Teen Victims Of The Nazi Regime

Though many teens and children did not fully understand what was happening in the early days of Adolf Hitler's reign, they certainly felt the effects of anti-Semitism. Students in Nazified schools were forced to perform the Hitler salute every day, and Jewish students were increasingly persecuted by teachers and peers alike. Friends turned against friends, and there was enormous pressure on young Gentiles to adhere to Hitler's racist policies, as Aryan teens were compelled and eventually forced to join the Hitler Youth or the League of German Girls. Students may find parallels between the pressure to conform in these groups and the echo chambers of social media. These stories of Nazi teens will spur discussion of the recruiting tactics and bonding rituals of racist groups in America today.

Both Jewish and Gentile teens played a key role in resisting the Nazi regime. Students will learn first-hand of the different resistance groups in Nazi Germany, from the anti-authoritarian pranksters Edelweiss Pirates to the communist Baum Group to the anti-fascist Christians of The White Rose. This book also examines resistance outside of Germany. While Western European countries focused on military resistance and rescuing children, resistance in Eastern Europe primarily meant survival, as Aryan-looking Jews became couriers carrying badly-needed food to those in need. Students may be inspired toward high-level ethical discussions of the role children played in certain resistance activities and the impossible choices faced by those embroiled in guerrilla warfare in the forests of Eastern Europe.

During the Nazi regime many children and young people in Europe found their lives uprooted by Nazi policies, resulting in their relocation around the globe. The Young Victims of the Nazi Regime represents the diversity of their experiences, covering a range of non-European perspectives on the Second World War and aspects of memory. This book is unique in that it places the experiences of children and youth in a transnational context, shifting the conversation of displacement and refuge to countries that have remained under-examined in a comparative context. Featuring essays from an international range of experts, this book analyses the key themes in three sections: the migration of children to countries including England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, and Brazil; the experiences of young people who remained in Nazi Europe and became victims of war, displacement and deportation; and finally the challenges of rebuilding lives and representing traumas in the aftermath of war. In its comparisons between Jewish and non-Jewish experiences and how these intersected and diverged, it revisits debates about cultural genocide through the separation of families and communities, as well as contributing new perspectives on forced labour, families and the Holocaust, and Germans as war victims.

Though many teens and children did not fully understand what was happening in the early days of Adolf Hitler's reign, they certainly felt the effects of anti-Semitism. Students in Nazified schools were forced to perform the Hitler salute every day, and Jewish students were increasingly persecuted by teachers and peers alike. Friends turned against friends, and there was enormous pressure on young Gentiles to adhere to Hitler's racist policies, as Aryan teens were compelled and eventually forced to join the Hitler Youth or the League of German Girls. Students may find parallels between the pressure to conform in these groups and the echo chambers of social media. These stories of Nazi teens will spur discussion of the recruiting tactics and bonding rituals of racist groups in America today.

An addition to a well-researched series tells the stories of the youngest victims of the Holocaust, including Jews and other victims of the Nazis, as well as the Hitler Youth, themselves exploited by power-hungry adults.

The true story of nineteen-year-old Jordana Lebowitz’s time at the trial of Oskar Groening, known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz", a man charged with being complicit in the deaths of more than 300,000 Jews. A granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Jordana was still not prepared for what she would see and hear. Listening to Groening’s testimony and to the Holocaust survivors who came to testify against him, Jordana felt the weight of being witness to history – a history that we need to remember now more than ever.

A systematic study of bystanders during the Holoaust which analyzes why individuals, institutions and the international community remained passive while millions died. The work illustrates the terrible consequences of indifference and passivity towards the persecution of others.

"James Tent recounts how these men and women from all over Germany and from all walks of life struggled to survive in an increasingly hostile society, even as their Jewish relatives were disappearing into the East. It draws on extensive interviews with twenty survivors, many of whom were teenagers when Hitler came to power, to show how "half-Jews" coped with conditions on a day-to-day basis, and how the legacy of the hatred they suffered still lingers in their minds."