1302 Topic 9: The White Cliffs of Dover: WWII

Topic 9 - World War II

Required reading:
"Edward R. Murrow: Inventing Broadcast Journalism," Mark Bernstein, Essay 30, Flyover
"Women on the Home Front," Judy Barrett Litoff and Dacid c. Smith, Essay 31, Flyover
"A Village Disappeared ," Lilian Takahashi Hoffecker, Essay 33, Flyover
"An Adventure in Prosperity," John Steele Gordon, Essay 34, Flyover

Quiz:

Edward R. Murrow: Inventing Broadcast Journalism

1. How did Murrow perceive the threat of Adolf Hitler?
A. Murrow downplayed Hitler's threat, reasoning that Germany was 4,000 miles away.
B. To Murrow, Hitler was a threat to all of civilization.
C. Murrow was cautious towards Hitler, unwilling to ruffle the "powers that be."
D. Murrow did not know Hitler personally, and refused to comment on his politics.

2. Edward R. Murrow made his reputation by
A. reporting on the German attack on England during WW II.
B. exposing corruption of the Roosevelt Administration during the Depression.
C. founding and building the CBS network news operation.
D. exposing the threat posed by the Japanese before Pearl Harbor.

3. Murrow's influence lived on through
A. his many charitable activities.
B. the rise of CBS and other television networks.
C. his influence upon a generation of newsmen.
D. the defeat of Hitler and the Nazi's in WW II.

4. Which of the following best describes Londoner's during Hitler's bombings?
A. panicked, worried, and grief-stricken.
B. ambivalent, even joyous, carefree.
C. unflappable, dogged, quirky.
D. injured, dead, or buried.

5. How did Murrow influence American public opinion prior to our entry into WW II?
A. He had over 22 million radio listeners.
B. in part because of his broadcasts, many Americans believed America should come to the aid of the British.
C. He convinced President Roosevelt to declare war on Germany.
D. both a and b.

6. Why wouldn't Murrow go to bomb shelters during the bombings?
A. He was too far away.
B. They were too crowded.
C. He couldn't cover the story.
D. The British didn't let Americans in the shelters.

Women on the Home Front

7. What best describes the women's letters to their loved ones during World War II?
A. artificially upbeat to boost soldiers' morale
B. frankly honest dealing with fears and harsh reality
C. superficial in nature to avoid discussing the war
D. downright depressing with little hope of winning the war

8. What do these letters reveal about the effect World War II had on women?
A. they show a reliance on their departed male counterparts
B. they are ambivalent in tone regarding their freedom
C. they express a sense of self-reliance and confidence
D. they rely upon old notes shared with lovers before they left

9. American women in the workforce ______________ during the war.
A. increased
B. decreased
C. remained the same
D. decreased then increased

10. In the fall of 1945, what does Edith Speert inform her husband that she'll never do again?
A. cook
B. wash and iron
C. raise children
D. mend clothes

11. What topic appeared frequently in the war-time letters?
A. drug abuse
B. public education
C. being drafted
D. financial worries

12. How did farm women's lives change during the war?
A. they sublet their farms to immigrant families
B. they hired laborers to replace their farmer husbands
C. they relied heavily on their children to harvest crops
D. they learned to plant and harvest crops plus drive tractors

13. What was one way women's political sensitivies enlightened during the war?
A. returning back to college
B. visiting local museums
C. hanging maps in their homes
D. going to church every Sunday

14. Who did Rose McClain hope would learn kindness, patience, honesty, and the depth of love... without the tragedy of war?
A. her husband
B. her children
C. her parents
D. her nation

A Village Disappeared

15. Why did many young Japanese come to America in the early 1900's?
A. They were driven out by their Samurai rulers.
B. Constant warfare in Japan made living there untenable.
C. America offered jobs and education.
D. All of these

16. Terminal Island, a community of Japanese immigrants, is located in
A. San Francisco
B. Los Angeles
C. Seattle
D. Honolulu

17. Ms. Hoffecker's grandfather, the focus of this article, made his living by
A. working in a laundry.
B. teaching high school math.
C. fishing.
D. running a restaurant.

18. Nisei were
A. unassimilated Japanese immigrants.
B. first-generation Japanese immigrants.
C. second generation Japanese immigrants.
D. Japanese immigrants marked for deportation.

