So long!

Hello everybody,

This is not a farewell, because I´ll be around and we´ll see each other next year, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you. You can call it “advice”, if you prefer. They are just some ideas to make you think about the kind of people you want to become: 

- Don´t stop asking questions: it´s the best way to learn. 

- Be curious, not nosy. 

- Be critical. Don´t believe everything people tell you. Look for the answers to your doubts and come to your own conclusions. 

- Give a hand to the people who need it, cooperate, be supportive. No one can survive alone and the progress of mankind has always been achieved uniting efforts.

- Don´t forget that you are human, not numbers. Don´t let anyone treat you as if you were only figures on a sheet of paper. As for the marks, they´re only figures too. What will remain is what you learnt, not what the administration wrote on your school report. 

- Reason and words are your best weapons. Use them anytime. Violence and revenge never bring anything else but more pain and suffering. Remember that all the wars we studied ended with peace treaties, with people obliged to sit down, talk and reach agreements. 

- Respect the others if you want to earn their respect. 

- Open your mind, judge people for what they do, not for who they are or where they come from. Forget about prejudices. We, citizens of the world, all belong to the same species and share more than we could imagine. Borders, nations and “races” are human inventions to divide us and justify the supremacy of the minorities over the great majority.

- Don´t keep silence before injustice. Listen to the others, but speak out loud when you think you´re right. Following the herd may seem more comfortable sometimes, but you will feel better if you don´t betray your principles. 

- Don´t forget about the past: use it to build a better future. 

- Have a good life and share with others everything you can do to make the world a better place to live in. 

And above all, don´t be another brick in the wall. 

I would like to end with two classical quotes I always bear in mind: 

Dare to know! 

Be the change you want to see in the world!

Mónica´s wishes

    Happy summer holidays to all :)

Mauthausen forced labour camp

Today in Social Sciences we have seen our exams about Alphonse XIII, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. After that Paqui has said that we have to give her the 4º of ESO book and if we want we can take the 3º ESO book for us. Today some classmates have done the make-up exam because they failed the first one.

After that Paqui has said that she is going to put us a video about 8 spanish survivors that were confined in Mauthausen, a forced labour camp, not an extermination one, in Austria. In this concentration camp there were 140,000 people, 7,000 spanish, and we the camp was destroyed only there were 2,100 survivors.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/KZ_Mauthausen.jpg/280px-KZ_Mauthausen.jpg

In this video we could see the experiences in this force labour camp of 8 spanish people ( nowadays only 2 of the 8 men are still alive, they are Manuel Alfonso and Ramón Milá, because the documentary was filmed more or less in 2000). This 8 men told some experiences (good and bad ones) about their time there. Some interesting things that impressed me were the photos, and when one of the men said that he lived near the electric fence, and he could listen to the electricity passing along the fence, and he said “is the death that is passing”. This people received only 1,000 calories and the normal rate for a person during a day is 3,000 calories. They ate for example turnips potatoes, slice of bread, sausage… The people in Mauthausen had to wake up very early and they went to a granite quarry to work there. Some people died there because of their tiredness, and other ones for example were killed by throwing them from a cliff. The people from the video also talk about their clothes. In this clothes they have an special symbol to recognized them, for example the Spanish ones had an S inside a triangle, that means in German “Rot Spanier”, that in English means “Red Spanish”.

http://www.andalan.es/wp-content/uploads/logo_republicanos_espanoles_mauthausen.jpg

Near the Mauthausen camp there was the Gusen, this was a Kommando were they took the people to kill them. In this camp they received only half of food, and they didn’t have any clothes. 

In Hartheim Castle there were the gas chamber, but they use a lot the crematorium.

One thing that had shocked me was that one of these men, Joan de Diego had only 4 fingers in one hand!

All this things were horrible! I like the documentary because you learn a lot, but is too sad and shocking for me… I also like the aria of Puccini's Tosca: E lucevan le stelle, ( one of my favourite) that appeared in this video.

http://www.forumperlamemoria.org/local/cache-vignettes/L220xH280/jpg_Mauthausen_3-b3d8f.jpg

Then the bell rang and Paqui said that if we like this documentary, and she has collected the make-up exams.

