Critical Thinking/Discussion Questions - Hanna Hamburger

1. During her interview, Hanna states, “There were good people then, too. Not everyone believed what the Nazis told them. The nun at my school refused to allow me to be ridiculed. She protected me a lot.” Given that fewer than ½ of 1% of all non-Jews in Europe chose to engage in hiding and rescuing Jews, what does her statement reveal about bystander behavior?
2. At Hanna’s fifteenth birthday party in 1937, no one came. “I can still see myself all dressed up waiting for my guests,” she recalls. Given the series of laws passed by the Nazis between 1933 and 1937 that systematically stripped away all rights from Jewish citizens in Germany, what can you infer about the power of these laws shaping the attitudes of Hanna’s peers and classmates that were invited to her party.

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