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A Commandant’s View

in
  • Antisemitism
  • Genocide
  • Holocaust and Human Behavior
  • We and They

From Facing History and Ourselves:
Holocaust and Human Behavior, Chapter 7



In an interview with journalist Gitta Sereny after his arrest in Brazil in 1971 and subsequent trial, Franz Stangl, the commandant of the death camp at Sobibor and later at Treblinka, responded to questions.

“You’ve been telling me about your routines,” I said to him. “But how did you feel? Was there anything you enjoyed, you felt good about?”

Connections: 
  • How did Stangl view his role in the death camps? How much power did he think he had? 
  • Elie Wiesel has described the process in which the Nazis reduced a person to a prisoner; the prisoner to a number; and the number to an ash, which  was itself dispersed. To what extent does Stangl’s account explain that process?
  • In thinking about ways of preventing another Holocaust, what can be learned from the words of perpetrators like Stangl?
Notes: 

1Gitta Sereny, Into That Darkness (Pan Books, 1977), 200-202.

Related Facing History Resources: 
Holocaust and Human Behavior

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02/25/2010

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Facing History Students Headed to The White House

02/08/2010

Facing History and Ourselves teacher Joe Lobozzo from Lakewood High School in Cleveland and one of his students were interviewed on WKYC-TV about their upcoming trip to Washington, D.C. Facing History partnered with The GRAMMY Museum to bring students from across the United States to The White House to participate in a series of education programming about the music of the civil rights movement. Read more.

Teaching The Reckoning

02/05/2010

Teaching The Reckoning Facing History and Ourselves has developed a new resource, Teaching The Reckoning, to accompany the documentary film, The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court.

Facing History on NPR's Sound of Ideas

01/19/2010

Facing History and Ourselves' Cleveland Director Mark Swaim-Fox, was featured on NPR's Sound of Ideas to talk about Choosing to Participate, Facing History's multimedia exhibition on display in Cleveland at the Western Reserve Historical Society until February 26, 2010. The exhibit is part of Facing History’s multifaceted educational and civic initiative that focuses on civic choices—the decisions people make about themselves and others in their community, nation, and world.

The Reckoning (modules)

Submitted by EvaRadding on February 3, 2010 - 9:58pm
in
  • Genocide
  • Human Rights
  • Justice
  • Judgment, Memory & Legacy
  • Africa [1950 - present]
  • World [Contemporary]

Ever since the Nuremberg Trials, individuals around the world have imagined how an international judicial body could be used to prevent genocide, crimes against humanity, and other violations of civil and human rights. In 2002, more than 100 nations made this vision a reality with the establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The Tulsa Lynching of 1921

Submitted by TracyOBrien on February 3, 2010 - 4:58pm
in
  • Racism
  • Violence and Violence Prevention
  • We and They
  • Race and Membership
  • United States [1890-1933]

78 minutes

Source: Barrister Productions

A Portrait of Maya Angelou

Submitted by EvaRadding on February 3, 2010 - 4:40pm
in
  • Arts and Literature
  • Identity
  • Membership in Society
  • Racism
  • Women's History
  • The Individual and Society
  • We and They
  • United States [1933-1945]
  • United States [1946-1975]
  • United States [1976-present]

58 minutes
Source: Social Studies School Services

Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement

Submitted by TracyOBrien on February 1, 2010 - 7:59pm
in
  • Eugenics
  • Racism
  • Science and Medical Ethics
  • The Individual and Society
  • We and They
  • Race and Membership
  • Judgment, Memory & Legacy
  • United States [1890-1933]
  • United States [1933-1945]

Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement focuses on a time in the early 1900s when many people believed that some "races," classes, and individuals were superior to others. They used a new branch of scientific inquiry known as eugenics to justify their prejudices and advocate programs and policies aimed at solving the nation's problems by ridding society of "inferior racial traits."

 

 

The Jews of Poland

Submitted by TracyOBrien on February 1, 2010 - 7:54pm
in
  • Antisemitism
  • Genocide
  • Identity
  • Membership in Society
  • Jews of Poland
  • Eastern Europe [1919-1939]
  • Eastern Europe [1939-1945]

Facing History and Ourselves: The Jews of Poland considers the ways Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe responded to questions of identity, membership, and difference at various times in their shared history.

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