We have learned one new word: to broadcast- emitir.

Sorry for the delay, but that's musicians life!

Bye bye

Mauthausen, the duty of remembering

As Enrique didn´t write the journal, I´m going to include some information about what we saw in class yesterday. The documentary is called El deber de recordar (The duty of remembering) and it was produced by a La 2 TV program called Línea 900 in 2000. It tells the story of 8 Spanish fighters against Franco and Hitler, who were confined in Mauthausen concentration camp during World War 2. The survivors who appeared in the documentary were Francesc Comellas, Antoni Roig, Joan de Diego, Francisco Batiste, Josep Egea, Mariano Constante, Manuel Alfonso and Ramón Milà. Only Manuel Alfonso and Ramón Milà are still alive. The documentary explains about the hard conditions the prisoners had to put up with, the countless ways of killing the Nazis used and how the survivors managed to remain alive until the camp release on the 5th May 1945. It´s a story of horror and humiliation, but also tells about resistance and solidarity, values no one should forget. 

Here you have the complete documentary:

This is a map of all the forced labour and extermination camps the Nazis created in Germany and the territories they occupied: 

Source: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/es/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005196&MediaId=354

And these are some links to learn more about Mauthausen: 

- Information about the structure of the camp and pictures on Remember.org: 

http://www.remember.org/camps/mauthausen/index.html

- Information about Mauthausen in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: 

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/es/article.php?ModuleId=10005196

- Brief story of Mauthausen on the Holocaust Research Project: 

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/mauthausen.html

- Photographs of the life and death at Mauthausen: 

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/mauthpictoc.html

- Mauthausen Concentration Camp official website: 

http://en.mauthausen-memorial.at/

- Report about three of the last Spanish Mauthausen survivors, appeared on El País some weeks ago: 

http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/05/24/actualidad/1337863342_182744.html

WW2 animated maps

At Manuel´s request, here you have some links to learn about the different operation theatres of WW2: 

- This is a link to the presentation we saw last week in class. It was made by the Combat Studies Institute, a section of the United States Army Combined Arms Center, located in Fort Leavenworth (Kansas). On this link you can find the battle maps of the European and Pacific Theaters: 

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/csi/CSIBattlemaps.asp

- And this link belongs to the UK National Archives. Every animated map includes an audio explanation of the military operations on each theatre: 

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/worldwar2/index-of-resources/

Source: http://www.emersonkent.com/map_archive/wwii_major_operations.htm

Source: http://wwarii.com/ww2images/details.php?image_id=95

LAST EXAM OF THE YEAR

Hello everybody!

Today we have taken the exam about The Restoration under Alphonse XIII, The USA crisis and the Great Drepression, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

The structure of the exam was the following:

In the first exercise we had to choose one of the two big crisis of the Restoration under Alphonse XIII. Here we had to choose between explaining the crisis of the "Tragic Week (24th - 2nd August 1909) or the 1917 crisis, the year of the triple protest in Spain (military, opposition politicians and unions' protests). We had to explain the consequences of the crises as well. I have explained the first crisis, the Tragic Week.

The second exercise consisted on choosing four of several concepts that Paqui gave us. I don't remember all of them, but I have chosen Nuremberg Laws, Disaster of Annual, Night of the Broken Glass and Padlock Law. 

The third exercise was about the 1929 crisis in the USA and the Great Depression. Here we had to explain the causes, the development and the decisions made to solve this crisis. I was not sure if I had to explain all the decisions made in the "New Deal" by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Paqui has told me to explain them. 

The fourth exercise was about Italian Fascism. Paqui has asked us how the Fascists took power, how they imposed their totalitarian dictatorship, and the main features of their totalitarianism. 

And finally, the fifth exercise was about Nazism in Germany. Almost all the students of the class have had problems to understand this exercise. I suppose this is because we were nervous. Paqui has told us not to explain everything!! She says it is not the way to do things. She has told us that we only had to explain the ideology of the NSDAP, how the Nazis took power and what they did to achieve their purposes. I think finally we all have understood it and have done it in the right way. 

