. How can you explain some of the causes and effects of the Holocaust using the Communities Frame narrative?
2. Do atrocities like the Holocaust support, extend, or challenge the narrative you have been given?

Manuel Quezon, born in the Spanish colony of the Philippines, had a background that represented the rich heritage of those islands. He was of Spanish, Chinese, and Filipino descent. He fought against Spanish rule, and later American occupation, but later became the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Just prior to the Second World War, he decided to accept Jewish refugees fleeing Germany, believing it was the humane decision to make.

In Unit 7, we ask how the horrors of the Second World War were possible. That task includes identifying those who perpetrated the horrors, and those who stood by to let them happen. It also includes understanding the actions of those who acted to help the victims of the Holocaust and other crimes. This biography of Manuel Quezon highlights one person who decided to act and help with a problem taking place thousands of miles away.

Read 1: Observe

As you read this graphic biography for the first time, review the Read 1: Observe section of your Three Close Reads for Graphic Bios Tool. Be sure to record one question in the thought bubble on the top-right. You don’t need to write anything else down. However, if you’d like to record your observations, feel free to do so on scrap paper.

Read 2: Understand

On the tool, summarize the main idea of the comic and provide two pieces of evidence that helped you understand the creator’s main idea. You can do this only in writing or you can get creative with some art. Some of the evidence you find may come in the form of text (words). But other evidence will come in the form of art (images). You should read the text looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the main idea, and key supporting details. You should also spend some time looking at the images and the way in which the page is designed. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Where did Manuel Quezon live, and what was his position in 1935?
2. Why, according to the author, did Quezon decide to admit 1300 Jewish refugees in 1935?
3. What evidence does the author provide that it was Quezon’s conscience that led him to accept refugees?
4. The artist says that the cards on the table of the poker game represent “a paper wall” that restricted the ability of Jewish refugees to find a place to live. How does she use the art to signify that Quezon was moving that paper wall to the side?

Read 3: Connect

In this read, students should use the graphic biography as evidence to support, extend, or challenge claims made in the course. On the bottom of the tool, have them record what they learned about this person’s life and how it relates to what they’re learning in the course more broadly. To help them make these connections, you might ask:

1. How does this biography of Quezon support, extend, or challenge what you have learned about the Holocaust and the atrocities of the Second World War?

To Be Continued…

On the second page of the tool, your teacher might ask you to extend the graphic biography to a second page. This is where you can draw and write what you think might come next. Here, you can become a co-creator of this graphic biography!

Historians use primary sources such as letters, diaries, testimony, and official documents as evidence for constructing accounts of the past. Taken individually, these sources can give us a sense of how individuals experience an event or trend, including atrocities like the Holocaust. Collectively, they help us to understand the scale and shape of these historic episodes.

How can we comprehend murder and tyranny on such a scale as the Holocaust? The big, global and national outlines you have read give you some frameworks for understanding the mass-murder of European Jews, Roma, people with disabilities, homosexuals, and political opponents of the Nazi regime. The primary sources in this collection, however, give you evidence to understand what happened, why, and how it was experienced by different individuals. Together, evidence at these two scales can help you to better comprehend that the Holocaust was world-historical event and something that individual humans experienced.

Note: These questions can be used on their own, or with the Sourcing Tool.

Step 1: Summarize

Your teacher will choose one or both of the following questions to think about as you read this collection (you do not need to answer these just yet!):

• What kinds of people wrote these sources, and what kinds of sources are they? How might we use sources that are so different in form and authorship together to understand the Holocaust?
• What do these sources, collectively, tell us about the Holocaust?

At the end of Step 1, you should be able to provide an answer to the following question:

1. What are some things that each source tells us about individual experiences of the Holocaust?

Step 2: Sourcing

In this step, consider the author’s background, the place where the document was created, why it was created, who it was created for, and how all of this impacts the author’s perspective. By the end of this read, you should be able to answer the following questions.

1. What, if anything, do you know about the person who wrote this?
2. Where was the document created?
3. Who was this created for?
4. Given the information available, what do you think the author’s purpose was in creating the document?
5. How does what you know about the author and audience impact your understanding of the document?

