Critical Thinking/Discussion Questions - Frieda Weinreich

  1. Frieda described the difference between World War I and World War II: “So, it was a different war, it was a war against Jews.  Besides [the fact that] you had the war going on between countries, it was a war against Jews. ”The definition of war is “a state of armed conflict between nations or parts of a state.”  Discuss whether you agree with Frieda’s statement or not, and give evidence based on what you hear in the film and other sources. If not a war, what word better describes what happened to the Jews in German-occupied territory?
  2. Frieda had five brothers and sisters, loving parents, and a home in which she felt safe. Just months after her fifteenth birthday, the security she had known was gone. The war broke out and the Germans came to Lódz and began beating people up she recalls. Synagogues were burned down; schools for Jewish children were destroyed. Why do you think the Nazis deliberately targeted places of worship for destruction? What is physically and emotionally lost when a place of worship is destroyed?