As some people have needed more time to finish the exam, we have stayed with Paqui during some minutes of the Math's lesson. It was not a problem because the people of the class were reviewing for the resit exam. 

Paqui has told us that she is sending us our marks this evening so, we'll know our results today! 

See you soon!

Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG3PnCKxViFsuCzLWAvUI0pyED8WM-F43If_QNqAc9K3qxSrhD_XoN6ohOzdTqVG1RbTZnQIGI-YjTbvckHfrN_c-kJQBvSqM28uxgKAQpOkXLvE27ebMlHbjWh1O8Q9ThVQrrx_P5OTM/s1600/aaaaaadolf_hitler_and_mussolini.jpg

P. S. It has been our last European Sections exam... This is very sad :( But that's life. I think we have all learnt a lot this year. Don't you think so?

Wednesday, 13th of June.

The symbol of the NSDAP

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/NSDAP-Logo.svg?uselang=es

Today in Social Sciences, today was the last day before the exam of unit 8: The interwar period. So we have dedicated this class principally to correct ours schemes about the Nazi Germany. We have used the PowerPoint presentation of Paqui to correct ours schemes.

We have started saying that the Nazi Germany had similar characteristics to the Fascist Italy. After, Paqui has remembered us that the Nazi party (the NSDAP) had to principal paramilitary groups: the SA or Assault Sections and the SS or Security Sections. Next to this, Paqui has asked for silence, She have said that when She is speaking we have to stay in silence.

The next section of the scheme was how the Nazi party reached power. Before start this section, Paqui has asked for silence again. This section has started with the Beer Hall Putsch, that was a planed Coup d' État in a beer hall in Munich. All the political authorities were celebrating a meeting. The plan failed because the army didn't joint the Nazis. Fourteen Nazis and their principal leaders were arrested. Hitler was sentenced to 5 years in jail, but he only stayed 8 months. In this time, we wrote the "Mein Kampf" (translated: My war), this book is consider the bible of Nazism. Actually, this book is forbidden is Germany. After this, the NSDAP results on the elections were not very good (you can find a summary of the elections on the slide 26 in the PowerPoint presentation of this unit). In January 1933, Hitler was promoted to prime minister. Hitler's first government included 3 Nazis out of 11 minister. Hitler call new elections for the 5th of march of 1933. The Nazis committed arson against the Reichstag (parliament) and they accused the communists. The government declared an emergency decree restricting liberties. Many of the communists were arrested and sent to the concentration camps.

On the 5th of March of 1933, the Nazis won the elections using intimidation and violence against the opposition with the 43% of the votes. They got the absolute majority. Hitler demanded absolute powers in the Reichstag. The Gestapo (secret police) was created and in July the NSDAP was the only legal party. The persecution against the Jews started immediately. On the 10th of March of 1933, the Nazis burnt books considered against Germany: Einstein (Jew), Marx (Jew), Hemingway, Proust, Heinrich and Thomas Mann. The members of the opposition parties started to work in concentration camps, commanded by the SS.

The Night of the long Knives was developed between June and Jule of 1934. Hitler eliminated the opposition inside his party, Ernst Röhm, leader of the SA, and other prominent Nazis were killed.

When President Hindenburg died in August of 1934, Hitler concentrated the post of chancellor and president and the Army swore fealty to him. He was proclaimed "Führer" (guide, leader) of the Germans and proclaimed the 3rd Reich (Empire).

The Nazis excluded the Jews for Germany nationality. In the Night of broken glass (9th November 1938), the Nazis attacked the synagogues and Jewish shops all around Germany. 90 Jews killed and more than 30,000 Jews were arrested to the concentration camps. There were a massive emigration of the Jews to other countries.

In March 1936, they started revising Versailles sanctions of WWI. In this moment, Paqui has said that we are disrespectful because we are speaking when she is also speaking.

Hitler claimed Sudetenland, a Czechoslovakian territory inhabited by 3 millions of German speakers. The main European powers accorded to cede Sudetenland to Germany with the promise that Hitler stop his territorial demands. The European powers saw Hitler as a powerful ally against Stalin. But Hitler didn't keep his promise. The Nazis started to occupied Czechoslovakia and Hitler signed secretly an agreement with the URSS to part Poland in two. Hitler wanted to neutralize the URSS in the invasion of Poland and Stalin wanted to gain time to be ready for the next war against the Nazis.