Step 3: Analyze

In this final step, consider the significance of the sources you read, and how they support, extend, or challenge your thinking about the questions you thought about as you read. Then, write a response to the question or questions you thought about as you read the sources.

1. What do these sources, together, tell us about the Holocaust, and how does this support, extend, or challenge what you have already learned?

It’s often hard to grasp how the horrors of the Holocaust could have happened, and also hard to decide who was responsible for those atrocities. This activity is meant to help you think about where responsibilities lies when these types of events occur. While it’s shocking to think that this type of behavior would ever be repeated, there are still atrocities being committed in the world today. As thoughtful citizens of the world, you might one day have to decide who should be held responsible acts or event such as these. This activity is meant to help you think through how responsibility should be assigned.

Note: This activity was adapted from PBS Newshour Extra’s Lesson Plan, “The Holocaust: Assessing Responsibility and Conscience,” written by Paul Wieser and Syd Golston.

Start by getting into groups as assigned by your teacher and taking out the Assessing and Defining Responsibility Statements worksheet. Each statement on the worksheet is hypothetical, but aligns to the experiences of different citizens in Nazi Germany. After reading the statements, your group needs to determine just how responsible each person was for what happened between 1933 and 1945. You may disagree on how much responsibility each person should have, but you have to come to a group consensus on each of the points. Once you’re done, be prepared to share with your class the top three items you disagreed on and why.

One way to think about people who are involved in these types of events is to assess their responsibility by categorizing them in particular ways. One method of doing this is by using the following five categories:

1. Perpetrators
2. Collaborators
3. Bystanders
4. Resisters
5. Rescuers

Discuss each of these terms in small groups and decide what each one means. Next, read the following paragraph about the Armenian Genocide, which you learned about in an earlier lesson. After you finish reading, identify a person or group that fits with each of the roles listed above for this genocide. Be prepared to discuss your ideas as a class so you can make sure you understand what each one means.

The Ottoman government issued orders to forcibly relocate Armenian communities from border areas and military fronts during World War I. The Armenian soldiers had their weapons taken away and were sent to labor camps. Following orders from government and military officials, Ottoman soldiers took these Armenians to remote locations and shot them. Some Turkish officials in Istanbul attempted to warn their Armenian friends of the danger of remaining in the Ottoman Empire. One official quietly told his friend, “A new storm is about to break upon the Armenians so I hope that you will save yourself.” (Suny, 246) Some fled to Europe and the Americas with the help of friends, who offered safe places to stay and safe passage out of the country. As the violence ramped up, Ottoman soldiers forced whole families to march away from their homes leaving everything behind. Their houses and possessions were later sold to the highest bidder. Many Turks who had lived in the same communities with Armenians for generations were upset with this but were too fearful to do anything about it. Some Armenians rebelled against the slaughtering of their people by taking up arms to fight back. In Europe and America, organizations were formed to provide aid to the Armenians. Some ambassadors in Istanbul tried to convince the Turkish (Ottoman) officials to stop the violence. But nothing seemed to work. The American ambassador to Istanbul, Henry Morgenthau Sr., described the events as “a campaign of race extermination.”

Then, discuss the following questions as a class about each of the categories.

1. How do you think perpetrators were able to rise to such high levels of power during this time period?
2. Most of the guards in concentration camps did not start out as overly aggressive or mean. Why did they help collaborate to commit such atrocities?
3. Why did so many people stand by and allow these atrocities to happen?
4. What are the characteristics of a person who is willing to take a risk and resist?
5. What inspires rescuers to risk their lives and those of their families to help other people?

Once you’ve had a chance to discuss these roles as a class, go back and look at your original answers and see if you would revise any of your assigned responsibility levels based on the additional thought you’ve given. Be sure to share your reasoning with the class if you decided to make any changes.

Make sure you have the UP Notebook worksheets that you partially filled out earlier in the unit.

This is a continuation of the UP Notebook activity that you started in this unit. As part of WHP, you are asked to revisit the Unit Problems in order to maintain a connection to the core themes of the course. Because this is the second time you’re working with this unit’s problems, you are asked to explain how your understanding of the unit’s core concepts has changed over the unit. Make sure you use evidence from this unit and sound reasoning in your answers.

