Constructed-Response Practice Set 2

Document A: "By the end of 1942 the Nazi state had committed itself to the industrial murder of Europe's Jews. At Wannsee in January 1942, senior officials coordinated the Final Solution. Extermination camps were built in occupied Poland. Trains brought victims from across Europe to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, and other camps. By 1945 approximately six million Jews had been murdered." Description of the Holocaust

Document B: "Considering that disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and that the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people... All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

Question 1: Based on Document A, describe two characteristics of the Holocaust.

Strong sample answer: "The Holocaust was an industrial, state-organized mass murder. The Nazi state coordinated the Final Solution through bureaucratic planning, built extermination camps in occupied Poland, transported victims from across Europe by train, and killed approximately six million Jews in gas chambers at camps including Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobibor."

Question 2: Based on Document B, explain the relationship between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recent historical events.

Strong sample answer: "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights opens by referencing 'barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind,' a direct reference to the atrocities of WWII, especially the Holocaust. The Declaration responds by proclaiming that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, establishing a universal standard that no government could legitimately violate."

Question 3: Using both documents and your knowledge of social studies, explain how the Holocaust shaped the development of international human rights after WWII.

Strong sample answer: "The Holocaust, described in Document A as the systematic state-organized murder of six million Jews, forced the international community to recognize that the sovereignty of states could not justify mass murder of citizens. The Nuremberg Trials of 1945-1946 established that obedience to orders was not a defense and introduced the legal category of crimes against humanity. The United Nations was founded partly to prevent recurrence. As Document B shows, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 explicitly responded to the 'barbarous acts' of the war by proclaiming universal rights. The Genocide Convention of 1948 made genocide a crime under international law. These institutions and norms, all responses to the Holocaust, became the foundation of modern international human rights law and the basis for later interventions and tribunals responding to genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia."