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CHAPTER 7: CANADA AND WORLD WAR II

INTERNET FOCUS QUESTIONS:

Communities: Local, National, and Global

  • What were some of the significant historical events related to the Holocaust?
  • What were Canada's military contributions during World War II?
  • What role did Canada play in the Allied victories of World War II?
  • How did Canadians of various ethno-cultural backgrounds, individually and as communities, contribute at home and overseas to the war effort during World War II?

Change and Continuity

  • How has the experience and memory of the Holocaust helped shape Canada's role as a world leader in human rights?


ACTIVITIES

CANADIANS GO INTO COMBAT

11.

 

View Internet sites that contain first-hand accounts of German and Allied soldiers' experiences in World War II. Then write two radio news reports on one of the battles of the war; the reports should be from the vantage points of a Canadian and a German soldier.

Tom_Wood

"Convoy under attack" by Tom Wood, #10553, Copyright (c) Canadian War Museum(C.W.M.)

In this activity, you are asked to write and present reports on a single event from the perspective of a German soldier and a Canadian soldier. Write your reports as though you were first a Canadian and then a German war correspondent. Each of these correspondents has interviewed Canadian or German soldiers at the conclusion of one of the battles of the war. Set up your interview questions so that they elicit responses in the soldiers' own words. You could use actual primary source material (soldiers' accounts) from the Internet research sites listed below.

Use the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions to structure your report. You will also need to create effective leads to catch and engage your radio listeners' attention. Remember that, at the time of this battle, you don't know the final outcome of the war. As you prepare your reports, keep in mind that they will be censored by your military command before they go "on air." (You will be filing your report back to your home country.) How might military censorship affect your reports?

Review the following sections of Canada: Our Century, Our Story: Canadians Go into Combat (pages 179-181) and The Plan to End the War: Operation Overlord (starting on page 190). To help you focus your research and the drafting and revision of your reports, see the following Historian at Work features: History, Whose History? (page 11) and Asking the Right Questions (page 113).

Visit the following websites to help you research your topic and prepare your two radio news reports:

  • Skim the different sections of The Valour and the Horror website ("In Desperate Battle: Normandy, 1944"; "Bomber Command: Death by Moonlight"; and "A Savage Christmas: The Fall of Hong Kong") before deciding which battle you will report on; then go back and research in detail once you have made your decision.
  • Review the index for World War II pages at The World Wars through Canadian Eyes: Courage Remembered website (a SchoolNet Digital Collections site), and then view the sections of the site that pertain to the battle on which you have chosen to report.
  • Read the pages on The Veterans which contain primary source material.
  • Be sure to view the paintings by the war artists of World War II to get a visual sense of the experience of the battlefields.

Use the following questions to help you focus your research:

  • Who was involved in the battle (for example, which troops, divisions, individuals)?
  • Where did the battle take place? What was the significance of this location?
  • What was the cause of this battle? Why did it take place? What was the outcome of the battle? What will likely be the consequences of this victory or defeat?
  • When did the battle take place? What is the significance of this date in relationship to other events of this stage of the war?
  • Why did this battle take place? What chain of cause and effect led up to this particular battle? Why did the battle end as it did?
  • How was the battle lost or won? How might the results of this battle affect the final outcome of the war?

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THE HOLOCAUST

12.

 

Visit the Yad Vashem ("Everlasting Name") Internet virtual museum in Israel, and write a personal essay explaining how such Holocaust memorials help shape attitudes towards human rights.


Holocaust

The opening page of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum website contains the following quotation: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial ... that shall not be cut off" (Isaiah, 56:5). Yad Vashem is "the monument of a nation's grief." The museum is also intended to serve as "a warning to all mankind regarding the dangers which stem from hatred based on ideology and the abrogation of human values and morality."

Review, in Canada: Our Century, Our Story, The Holocaust (pages 198-201) and the Flashpoint features The Voyage of the SS St. Louis, 1939 (pages 160-161) and War Crime Trials: From Nuremberg to Kosovo (pages 202-203). View the different sections of the Yad Vashem website and the other recommended Holocaust Internet sites listed below. Since you will be writing a personal essay on how such memorials shape your own attitude towards human rights, record your personal responses as you view these sites.

Use the following questions to keep you focused on your purpose:

  • What is the message of the images and personal accounts presented at these Holocaust memorial websites?
  • What does the term everlasting name mean in relation to these memorial sites? Why is it important to name the victims of the Holocaust?
  • Why is it essential to us that we never forget these events and these people? Why is remembrance so important? Why is education about the Holocaust necessary?
  • How did this genocide come about? Why did it happen? What is racism? How does it lead to genocide?
  • What can be done to prevent future genocides?
  • How does remembering the Holocaust influence my own view of, and commitment to, human rights for all people?
  • What was my attitude towards genocide before viewing the memorial websites? How has my attitude changed or intensified?

Visit the following websites to prepare to write your essay:

 

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