• GCD 2021

     

    This was the first year of a District 113-wide event, made possible by the pandemic hybrid learning mode, with Mondays as asynchronous remote learning days. The District supported the effort by dedicating the entire day to genocide education, and we had a rich online program. Both the DHS PTO and the District 113 Foundation supported this work with grants.

    We also created a website which is now defunct (https://www.historyunfolding.org/).

     

    Speakers

    Christian Picciolini  Louisa Coan Greve. Kurt Gutfreund

    Pictured from left to right:

    1. Christian Picciolini - Former Extremist and Peace Advocate - Christian Picciolini is an award-winning television producer, a public speaker, author, peace advocate, and a former violent extremist. Christian chronicles his involvement and exit from the early American white-supremacist skinhead movement in his memoir, White American Youth, and is the featured subject in season 3 of WBEZ’s 'Motive' podcast. He now leads the Free Radicals Project, a global extremism prevention and disengagement network, and has helped hundreds of individuals leave hate behind. He showcases his disengagement work in a second book, Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism, published in 2020 by Hachette Books, as well as the MSNBC documentary series of the same name.  View his Ted Talk here.
    2. Louisa Coan Greve - Director of Global Advocacy for the Uyghur Human Rights Project - Louisa Greve is Director of Global Advocacy for the Uyghur Human Rights Project. Previously, Ms. Greve was Vice President for Programs and East Asia Director at the National Endowment for Democracy. She has served on the Amnesty International USA board of directors, the Virginia Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and other nonprofit boards. She is the author of several book chapters on ethnic issues and human rights in China, and has testified before Congress on China's digital censorship, forced labor, Uyghur refugees, and related issues.  View the YouTube recording of her talk to us.
    3. Kurt Gutfreund - Holocaust Survivor - Kurt Gutfreund was born in Vienna, Austria, in January 1938. His father, Heinrich, was deported on June 9, 1942 to Malytrostinec and murdered upon arrival. Kurt's grandfather, Sigmund, was deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt on June 6, 1942, and was deported to Treblinka and murdered. Kurt and his mother, Hildegard, were deported on Kurt's 5th birthday, January 6, 1943, to Theresienstadt and were liberated by the Red Army on May 8, 1945. After liberation, Kurt and his mother went back to Vienna and then emigrated to the United States in 1958. He has three children and two grandchildren, and he dedicates much of his life to speaking about his experience in the Holocaust.  View the YouTube recording of his talk to us.

     

    History Unfolding Research Projects

    Hate Across the USA

    Hate is happening on college campuses and across the US. We compiled research on this epidemic of hate on a dynamic, searchable map with content we had crowdsourced from DHS Social Studies classes. In the coming years, we will work on making that research accessible through this new site.  You can see a sample of the map in the still image below.

    Hate in the USA

     

    The Uyghur Genocide

     
    Similarly, the work on our original website historyunfolding.org included searchable content that we had crowdsourced from DHS Social Studies classes. We compiled news stories on each topic and include them below in slide presentations. In the coming years, we will work on making more of that research accessible through this new site.
     

    What is East Turkestan/Xinjiang?

    According to the Uyghur Human Rights Project, "East Turkistan has a rich and distinctive history, enhanced by its position along the Silk Road bridging mainland China and the ancient Arabic, Persian and European cultures to the west. Since 1949, East Turkistan has become a nuclear testing ground for the Chinese military, it is home to large numbers of Chinese military and paramilitary units, and it is the site of numerous forced labor camps administered by the Chinese authorities."
    Slides Uyghur Murder Genocide
     

    Who are the Uyghurs?

    According to the Uyghur Human Rights Project, "Uyghurs (alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs, etc.) are ethnically and culturally a Turkic people living in the areas of Central Asia commonly known as East Turkistan."
     

    USA response

    The USA has been horrified by the Ugyhur Genocide. There have been proposed sanctions on China to stop financial transactions with those who are involved in the genocide. The United States is waiting to see what Biden will do next to take a stand against this injustice.  See the Slides on the USA Response to the Uyghurs
     

    Forced Labor

    Human Rights Watch shared that, “all of the one million arbitrarily detained Turkic Muslims ring hollow as evidence suggests that some are now subjected to forced labor instead. The mass surveillance systems also tightly control the movement of Xinjiang’s purportedly ‘free’ residents.”  See the Slides on Uyghur Forced Labor
     

    Uyghur Children & boarding schools

    According to NYT , “Nearly half a million children, many of them ethnic minorities, have been placed in boarding schools in Xinjiang.” At these schools, authorities ensure that the children are loyal to China and the Communist Party.  See the Slides on Uyghur Boarding Schools
     

    Re-education Camps:  detention, detainment, internment, indoctrination

    Reeducation camps are involuntary places where Uyghurs are held to be brainwashed, locked up, and punished. According to Data Leak Reveals How China 'Brainwashes' Uighurs in Prison Camps. Amnesty International, “Those who resist or fail to show enough progress [at the reeducation camps] face punishments ranging from verbal abuse to food deprivation, solitary confinement, beatings and use of restraints and stress positions. There have been reports of deaths inside the facilities, including suicides of those unable to bear the mistreatment.”  See the Slides on Uyghur Reeducation Camps
     

    Murders, Killing, Genocide

    The Chinese Government is looking to kill ⅔ of the Uyghur population in China and convert the other ⅓ to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Ideology. The Chinese Communist Party is sending Uyghur people to concentration camps in order to exploit them through forced labor, Covid-19 vaccine testing, organ harvesting, biological weapons testing, or proof of life (effort to cover up C.C.P’s actions). The awful actions of the Chinese Communist Party are being echoed from Hitler’s efforts to erase Jewish people during Nazi Germany in the 1900’s. Like Hitler once said he was pursuing a final solution for the Jews, the CCP has said they’re doing the same.  See the Slides on Uyghur Genocide Killings