Fill out the second table on your partially completed worksheet from earlier in the unit. Be prepared to talk about your ideas with your class.

In July of 1945, America created the first nuclear fission bomb. In August of the same year, US President Harry Truman gave orders to drop two nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These bombs killed over 120,000 Japanese citizens instantly and thousands more from radiation poisoning. This article examines the historical debates surrounding Truman’s decision.

By examining the continuing debates surrounding the American decision to drop two nuclear bombs, this article highlights some of the ways in which World War II continues to shape our present, making this history usable in today’s world.

Preview—Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas—Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. How did the science of nuclear fission come to the United States?
2. What is Dr. Zimmerman’s argument in support of Truman’s decision to drop the bombs?
3. What does Gar Alperovitz claim was the real reason Truman decided to drop the bomb?
4. Why does Tsuyoshi Hasegawa argue that the Japanese surrendered unconditionally?
5. Death and destruction are the most obvious consequences of nuclear weapons. What was another consequence of the discovery of nuclear weapons?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. This article provides at least three different arguments about whether the United States should have dropped atomic bombs on Japan. Which do you most agree with and why?
2. Why were more civilians than soldiers kill in World War II?

You have been examining how recent history continues to impact the current state of the world. You’ve likely also begun to develop some opinions about certain situations as you become a national and global thinker. This activity asks you to use their knowledge of social studies to express a position on the issue of displaced peoples. By doing so, you will improve your ability to use evidence to support beliefs on important and current issues.

Your teacher will assign you to one of two “position” groups. One group will argue from a nationalist perspective while the other argues from an internationalist perspective. As a reminder, those with a more nationalist perspectives tend to believe in the country before its people, and those with internationalist perspectives often consider people before country.

Consider the following fictional scenario set in the not so distant future.

The year is 2050 and rising sea levels due to climate change are causing severe flooding and loss of land in several regions of the world. Currently, there are about 25 million displaced people who lived along the coasts of Bangladesh. These people have lost everything: their homes, most of their possessions, and their livelihoods. While the government of Bangladesh would like nothing more than to help its people, it does not have the infrastructure or the funds to combat the ecological and human disaster that has just befallen them. Additionally, this nation cannot absorb all of these displaced people (Bangladesh has the eighth largest population in the world concentrated in a relatively small nation.) How do we help these people?

Your job is to plan a response for how to help these displaced people. Each group is responsible for researching its position and preparing an argument to support its point of view. For this particular debate, you should use the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights as part of your research. Keep in mind that this might be a sensitive topic for your or for your classmates. Please make sure that you are thoughtful about the delicate nature of this debate and how this might impact other people in the class.

Questions you should consider in preparing your arguments:

• What is the difference between refugees, migrants, internally displaced people, asylum seekers, returnees, and stateless peoples?
• Historically, what are some of the reasons people have been displaced and how did people respond to the displacement? What were the shorter and longer-term outcomes for both the displaced peoples and those who sought to help (or ignore) them?
• Should other people be obligated to help displaced peoples if they have been excluded from their own country’s universe of obligation? Does it make a difference if you are thinking about this from a nationalist or internationalist perspective?
• Does the reason for displacement make a difference in terms of what the response should be?

You should work to develop evidence-based claims using relevant data, and you should also create counterclaims as well. If your teacher has you research a piece of the debate in a small group, when your group is done, you should come together to craft your whole team’s initial argument. Also, be sure to should nominate one student from each group to represent that particular topic in the debate.

Use the Debate Prep Worksheet to help you prepare for the debate. Don’t forget to review the Debate Format Guide so you are aware of how much time you have for each section of the debate. Also, check out the Debate Rubric as you prepare since this will help you meet all debate criteria. After the debate is finished, you will conduct a self-assessment by filling out the debate rubric based on your own participation and performance. Your teacher will ultimately decide who argued their side more effectively!

In 1935, the Nazi leadership enacted the Nuremberg Laws. These laws placed official restrictions on Jewish people living in Germany. The laws turned Nazi racist ideas into a reality and helped launch the horrors of the Holocaust. This article examines some of the ways that the victorious Allies attempted to punish the Nazis for these acts, while also trying to build a world in which this type of atrocity would never happen again. The Nuremberg Trials, in which former Nazi leaders were tried as war criminals, helped lay the foundations of international human rights law.

