The Century: America's Time

Reporter Peter Jennings hosts this important series that chronicles the events and experiences of America in the twentieth century, the century that Henry Luce dubbed

Episode 6, Civilians at War (2 Parts)

World War II was a total global conflict that affected and changed not only the lives of soldiers fighting the war but also those of non-combatants living in war zones. The scale of the war encompassed three continents and millions of people. This episode analyzes the human costs of total warfare from the barbarity of Hitler's

• annihilate
• atrocities
• barbarism
• bedraggled
• confiscate
• converge
• deity
• excrement
• excruciating
• exploit
• incendiary
• nondescript
• parameter
• pseudo
• pulverize
• rampant
• recounts
• sporadic
• sublime
• typhus

Discussion Questions

1. Why were there so many civilian casualties in World War II?

2. It can be argued that Adolph Hitler has had the most impact of any one person in the twentieth century. Discuss some of the goals and plans of Adolph Hitler to dominate the world. How might the world be different today if Germany had won World War II?

3. Why did Hitler attempt to eliminate all the Jews of the world?

4. The atrocities committed against the Jewish people in World War II are among the most horrific ever imagined. Why were German soldiers willing to commit these atrocities for their country and their leader?

5. Why did Heinrich Himmler, chief of Hitleršs Gestapo, search for a more efficient method of killing Jews instead of continuing to shoot them?

6. What was the

7. How could the Holocaust have happened?

8. Although the odds were against survival in the death camps, some managed to live. How could these people survive against such overwhelming odds?

9. Compare Japanese and German racial ideology.

10. How were Japanese soldiers acculturated to being killing machines? How do states remove the burden of murder from the shoulders of its soldiers?

11. Who were the

12. Compare and discuss the immorality of all the participants of World War II.

13. Should the United States have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima?

14. What did the Nuremberg Trials accomplish?

Extended Activities

1. Create a timeline of the events of World War II.

2. Create a poster that illustrates the conditions of the Jewish ghettos.

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Air Dates

• January 10, 2005
• January 11, 2005