The Tour for Humanity wrapped up its second day at Georgian College today. Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) Educator Elena worked with 4 groups of students (and teachers/staff at the college - lots of visitors!), all of whom sat in on our Global Perspectives on Genocide program. We were also lucky to have a long visit from the Dean of Georgian College’s Orillia Campus, Stephanie Dimech along with Georgian College staff member Steve MacDonald, the professor who coordinated the Tour for Humanity visit. Steve is a great supporter of the Tour and brings all of his human rights classes on board. Elena also worked with students in the Child and Youth Development Program yesterday afternoon. 

Elena covered a lot of ground in each workshop, beginning with the Never Again Holocaust video and discussion of the post-war period and its impact on our modern understanding of human rights and genocide before moving into genocides that have occurred since the Holocaust, including Cambodia in the 1970s and Rwanda in 1994. As usual, there were a couple of questions about Hitler, including one student who had heard Hitler was a homosexual and was attracted to men with blonde hair and blue eyes, explaining his obsession with this particular look. Elena said that it’s hard to speculate about Hitler’s sexuality and he certainly wasn’t openly involved in any same-sex relationships. He did have a series of relations with women who were decades younger than he was. Even so, one of Hitler’s early allies in the Nazi regime was a fascinating and disturbing character named Ernst Rohm. Rohm was the leader of the SA (the brown shirts) and was known for his violence and commitment to Nazism. He was also openly homosexual and had many relationships with various SA members. Hitler didn’t seem to care at all about Rohm’s sexuality. In fact, Rohm was killed during the Night of the Long Knives (the Nazi purge of the SA due to the political danger posed by their violent/illegal methods). 

Elena also spent time on the concept of cultural genocide in the Canadian context and watched an excerpt about life and death in the residential school system.