[sl] Third meeting with the U.S. Holocaust Museum
In today's program, we set the ambitious goal of picking ONE topic, based on what the youth have learned in the Ambassador program, to educator others about within Second Life.
The first thing we did was brainstorm a list of what they wanted people to know about the following facts, issues, and themes related to the Holocaust:
- The large number and different types of ghettos and camps (hundreds) and six killing centers.
- Lidice as a symbol of the danger and difficulty of resistance as well as brutality of the perpetrators.
- The role of bystanders.
- Perpetrators --> Doctors / Scientists --> Racism / Race Science --> Medical Experiments and Murder of Handicapped --> Dehumanization of victims.
- Who were the victims and how were they defined as "enemies of the State"
- Immoral Leadership --> Hitler --> Police State
- Moral Leadership --> Raoul Wallenberg --> Rescue & Resistance
- Romania
- Mobile Killing Squads
- Death Marches --> Death with no reason / Single-minded destruction of Final Solution
- Shoes (vast numbers and varying types) --> Deception and Deportation --> "False Sense of Hope" --> Euphemisms and Wannsee Conference
- Genocide / Committee on Conscience
We then brainstormed things that are connected to the above items but are going on today (and that people can do something about):
- Immigration policy
- Arrogance and pride
- Racial Chauvinism (superiority)
- "Me First" power struggles ("Aryan")
- Peer Pressure and Action ("Evian Conference")
- Police brutality
- Stereotypes
- (mis)Education ("Poison Mushroom")
- Terrorism and Stereotypes
We then played a game called What Were They Thinking? to narrow the list down to the following three:
- Genocide
- Dehumanization/ human experiments
- Bystanders
Each team from the game then drew/wrote a presentation about their topic, to persuade the others why theirs should be the one selected.
As David said to the teens to encourage them to brainstorm, "Imagine your dreams are possible."
When we got into the details, the youth raised concerns about the potential graphic nature of the material. Andre summed up the sense of the room: "It should be friendly enough for a Holocaust survivor to experience but informative enough for someone new to learning about the Holocaust."
We discussed the decisions made by the museum to put out a photo of hair rather than the hair itself. Also, in regards to representation - so important for Second Life - the museum does not put people in the shoes of the victim or the perpetrator.
After a rich conversation, we landed on the following topic: a replica of a synagogue - before and after - around Kristallnacht - the night of broken glass. You can see it both inside and outside. And it will be based on a real synagogue We will draw out the themes of genocide, dehumanization and bystanders through this one example. This raises the question: what can people do within the simulation - how do we provide options for people as bystanders and what are the impact of those choices?
