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Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust
Main Themes of Unit
What is a community? What shapes its identity?
Is it morally permissible to resist authority in certain situations? Is it ever morally obligatory to resist?
Is indifference morally wrong?
What keeps people silent in the face of moral wrongs?
How does knowledge of past wrongs affect our moral responsibilities?
Do we have a moral obligation to help others?
Who has the power to forgive oppressors? Is forgiveness always possible?
What is courage?
Class 1 – Identity and Perception
Key Questions:
What is a community?
How is a community formed? What shapes its identity?
Can I keep my individuality and still belong to a group?
Are communities necessarily exclusive?
How does a community determine who belongs to it? What is our “universe of obligation?”
Film: A Class Divided
A Class Divided is a PBS documentary in which third grade teacher Jane Elliott performs a classroom experiment about discrimination with her students, and then meets with them 15 years later to discuss the effects it had on their lives.
Discussion Circle Questions:
What happened to the children in the class?
Did any part of the film surprise you?
How did Jane Eliot create division in the class in such a short time? What was effective about what she did?
Is the division of a group into “us” and “them” wrong? Always? Sometimes? Under what conditions?
What effect did the “us and them” mentality have on how the children felt about themselves and the other students in the class?
How do you think the classroom community changed after this activity?
Why do you think what Jane Eliot did affected the adults in the film years later?
What makes a group a community? How does a community determine who belongs to it?
Key Questions:
What forces influence people’s moral choices?
Why do people choose to obey orders rather than resist authority?
What keeps people silent in the face of moral wrongs?
Is it ever right to defy authority? Under what circumstances?
How did conformity and obedience affect the way people responded to the Nazis as they consolidated their power?
Film: Obedience (not rated)
This documentary describes the Milgram experiments at Yale, which tested the willingness of several volunteers to obey orders requiring them to inflict pain on others. In actual fact, pain was not being inflicted on the supposed "victim," but the volunteers did not know this. The experiment and the results raise many disturbing questions about the capability of people to obey orders, even immoral ones.
Discussion Circle Questions:
Why do you think so many people “went all the way” in administering shocks?
What encourages obedience? Is it fear of punishment? A desire to please? A need to conform to the group? A belief in authority?
The subject in the experiment is asked, “Why didn’t you stop?” He answers, “He wouldn’t let me.” The person running the experiment said he would accept all responsibility for whatever happened. If the person hooked up to the machine had died or been seriously injured, whose responsibility would it have been?
Did the subject have a choice? What could he have done?
Do you think most people usually obey the person or persons they think is the authority? Why or why not?
When we conform to what is expected of us (by parents, teachers, peers) are we obeying authority?
Is it ever right to defy authority? Why or why not?
Is it ever wrong to obey authority?
Class 3 – Participation in the Holocaust
What is a choiceless choice?
What are the conditions that lead to genocide?
What can we learn from the experiences of Holocaust survivors?
How is it that people living in the same place at the same time could have completely different responses to moral crimes?
How does knowledge of the Holocaust affect our moral responsibilities?
Film: Heil Hitler: Confessions of a Hitler Youth (30 minutes)
In this in-depth interview, Alfons Heck recalls how he became a high-ranking member of the Hitler Youth. He talks about the importance of peer pressure and propaganda to Hitler's ability to recruit eight million German children to participate in the "war effort," some as young as twelve participating in murder.
Discussion Circle Questions:
What motivated Heck to join the Hitler Youth before he was 10? Why do you think many young people were attracted to the Hitler Youth?
Were the Hitler Youth children responsible for their actions? What does it mean to be responsible for what you do?
What could have happened to a parent who tried to keep a child from joining the Hitler Youth? What should the Hitler Youth parents have done?
Is Heck guilty, as he says he is, of mass murder? Why or why not?
What do you think influenced Heck’s loyalty to Hitler and the Nazis? Is loyalty always a virtue?
Heck said that when he became part of the Hitler Youth, he felt as if he belonged to something very important. What did he belong to? What does it mean to “belong” to something? When you belong to something, do you give up some of your individuality?
Do you think Heck can forgive himself for joining the Hitler Youth? Should he? Should he be forgiven? Who has the power to forgive him?
At the end of the film, Heck says that the story of the Hitler Youth could happen again, because “the world has not changed all that much.” Do you think this could happen again? Why or why not? How does knowledge of the Holocaust affect our moral responsibilities today?
Are there groups or group pressures similar to those of the Hitler Youth in today’s society? What are our moral obligations with respect to such groups?
Class 4 – Resistance and Rescuers: Taking A Stand
Key Questions:
Who were rescuers and what motivated them?
Why did some people resist? What did resistance mean during the Holocaust, a time of diminished choices?
What makes someone a hero?
Is forgiveness possible? Who has the power to forgive?
What small moral choices did people make in their everyday lives that led to them becoming either resisters or bystanders?
Film: The Courage to Care (25 minutes)
This film contains profiles of individuals during the Third Reich who helped protect Jews in France, Holland and Poland, and of Jews who were saved by non-Jews. The film raises questions about what motivated rescuers to assist victims in Nazi-occupied Europe and the moral dilemmas non-Jews confronted when deciding to engage in rescue work.
Discussion Circle Questions:
Why did some people become rescuers? What reasons do people in the film give for rescuing Jews?
What makes some people, regardless of risk, act to prevent moral wrongs? Is it always right to act to prevent a moral wrong?
What is courage? What does it mean to say that the rescuers had the “courage to care?”
Can one person make a difference? If so, are we obligated to do so?
In Poland and Lithuania, nine out of ten Jews were killed. In Denmark, nine of ten Jews were saved. What do you think might explain this?
Many people did not help Jews and other persecuted by the Nazis. Do you think they were all indifferent? What is indifference? Is indifference wrong? What might be some other reasons that people did not act to help during the Holocaust?
Can you think of a situation where you or someone you know accepted danger to help someone? If you refuse to help because your life is at risk, is that morally wrong?
In the film, Marion Pritchard says, “We all have memories of times we should have done something and didn’t. And it gets in the way the rest of your life.” What do you think she means? Why would she, a rescuer, think she did less than she could have?
Is it always wrong to be a bystander? Sometimes wrong? Never wrong?
Final Class – Engagement in the World
Key Questions:
What are the consequences of refusing to confront the past?
What is the moral cost of indifference, both personally and collectively?
Are we morally obligated to make a positive difference in the world?
Film: Not in Our Town (25 minutes)
This episode of the PBS television program We Do the Work focuses on Billings, Montana, which came to national attention in 1993 when anti-Semitic hate crimes during Chanukah were met by solidarity from the primarily non-Jewish community, who placed menorahs in their windows to show support for the targeted Jewish population. The community pulled together a broad coalition to demonstrate to the Neo-Nazi groups that hate would not be tolerated in their town.
Discussion Circle Questions:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
What do you think this quote by the philosopher Edmund Burke means? How does it relate to what the people in Billings did?
Do you think people were scared to put up menorahs in their windows? Why or why not? If they were scared, why did they do it anyway?
The sheriff in the film comments that, “These hate groups have learned through experience that if a community doesn’t respond, the community accepts. Silence is acceptance to them.” Does the fact that hate groups see silence as acceptance mean that we are morally obligated to act when acts like the violence in Billings occur? Why or why not?
Can one person make a difference? Can you make a difference? How? (leads to exercise below)
“What would you most like to change about school?”
Have the students individually complete the two-question handout.
Have the students discuss what their answers.
Have the group choose one of the ideas, and brainstorm ways that they could make this change happen.
Handout:
What would you most like to change about school?
What could you do to change this? Give at least two concrete ideas.