The 1st of September of 1939, the Nazis started the invasion of Poland using Thunder War: combined attack of artillery and air attacks (Poland was occupied in four weeks). The 3rd of September of 1939, the United Kingdom and France declared war to Germany. And the 17th of September of 1939, the Soviet Union occupied the Eastern part of Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Next to this part of the class, Paqui has shown as another PowerPoint presentation with a slides of the expansion of the terriotories that Germany occupied during this period.

In this moment, the bell has rung and Paqui has said to us that study to pass the exam.

Well, this is all we have done is this class. Good luck for tomorrow. Juan Carlos

Swastikas all around the world

As we have studied today, the swastika is a very old symbol the Nazis used as an Arian and anti-semitic emblem. Before the Nazis started using this symbol, swastikas had been used in many places as a symbol of health and good luck, as well as to represent the idea of the eternal return or continuous flow. The oldest known swastikas belong to Prehistory and the Bronze Age. Some Germanic  tribes wore swastika amulets to keep bad spirits away.

Here you have an example of swastikas used to decorate a Greek Kantharos (780 B.C.): 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Geometric_kantharos_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_8501.jpg

This is an example of swastikas found in Spain. It´s located in the Roman villa of La Olmeda in Palencia, built in the 4th century

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Roman_Mosaics_Villa_Romana_La_Olmeda_007_Pedrosa_De_La_Vega_-_Salda%C3%B1a_(Palencia).JPG

The relation between the swastikas and anti-semitism was established in the 19th century. When many swastikas were discovered in the ruins of ancient Troy in Turkey and also next to the Oder River in Germany, a French philologist called Emile Burnouf stated that the swastika was a symbol rejected by the Jews, because it didn´t appear in places where they used to live. This idea is false, because swastikas can be found almost everywhere, but this relation between swastikas and anti- semitism extended. 

Before the Nazis, different nationalist associations in Germany used swastikas, such as the Teutonic Order and Thule Society and it was also the symbol chosen by the DAP (German Workers´Party), where Hitler inflitrated as an informant for the army. When the Nazis designed the NSDAP flag, they included the swastika on it.  They chose the red colour (meaning the social part of their movement), the white (which is related to their nationalism) and the swastika, which symbolized the struggle of the Arian man. Hitler preferred the left-facing swastika, which has been  related to decadence and death, but he identified it with a whirlwind and a solar symbol. 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_NSDAP_(1920%E2%80%931945).svg

The German Socialist Party (SPD) created a paramilitary group called the Iron Front to oppose the Nazis and they also designed a symbol to easily cover or cross out the Nazi swastikas. Their emblem consisted of three arrows pointing south-west and  their meaning was union, activity and discipline. 

Emblem of the Iron Front

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eiserne_Front_Symbol.svg

Anti-NSDAP rally of the Iron Front in Berlin 1932

Source: http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Timeline/Inter-war-period-1918-1939/Anne-Franks-birth/1932/An-anti-NSDAP-party-rally-of-the-Iron-Front-in-the-Berlin-Lustgarten-Pleasure-Garden-in-March/#!/en/Subsites/Timeline/Inter-war-period-1918-1939/Anne-Franks-birth/1932/An-anti-NSDAP-party-rally-of-the-Iron-Front-in-the-Berlin-Lustgarten-Pleasure-Garden-in-March/

The swastika is forbidden in Germany at present. The German government tried to extend the prohibition to all the European Union in 2005, but this proposition was rejected by some EU members. In Asia swastikas are very common, because they are related to different religions: Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. Here you have an example of swastika on a Korean temple: 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Swastika-seoel_(xndr).jpg

Monday, 11th June

Today in Social Sciences, we have asked Paqui what said the inspector about us. She has told us that he was really happy, but at the same time he was angry because next year things are going to be totally different.

