November 3

Social 20-1

We watched some excerpts today from "Schindler's List" to help illustrate life in the ghetto and the concentration camps. We also started talking about the aftermath of WWII in Europe and the trial of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. We watched a short video on the war crimes trials at Nuremberg and I also gave you a handout with all the defendants and the results of the Nuremberg trial. Tomorrow, we'll be moving on to look at the end of WWII in the Pacific.

Social 30-1

I finished delivering a PowerPoint presentation today called "The Origins of the Cold War", which I have already sent to you. Make sure that you read the other handouts that I gave you on the Cold War today. I know that I gave them out at the end of the period, but they are important. The handout that covers the WWII conferences and agreements is especially valuable in my opinion. I would like you to go to the World War II Behind Closed Doors website tonight, and read the sections on the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference. This is an excellent site, with tons of information, maps, video clips, timelines and archival footage and re-enactments as well. You do need to really make sure that you understand the Yalta Agreements and the Potsdam Declaration (among other things) and this is a great site to do this. Episode 3 is the one that contains most of the information that you would need to read and watch. There's a great little video clip on this website called "Stalin's Distrust of the West" that might help you see WWII from the Soviet perspective and why the Soviets might wish to extend control over Eastern Europe and be so distrustful of their wartime allies. You can find this video clip in Episode 3 (Dividing the World), scroll down and click on the video clip on the right called "Stalin's Distrust of the West". It's a short little clip, but you'll get the idea. We also watched a couple of videos from the BBC 20th Century History series called "The Road to Berlin" (last few years of WWII) and "Cold War Confrontation". We'll continue our look at the Cold War tomorrow.