19. Issei were
A. unassimilated Japanese immigrants.
B. first-generation Japanese immigrants.
C. second generation Japanese immigrants.
D. Japanese immigrants marked for deportation.

20. What changed Ms. Hoffecker's grandfathers' life for good?
A. December 7, 1941
B. His wife and daughter died.
C. He finished his college degree.
D. The Pacific Ocean ran out of tuna.

21. Why was Terminal Island picked by federal authorities for swift action after the attack on Pearl Harbor?
A. Many of the fishermen had boats and shortwave radios.
B. Terminal Island was real close to the naval shipyard.
C. It was solidly Japanese.
D. All of these reasons.

22. President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066
A. ordered the evacuation of all people of Japanese ancestry from the west coast.
B. outlawed Japanese-American young men from serving in the American armed forces.
C. declared war on the Empire of Japan.
D. protected the Japanese settlement of Terminal Island from local violence.

The G.I. Bill: An Adventure in Prosperity

23. What was the original reason for the passage of the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944?
A. to make sure there was enough good housing for returning veterans.
B. to make sure veterans had good health care after they came home.
C. to prevent a huge economic depression once millions of vets returned
D. to make sure veterans had access to higher education.

24. The long-term effect of the G.I. Bill was to
A. usher in generations-long economic prosperity.
B. create a generation of families dependent upon welfare.
C. expand the number of Americans in the middle class.
D. both a and b

25. Prior to WW II, many returning veterans in previous wars were "paid" with
A. land
B. worthless paper money
C. prayers
D. promises

26. Which of the following was NOT a benefit in the G.I. Bill?
A. $500 a year for tuition
B. $50 a month for living expenses
C. $1000 for loans to build a house, or start a business.
D. All of these were benefits for vets.

27. Who was the most opposed to the G.I. Bill?
A. college teachers
B. politicians
C. wives of veterans
D. taxpayers

A: American editorial cartoonists were in abundance after World War One. These cartoonists expressed a variety of opinions on how the world was moving closer to war as the 1930's waned on. Few cartoonists were neutral as you will later see in Dr. Seuss's wartime cartoons. Link to Between the Wars: Editorial cartoons and answer the following question for each cartoon What is the editorial cartoonist"s message and these specific questions:

In Interrupting the Ceremony (1919), who is getting married? Who does the bride represent? the groom? Who is interrupting the ceremony? Why is the ceremony interrupted?

In The Accuser (1919/1920), who was murdered? Who is the murderer? What is the role of humanity?

Who has gone on The Road Trip to the Disarmament Conference (1920's)? What is happening in the world regarding militarism? Who was obeying the peace treaties? Who wasn't?

Who is the youth in Come on in... (1936)? Who was his Daddy? How can war be both appealing and gross at the same time? What is on the "Follies" sign?

Axis (Germany and Italy) Takeovers in Europe (1936-1939). How did the map of Europe change over this short time?

In Consultation (1938), who is the "patient"? Who are the surgeons? How much consulting occurred before the operation? Why would the patient be carved up?

Who are Frankie and Johnnie? Why can't Frankie come out and play with Johnnie? What might they play if Frankie could cross the street?

Who is the Tough Customer Drunk with Power? Who is his cohort? Who is the bartender? Why is he frightened?

What happened in 1939 in "We Told You It Wouldn't Work!"? What is Uncle Sam sitting on? Why are those around Uncle Sam gloating?

Who is The Isolationist (1940)? What is an isolationist? How might an isolationist view the mounting troubles in Europe and Asia in the 1930's?

How did American perspectives change in Just What They Accomplished by the Attack on Pearl Harbor? What is being produced in the cartoon? Who attacked Pearl Harbor? How might the isolationist respond to the attack?

B: After viewing the site: To Undo a Mistake is Always Harder Than Not to Create One Originally: -

Why were certain Americans' civil liberties suspended during World War II?
What factors contributed to the nation's xenophobia toward these Americans?
How did First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt view the situation after visiting the Gila River Relocation Center in Arizona in 1943 in response to charges that the Japanese American evacuees there were being "coddled"?
What factors might contribute to such a situation occurring again in the United States?

See more photos of life in WWII internment camps, see this site by the University of California Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives.

C: For those students that select this section, it will count as all three assignments required for this topic.

Take a virtual tour of the Holocaust Learning Center.

