Anne Frank

The deliberate and systematic ostracism or destruction of an ethnic, religious or national group can have profound physical and psychological effects upon a member of that group. Many victims of this evil regardless of their nationality, country of origin, religion, race, or social class share a common bond with others who have suffered from ethic cleansing, genocide, internment, self-imposed concealment, and exile. At the same time, there may be differences in each person’s reaction and suffering. Some victims experience physical wounds and even death, while others suffer from psychological trauma either for a time or the rest of their lives

Your assignment is to compare and contrast the similarities and differences of Anne Frank’s experiences to that of a victim of similar abuse from another part of the world.

Read the pages indicated in the selected book.
Research the background and/or circumstances that caused his/her experiences.
Note 3 similarities and 3 differences of the victim’s experience and contrast it to Anne Frank’s life and times.
Write a three page paper that carefully weaves in the comparisons and contrasts.
Give a 1 minute oral presentation of the paper to the class.

Day 2 Research background and begin addressing the similarities and differences.

The first paragraph of the paper must contain no more than four sentences that tells the reader the who, what, where, when, and how of the victim’s situation. If, for example, you are comparing and contrasting the experiences of several boys from Sudan, Africa you need to write that they were victims of a Civil War involving the ethnic cleansing of various tribes who were not Arabs, including the Dinka tribe, for the purpose of claiming their lands and natural resources.
Remember that the words compare and contrast have different definitions: Refer to these definitions whenever you are feeling confused or off track with the assignment:

Comparison: “is the act of examining your character and/or qualities especially in order to discover resemblances or differences.”

Contrast: “is the act of distinguishing by comparing differences and similarities against something. Example: Once you have noted the 3 similarities and 3 differences of your selected work, you need to contrast them to the experiences that Anne Frank talks about in her diary.

Country of origin, similar war, literary format, ethnic group, race, nationality, social class, gender, age group, economic circumstances, concealment, fear of starvation, fear of discovery, fear of death, physical challenges, physical suffering, psychological suffering, scapegoating, solace in religion, ingenuity in the face of overwhelming odds against success, loss of friends and family members, no opportunity for education, little hope in the future, ability to retain individual faith…

Background: 1980s and current Sudanese Civil War involving ethnic cleansing by Sudanese Arabs of members of the Dinka and other non-Arab tribes for the purpose of claiming their lands and resources.

Background: From 1975 to 1979 through execution, starvation, disease and forced labor the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country’s population.

Background: World War II 1939-1945 in the Polish part of the Ukraine. A large extended Jewish family and several other families decide to hide for 205 days, 70 feet down, in a cave to outwit the Germans bent on destroying them.

Background: In 1994 the Tutsi and Hutu tribes in Rwanda, Africa killed each other in a civil war that took the lives of 800,000 people.

Background: World War II 1939-1945 -- Contains the diary entries of five teenagers who died in German concentration camps.

Background: In March 2003, a United States organized coalition invaded Iraq for a second time to restore “international peace and security to the region.” They destroyed the infrastructure of Iraq, forcing more than 2 million Iraqis to flee to neighboring Middle Eastern countries and even more to huddle in their homes in fear of internecine violence.

Background: Although six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, there were also 500,000 Gypsies who were sent to concentration camps all over Europe and slaughtered. Instead of the letter “J” sewn on their clothing, they were forced to sew on the letter “Z” (Zigneur for Gypsy) on theirs. They were also herded into the Jewish ghettos and shipped to camps for forced labor and eventual extermination.

Background: When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Yoshiko and her family along with 120,000 West Coast Japanese Americans had only 24 hours to gather some meager belongings to board trains and other transport to internment camps throughout the US.

Background: In the midst of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire began to disintegrate. During the “Yong Turks” Movement of 1915-1917, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians were expelled from their ancestral homes. Many died en route or were massacred.

10. Not Even My Name: From a Death March in Turkey to a New Home in America, A Young Girl’s True Story of Genocide and Survival

Background: In 1920 the newly-established country of Turkey (formerly part of the Ottoman Empire) started a campaign of removing minorities. Greek communities living near the Black Sea (“Pontic Greeks”) were forcibly removed and expelled from Turkey.

Background: In 1991, the Republic of Yugoslavia began to break apart as different states within it declared their independence. A civil war followed that ended with the break-up of Yugoslavia.

Background: In 1838 the United States Government began a series of removals of Native American communities to reservations in the West. The “Trail of Tears” was the forced relocation of the Cherokee Indian tribe from the southeastern U.S. to a reservation in Oklahoma. An estimated 4,000 people perished during the forced march.

Background: The Soviet Union ran a vast system of forced labor camps in Siberia. Individuals determined to be enemies of the state were routinely rounded up and exiled to these remote camps (“gulags”) to labor in mines and other industries for years at a time.

Background: During World War II, Poland became a battleground between invading armies. Poland was the scene of attacks, occupations, and counter-attacks: first the Nazis came, then Soviet Russia, and then the Nazis again.

Background: In 1966, China’s president Mao Zedong inaugurated the “Cultural Revolution.” This was a time of political upheaval, when intellectuals were under suspicion and traditional values were under siege. Urban people were sent to remote villages on the countryside to be “re-educated” on the peasant principles of the Revolution.

Background: From 1980-1992 the country of El Salvador was destroyed by a civil war fought between army troops and guerilla rebels. Over 75,000 Salvadorans died, and thousands were kidnapped and exiled. The war was characterized by massacres by government troops, death squads, and fleeing refugees.

Background: A collection of diaries written by European youth ages 12 to 22 translated from Polish, Czech, German, Yiddish, Romanian, Hungarian, and French. The diaries are written by Jewish children during the Holocaust.

Background: In 1931 the government of Australia issued an edict proclaiming black aboriginal children and those of mixed marriages were to be gathered up by whites and taken to settlements to be assimilated. Children were taken from their homes and families and prohibited from speaking their native languages in order to be educated so they could become culturally “white.”

Background: Takes place in World War II in Poland. A zookeeper’s wife conceals approximately 300 Jewish refugees and Resistance activists sometimes in the cages that used to be occupied by the animals.

Background: Translated from the Yiddish, Glatstein’s poetry focuses on World War II, the Holocaust, God, Judaism and Christianity.

Background: A collection of poems on war from combatants and civilians, from ancient times until the war in the Balkans.

21. I-Movie question for one student. Students will have had previous experience with making an I-Movie from their exposure in David Sahr’s November 2007 class assignment.

Compare the backgrounds, similarities and differences of pre-selected scenes from the movie The Diary of Anne Frank and either The Trail of Tears or Rabbit Proof Fence.