Activity 1

As German armies moved eastward, Nazi ideology often confronted the more local nationalism of conquered or allied peoples. When Germany invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, it entered a region with a long history of ethnic hatred and violent nationalism. How did all-encompassing Nazi racial ideology interact with the nationalist sentiments of the South Slavs? Consider the example of the Holocaust Era in Croatia. When you arrive at the main page, enter the Web site and then click on the "HISTORY" link. Read each brief section of this history; make sure to scroll through the historical timeline and to watch the short accompanying videos (there is no audio). When you finish, take a look at the following brief documents: Telegram to Mussolini from Ante Pavelic, Archbishop Stepinac's Pastoral Letter, Archbishop Saric on his Ustase friends, and NDH Decree No. 76. How did Yugoslavia try to stave off German invasion? How did Germany and its allies partition Yugoslavia? Who were the Ustaša, and who was their leader? Where were they located, and how did they come to and retain power? How did their ideology resemble and differ from that of the Nazis? What peoples did the Ustaša target, and how did they deal with them? What was Jasenovac?

Activity 2

Not long after the declaration of war on Japan, the U. S. government began to take measures against Japanese Americans. These measures culminated with Executive Order 9066, in which President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the internment of Japanese Americans. As a result, over 100,000 Japanese Americans were confined in camps located in isolated areas of the West and Southwest. To learn more about how this policy developed, take a look at this Chronology of the Japanese American Internment. Now consider the politics of the internment policy, giving special attention to Attorney General Francis Biddle's remarks to Roosevelt on February 17, 1942, and a memo of February 2, 1942 from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to the Attorney General. Read as well the comments by Tom Clark, John L. DeWitt, Harold Ickes, Franklin Roosevelt, and Henry L. Stimson. The most famous of the internment camps was the Manzanar Relocation Center located in the southern California desert. Take a virtual tour of the existing site. Finally, examine the photographs of the Japanese internment taken by Dorothea Lange, and the pictures of Manzanar taken by Ansel Adams. Why did the federal government first restrict and then inter Japanese Americans? Do you think internment was justified? What was life like for Japanese Americans in Manzanar? How did they try to make comfortable, familiar lives for themselves? Recently some former inmates of the internment camps were paid reparations by the federal government? Do you think such reparations are appropriate? Why or why not?