The Nuremberg Trials were an effort to bring some sort of justice to Nazi leadership, efforts that are still ongoing today. While these trials set important precedents, they in no way managed to stop human rights abuses and genocide. This article should help contextualize some of the reasons why we still see violations of human rights and genocides around the globe today.

Preview—Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas—Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What is the “paradox of human rights” and what is it about?
2. What were the Nuremberg Trials?
3. Why does the author argue that the Nuremberg Trials were something new?
4. What were the Nuremberg Principles?
5. How did the trials help lay the foundations for the development of human rights in the second half of the twentieth century?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following question:

1. This article describes some important events in the expansion of what many call “the international community”. Considering the community frame narrative for this course, do you think there is such a thing as an “international community”? Why or why not?

The traditional story of the two world wars goes like this: The First World War begins and ends in about four years, there’s a gap of about twenty years, and then the Second World War begins and ends in six years. But what if it makes more sense to study the two world wars and the period in between as a single, connected, 30-year conflict? This article explores some arguments for that view.

This article explores ideas of continuity and change by asking a provocative question: is it worth changing the way we study the period 1914-1945 to look for the things that tie together the two world wars, rather than studying each separately? What might we gain by doing so? It will help you grapple with the Unit Problem as you try to determine what conflicts created the Second World War and what conflicts remained after.

Preview—Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas—Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. How, according to the author, was nationalism an important thread connecting the two world wars?
2. How were empires and colonialism continuities connecting the two world wars?
3. How did the treatment of Germany following the First World War help lead to the Second World War?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. Do you agree with the author’s assertion that we should treat the period 1914-1945 as a “continuous war”? Why or why not?
2. What is the usefulness of breaking out of the normal view of World War I and World War II as two separate wars? How does viewing them as one war help us to understand this period better? How does it limit us?

In this activity, you’ll use your knowledge of claim testing to write supporting statements for claims. Claim testing is a skill that will not only help you decide what to believe, but can help you develop the capacity to convince others of particular arguments. By working on backing claims with supports, you’ll become more skilled at writing argumentative essays and using evidence to support your assertions.

In this claim-testing activity, you are given four claims about global conflict. You are asked to work with these claims in three different ways:

1. Find supporting statements for those claims.
2. Evaluate the strength of the supporting statements provided for those claims.
3. Provide statements that refute (argue against) the claims.

Get into small table groups. Each group should have a complete set of Claim Cards in the middle of their table. Listen for your teacher’s directions for when to start.

Round 1

1. Grab one Claim Card from the center of the table.
2. On the card, write down a statement that supports the claim. You can use prior knowledge or course materials for this.
3. Pass your Claim Card to the person to your right.
4. Write down a statement that supports the claim on the card that you now have. It can’t be the same as any of the supports already written on the card.
5. Repeat the process until each group member has written a supporting statement on each card.
6. Put the Claim Cards back in the center of the table.

Round 2

1. Grab one Claim Card from the pile and stand up.
2. Find at least three other students who have the same claim as you and get into a group with them (if there are more than six people in your group, let your teacher know).
3. Look at all the supporting statements that were written for your claim. Decide which supporting statements are strongest (that is, they best support the claim).
4. Write the strongest supporting statements on the whiteboard so everyone can see them.

Round 3

1. With the same group you were in for Round 2, consider any historical exceptions to your claim. What can you offer to refute the claim?
2. Add at least one refuting statement, what we often refer to as a counterclaim, on the board so everyone can see it.
3. Write both your strongest supporting statements and the exception to the claim as an exit ticket—be sure to explain your reasoning for choosing your supporting statements and refutations. Your teacher may also have you share your statements and counterclaim with the class.

This activity will provide additional evidence to help you respond to the Unit Problem: How were the horrors of the WWII possible and what conflicts did it resolve or leave unresolved? In this activity, you will look back on what you’ve learned during this unit by exploring the geography of the First and Second World Wars. You will examine two thematic maps showing the alliances and casualties in each war. Using these maps, you will evaluate change and continuity over time as well as make some arguments about the causes of the Second World War.