From that website, read the following items in this order. Create a question for each numbered section and then answer it. (For example for Antisemitism- What factors contributed to nineteenth century xenophobia against German Jews? Intense nationalism contributed to anti-semitism. Jews were falsely denounced as disloyal citizens. The notion of the Jew as "non-German" was "legitimized" by German philosophers, scholars, and artists who viewed the Jewish spirit as alien to Germandom. Adolph Hitler would later reinforce such ideas in his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle).)

"I shall never forget how I was roused one night be the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was read to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At the moment I became intensely conscious of the fact thet no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him."

-Victor E. Frankl, an Auschwitz survivor (from Man's Search for Meaning, 1963)

Here now is a different answer: "Imagine that every single word in the Torah represents the name of a Jew killed during the Holocaust. Unlike the Torah which by tradition is read by Jews everywhere from beginning to end during one full year, this Holy Book of Names will take seventy-five years to read just once.
And yet another answer: "Imagine a great multitude of people forming a line, each given just one meter of space. The line starts in Jerusalem, leading from among the olive trees of the Judean hills down to the citrus groves of the Sharon, reaching the Mediterranean, entering the sea, passing by the islands of Cyprus and Crete, reaching the Peloponnesus, crossing all of ancient Greece, re-entering the sea westward, emerging out near ancient Rome, this endless line of Jews, young and old, standing there, given just one meter each, turning now north to cross the Alps and reaching what was the German Reich, still compact, still packed, the line finally finding its way to Auschwitz, and there, impossible to believe, turns around and winds its way through bloody Europe all the way back to Jerusalem. The line has now formed a closed circle of peop1e. Their number - six million.

HOLOCAUST (Heb., sho'ah). The word "holocaust" is derived from the Greek holokauston, which originally meant a sacrifice totally burned by fire; it was used in the translation of I Samuel 7:9, "a burnt offering to God." In the course of time it came to. be used to describe slaughter on a general or large scale, and, especially, various forms of the destruction of masses of human beings. In the 1950s the term came to be applied primarily to the destruction of the Jews of Europe under the Nazi regime, and it is also employed in describing the annihilation of other groups of people in World War II. The mass extermination of Jews has become the archetype of GENOCIDE, and the terms sho'ah and "holocaust" have become linked to the attempt by the Nazi German state to destroy European Jewry during World War II.

The use of the Hebrew word sho'ah to denote the destruction of Jews in Europe during the war appeared for the first time in the booklet Sho'at Yehudei Polin (The Holocaust of the Jews of Poland), published by the United Aid Committee for the Jews of Poland, in Jerusalem in 1940. The booklet contains reports and articles on the persecution of Jews in eastern Europe from the beginning of the war, written or verbally reported by eyewitnesses, among them several leaders of Polish Jewry. Up to the spring of 1942, however, the term was rarely used. The Hebrew term that was first used, spontaneously, was hurban (lit., "destruction"), similar in meaning to "catastrophe," with its historical Jewish meaning deriving from the destruction of the Temple. It was only when leaders of the Zionist movement and writers and thinkers in Palestine began to express themselves on the destruction of European Jewry that the Hebrew term sho'ah became widely used. It was still far from being in general use, even after the November 1942 declaration of the Jewish Agency that a sho'ah was taking place. One of the first to use the term in the historical perspective was the Jerusalem historian BenZion Dinur (Dinaburg), who, in the spring of 1942, stated that the Holocaust was a "catastrophe" that symbolized the unique situation of the Jewish people among the nations of the world.

Definition from the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, volume 2 from Macmillan Publishing

D: View Charlie Chaplin's film The Great Dictator. Read the historical background on the film. The Great Dictator was Charlie Chaplin's debut talkie film. It premiered in 1941 when Europe was already at war. (World War Two began in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland; England and France immediately declared war on the Third Reich.) America was still proclaiming it's neutrality until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

What was Charlie Chaplin telling his audience about the Axis Powers (Germany and Italy in particular)? Why would he portray the Nazis and especially Adolph Hitler in such a comic way? (Would an American film director do the same with Osama Bin Laden today?) Research the Internet and find a review of how The Great Dictator was received by Americans at the time. (favorably?) Was Chaplin telling his audience what they already knew- that The Fuhrer was set on world domination? How did you like the film?