Afterwards, Laura and Ana have asked Paqui if the features of Restoration are going to be included in the exam. Paqui has answered that we have to study all the things, because we should know that things. Then, we have continued with the unit, and we have reviewed some things about Fascism. The slogans that show how the Fascists transformed Italy into a Totalitarism, are the following:

-“All within the State, none outside the State, none against the State”

-“Mussolini is always right”.

-“Believe, obey, fight”

- “Either with us or against us”

Paqui has explained us that the unions were replaced by “corporations”. Corporations are sort of unions which included workers and patrons to “solve” labour conflicts.

Mussolini was called the Duce which means the leader, the guide, he had all the power and there was cult for Mussolini´s personality. Propaganda was used to glorify Mussolini. We have learnt what the Lateran pact was: It was an agreement signed by Mussolini and the Pope which meant the creation of the Vatican City as a State inside Italy and solved the conflict between Italy and the Pope. The State intervened in economy with public works, subsidized enterprises…

The Fascist foreign policy was aggressive. Mussolini wanted to restore the splendour of the Roman Empire and started some wars to conquer territories: occupation of Ethiopia in 1935 and Albania in 1939. He also took part in the Spanish Civil War, supporting the rebels, sending more than 70,000 soldiers and weapons.

We have written a new word about this topic in the glossary: Autarky= Autarquía.The main objective was to achieve self-sufficiency, increasing internal production and reducing imports.

We have started the third point of the unit: Nazi Germany. We have started to check the scheme that we had for homework about it. Germany was a democratic republic, Weimar Republic, which had many problems after WW1. The leaders had to face the hard conditions of the Versailles Treaty, a strong economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, hyperinflation ( prices increased a lot), the loss of the value of the mark in 1923 and attempts at revolution and coups d´Etat. Nazism appeared and the main leader was Hitler. We have been talking about Hitler: he fought in WW1, where he became a corporal. Before WW1, he was an art student. He decided to go to the School of art in Vienna but he was rejected,so the lived like a tramp. After the war, the army hired him as an informant and sent him to report on an extreme right party (German Worker´s  Party), he became one of the leaders. In 1920, “National Socialist German Worker´s Party” was created. It had a similar ideology to Italian Fascism. It had three specific ideas: Anti- Semitism (hate for the Jews), superiority of the Arian race and they needed vital space. The party of Hitler had two paramilitary groups:

-SA: STURMABTEILUNG

-SS: SCHUTZSTAFFEL.
We have benn talking about the meaming of the Nazi´s symbol, the swastika is a type of sail.

Next day we are going to finish the scheme.

http://gradospereira.blogia.com/temas/actividades-tema-17.php

Some images to better understand Fascist Italy

Here you have some photographs, propaganda posters and cartoons about Italian Fascism. With them you will be able to learn some of the main characteristisc of the Italian totalitarian State: constant use of propaganda, cult of Mussolini´s personality, aggressive foreign policy, attempt of rebuilding the Roman Empire

Source: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/herblock/dove.html

One of the most meaningful Fascist slogans

http://www.johncoxart.com/2011/05/

Believe, obey, fight

Source: http://www.propagandatheory.com/types-of-propaganda/slogans/

One single heart, one single will, one single decision

Source: http://www.propagandatheory.com/types-of-propaganda/bandwagon/

A wall with the slogan "Mussolini is always right"

Source: http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=LaRouche.LaRight

Electoral propaganda posters  at Palazzo Braschi, Mussolini´s political headquarters. The first image belongs to 1929 and the second one to 1934. The Fascist Party was the only allowed, but there were plebiscites to confirm Mussolini´s leadership from time to time.

Source: http://www.mediatecaroma.it/mediatecaRoma/ricerca.html?show=14&index=&jsonVal=&filter=&query=archiveName%3AluceFondoLuceCronologico&refId=12&id=IL0000024034

Dictators (politicians in general) love children

Source: http://www.icstommaso.it/nuova_pagina_17.htm

This cartoon criticised the use of poison gas in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. 

Source: http://cclayton1.edublogs.org/2011/11/20/answering-cartoon-questions/low-2/

Mussolini as the Emperor of Africa

Source: http://www.1y2gm.com/t597p40-caricaturas-y-cartoon-de-la-guerra#12252