Nuremberg Remembered: Reflections and Legacies

Warm-up
The students will read the selection from Justice Robert Jackson's opening speech for the prosecution at the International Military Tribunal on November 21, 1945. The selection is found in Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior, page 425.

Ask students what words or phrases stand out? What does he describe as the purpose of the trial? Use the Think-Pair-Share strategy to move from individual reflections to a discussion of the document.

Main activity
Explain to the students that will compare the goals articulated by Jackson with the recollections of five Americans who played various roles during the Nuremberg trials.

One way to prepare students to watch the film is to hand out brief biographies of the five people who are featured in the film Nuremberg Remembered:

Richard Sonnenfeldt
Ernest Michel
Sally Falk Moore
Bernard Meltzer
Benjamin Ferencz

You may wish to have students create identity charts for them. And, as students view the film you may want to have them focus specifically on the person inthe biography they read.

Show the documentary Nuremberg Remembered.

Follow through


(1) To begin debriefing ideas raised in the film, you might ask students to return to the journal entry they wrote at the beginning of this series of lessons. Students can discuss with a partner how the film changed or reinforced their earlier ideas about how justice might be achieved after the Holocaust.

(2) The film raises many important questions about topics such as justice, war crimes, and genocide prevention. Rather than select a focus for students' debriefing of the film, hand small groups a list of questions and ask students to identify the question or questions they want to discuss. You might include some of the following questions:

In the film, Ernest Michel, a Holocaust survivor who was a reporter at the Nuremberg trials, remarked about the trials:

Was everything perfect? I don't believe so. But, under the circumstances it was the best way of doing it, and hopefully it will be the beginning of future instances like that where the leaders of a government, and we know who they are, are eventually being brought to trial for crimes against humanity. That was the lesson of the Nuremberg, and that is why I feel so good 60 years afterwards to be able to talk about it.

To what extent do you agree with Michel that the Nuremberg trials represented "the best way" of achieving justice after the Holocaust? Should there have been a trial at all? What are the benefits of a trial? What are the costs or limits of a trial to prosecute crimes against humanity? What does it signify about Nuremberg that a survivor of the Holocaust could say that it makes him "feel so good" to talk about the trials? Why do you think he feels this way?

Bernard Meltzer, a staff member of the prosecution team at Nuremberg, remarked that one crime that was not prosecuted at Nuremberg was the "crime of silence." To what extent were bystanders, those who knew about the crimes being committed against Jews and others but who did nothing to stop them, responsible for what happened during the Holocaust? Did they have the power to prevent these crimes? What could they have done? Should bystanders have been held responsible in a court of law? Why or why not?

In the film, the chief interpreter of the American prosecution team, Richard Sonnenfeldt, said, "Just knowing history does not guarantee it won't repeat." To what extent do you agree with this statement? What can an understanding of the Holocaust accomplish toward the prevention of more crimes against humanity? What else is required in order to prevent horrible atrocities like the Holocaust?

One critique of the Nuremberg trials is that individuals were held responsible for breaking laws that did not exist prior to the war. This is often called "retroactive justice." What do you think of this criticism? If you think it was fair to prosecute Germans after World War II, would it also be fair to hold individuals or groups accountable for their involvement in slavery and the slave trade?

After the massacre of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks, the newly established nation of Turkey organized a trial to prosecute leaders of the Young Turk party who had organized the murders and deportations. None of these leaders was officially punished for these crimes because by the time the trials were under way, they were all in hiding in other countries. As Hitler prepared for the "final solution of the Jewish question," he asked, "Who after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" What Hitler saying about international law at the time? About the rules of war? Professor Richard Hovannisian maintains that had the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide been more vigorously prosecuted and punished for their crimes, the case might have served as a deterrent for the Holocaust. Do you agree?

Compare the reflections from participants at the trial with the goals that Jackson laid out in his opening address. To what extent do participants suggest the trials met Jackson's hopes? What work remains to be done?


(3) After approximately 15 minutes, you can allow students a few moments to write one important or interesting idea or question that was shared during the discussion. Students can then share what they wrote with the class. In this way, all students in the class can experience a piece of all of the discussions. When all students have shared their ideas, you can ask student volunteers to summarize what they heard, noting consistent themes, points of disagreement, or lingering questions.