All,
Following on from today’s lesson, for prep I would like you to do the following.
Explore the following BBC web pages below.
- This news report (here).
- This account of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz II-Birkenau (here).
- The audio slideshow from the Auschwitz Museum explaining the problems of preserving the ageing and crumbling 191-hectare site, with limited funds (here).
- Two experts on Auschwitz arguing for and against the idea that the former Nazi death camp should be allowed to crumble away (here)
- Here Patrick Ney describes “tourist” behaviour when he visited Auschwitz in 2012.
Then post which view you agree with more (and why) below. One perfect paragraph please. A possible start to your paragraph might be…
I believe that Auschwitz should be allowed to crumble / be maintained because…
Develop your answer with evidence and connectives. Please note, for your post to appear, I will need to approve it – so don’t worry it is does not show up straight away.
Mr Kydd
I believe that Auschwitz should be maintained because as the saying goes, “Those that forget the past are condemned to repeat it”. If we let Auschwitz crumble then once all the survivors are gone we will slowly start to forget the horrible ordeal that took place at Auschwitz.
In my opinion, Auschwitz should be kept open,
As time goes by, we will start to forget all the unbelievable things that happened there, and once all the survivors are gone, there will be no one left to tell the story.
Further more, Auschwitz helps to understand the proportions and the numbers of the people who had been murdered by showing the shoes they used to wear and hair.
Auschwitz is a warning for future generations, helping to prevent such horrible events from happening again.
I believe that Auschwitz should be maintained because if it’s not we will lose one of the most important artefacts of the Second World War. This would also be a massive loss because millions of people go there every year to reflect and learn. Furthermore if we let Auschwitz crumble when the all the survivors pass away then what are the victims family’s going to visit to remember their relatives. Another negative for letting it crumble is that we lose a piece of evidence to prove that the holocaust did happen to non-believers. My final reason is that we never want to forget the the horrible things that took place there and the 1.1 million people who died there.
I believe auschwitz should be kept open because I think it is important that we look at how cruel humans can be to each other for no proper reason, and how we can learn from it. I also believe that we should be able to have a place to remember all the people who died in the holocaust.
I believe that Auschwitz should be allowed to crumble. I am not very confident with this answer as i have two answers with different reasons but im leaning more to this point. If we want to live in a world where the Holocaust is completely forgotten about then why would we keep the killing machine there?! I think it still affects people now and I personally think that it’s mental torture to think that somewhere where your grandad was victimised and murdered is being treated with respect. It’s cruel and evil. The holocaust is something that should be put into the past and forgotten about. Although, I think that people still need to be educated in schools over what happend during this period. Keeping Auschwitz in good condition will be a good school trip for history students to get a better understanding of what went on back then. People need to understand what happend because people could use this as a racist comment etc. There is also the question of what would be built if it was knocked down. No one would want to live there knowing where it was. In conclusion, i am pretty equal with my answer and i slightly agree more that we should allow it to crumble because although it is good to educate people and no one knows what would replace it i think it is unfair on the people involved.
I believe that Auschwitz should be aloud to keep open as I think it could be beneficial that we look at how cruel and unkind humans can really be and so we can learn from these mistakes so that it doesn’t happen again. I also think that we should be able to have a memorial place of which we can remember all those who died for just being Jews or people who wanted to save someone live.
I believe that Auschwitz should be maintained because this incident reminds us how many Jews have sacrificed their lives, and we should remember them well, plus those former prisoners fought to secure its future as a permanent memorial to those who did not survive, and a warning to future generations.
I belive that Auschwitz should be maintained because we need to remember every single one of the Jews that died as a result of it. I feel that if Auschwitz is left to crumble, the memories of them will crumble with it. We need to recognize that as humans we have been horrifically mean and cruel and we need to learn from it. No one should ever forget or think that what happened didn’t. That’s why I think Auschwitz should be maintained.
I believe that Auschwitz should not be allowed to crumble as it is a massive tourist attraction and is a huge place for school trips for the older years. Auschwitz shouldn’t be allowed to crumble because in the future, scientists could uncover secrets and things they didn’t know already that relate to Auschwitz. Therefore, without the physical building itself they may never prove or even find anything more about the horrors of Nazi Germany. Although many people died at Auschwitz in an illegal and inhumane way it still reminds people today of the horror and lets people not have a clouded view on history such as whether it actually happened. If we let it crumble, we will be insulting the obelisk who want to educate the people of the world present. When and if Auschwitz is knocked down what will replace its space? You can’t build anything without having a reminder that 1.1 million humans died on this soil that you are walking on.
GT
I believe that Auschwitz should be maintained because, I think that now all the world know about all the history that happened and know we are studying at school. Also I think that because now it exist survivors they tell people their stories and also to their families but when the survivors died and they are all gone the future population is not going to know about it for example 20 years after. In addition that I think that Auschwitz should be maintained so we all can remember and our children and grandchildren will tell their family and so on successively like a string. Finally I think that people remember better thing if they are physically and you can go to the museums and visit them than see the buildings in pictures.