This activity begins with an identification opening in which you will identify 10 countries and their participation in both world wars. Next, you’ll compare two thematic maps showing alliances and casualties in both World War I and World War II, evaluating what political changes and continuities might have been important between the two wars. Finally, you will reflect on your guesses and predictions from the Part 1 activity and write a response to a prompt about the causes of these global conflicts.

Step 1

Individually, identify the countries associated with the numbers on the black-and-white map of the world in 1914 CE and record your answers on the worksheet. You should indicate the name of the country, the alliance it was a part of in World War I, and the alliance it was a part of in World War II.

Step 2

In small groups, examine the thematic maps of the two world wars. You should compare these two maps and provide four examples of change or continuity between the two wars. You might focus on casualties, alliances, or territory lost and gained by the various empires.

Step 3

Now, return to the two thematic maps of the world wars. Review your predictions from the Part 1 mapping activity. Which guesses did you get correct?

Finally, in small groups, you should prepare a short paragraph or bullet list in response to the prompt below.

The peace that followed the First World War helped lay the groundwork for the second. Yet, some of the tensions produced by the transformations of the long nineteenth century continued to play a role in the Second World War. Using the maps you encountered in this unit as evidence, pick one transformation from the long nineteenth century and one outcome of World War I that helped cause World War II.

In this activity, you’ll look at organization and language and style in a student essay to really drive home these essentials of good writing. You’ll identify and improve upon these aspects in the essay to help improve your historical writing skills.

In this activity, you’ll take another look at the Organization and Language and Style rows of the WHP Writing Rubric and will analyze a student essay using the criteria included in the rubric. The essay is in response to the prompt, “Develop an argument that evaluates the most significant causes of the First World War.”

Take out a copy of the WHP Writing Rubric and as needed and review the Language and Style and Organization rows of the rubric.

Once you’ve reviewed these criteria, follow the steps on the Writing – Organization and Language and Style Part 2 worksheet. Be prepared to share your answers with your class.

Unit 7 DBQ: Analyze how and why the Nazi Party rose to power in prewar Germany.

Have the Comparison, CCOT, and Causation tools available (find all resources on the Student Resources page)

This DBQ is another opportunity for you to show how your historical thinking skills and reasoning practices are developing. This will help you become better at making and supporting historical claims and will also help you on standardized tests that ask you to analyze documents in response to a specific prompt.

Comparison, contextualization, sourcing, reading, writing
All DBQs require you to contextualize, source documents, and of course as part of this, read and write.

Day 1

It’s time for another DBQ. The prompt is: Analyze how and why the Nazi Party rose to power in prewar Germany. Start out by using the Question Parsing Tool to help you figure out what this question is really asking so you can write an appropriate response.

Then, take out the DBQ and skim the documents quickly. Pick the thinking tool you want to use to help you analyze the documents (comparison, causation, or CCOT). Then, read each document a bit more closely and write down or underline the information you think you might use in your essay, along with any additional sourcing you have time for. Write your ideas in your chosen tool as you work through the documents.

Next, create a major claim or thesis statement that responds to the prompt. The notes you have taken should help you form a defensible thesis statement.

Finally, it’s time to contextualize. As you likely know, all historical essays require this. If needed, you can use the Contextualization Tool to help you decide what to include.

Day 2

This second day is your writing day. Feel free to use your tools and notes from any prewriting work you completed as you craft your essay response. Make sure you have a copy of the WHP Writing Rubric available to remind you of what is important to include in your essay. And don’t forget to contextualize: Think of the entire time period, not just the time immediately preceding the historical event or process you are writing about. Your teacher will give you a time limit for completing your five- to six-paragraph essay responding to the DBQ.

In order to improve your writing skills, it is important to read examples—both good and bad—written by other people. Reviewing writing samples will help you develop and practice your own skills in order to better understand what makes for a strong essay.

Your teacher will provide sample essays for this unit’s DBQ prompt and provide instructions for how you will use them to refine your writing skills. Whether you’re working with a high-level example or improving on a not-so-great essay, we recommend having the WHP Writing Rubric on hand to help better understand how you can improve your own writing. As you work to identify and improve upon aspects of a sample essay, you’ll also be developing your own historical writing skills!