The Tour for Humanity was in Hamilton at a high school today, where Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) Educator Elena was working with Grades 10-12 students (3 workshops of The Canadian Experience, and 1 of Global Perspectives on Genocide). All of the workshops went very well and the Grade 10 history teacher who brought most of the groups was thrilled with the program. Because the second semester had just started, the students hadn’t studied World War II yet so the workshop served as a good introduction to the Holocaust as a fundamental part of the war. 

One student wanted to know why Japan became an ally of Germany and this led to a conversation about some of the parallels that exist between the Nazi’s ideas about German racial superiority and Japan’s belief that they were superior to all other Asian people. Elena explained that before Japan officially joined World War II, they had already invaded China and committed atrocities against civilians there. This struck a chord with one student who was born in the Philippines. She said that she heard about this growing up and that her parents told her about some of the horrible things done during the war. This was actually a good segue into our conversation about Japanese Internment camps during the war and the fact that it was easy to vilify Japanese people as monstrous when there were constant news reports about the violence of the Japanese army in Asia in addition to the bombing of Pearl Harbour.