World War II Web Quest

1. After you and your partners get your assignments, decide on your working strategy. You will need to answer the following questions to make your decisions about guilt or innocence. To save time, you may want to split up the work. Each one of you can research in a different place and or work on different questions and then share your results later. Be sure to capture the source of each bit of information you find. To be sure that you are using authoritative sources, use ones that are available from the MHS or San Francisco Public library

2. Your questions are the following:

A. Who was the major leader/leaders of your country during the war years? Who else (what other country) is on your side? Who are you fighting against?

B. What are the major issues? Why are you fighting? What did your country do that seems shameful now? In what way might you have been a victim of other countries?

C. Why did you enter the war?

D. How did the war affect the citizens of your country? How did the war affect the citizens of other countries?

These questions are just a starting point. You really need to think about the guilt or innocence of your country. This is tricky because during war time, many people do things that they might not ordinarily do.

	Introduction
	Almost 70 years has passed since WWII began, but survivors still exist who lived through some of the awful events of this terrible war. Now some of these survivors have made a special plea to the United Nations. The survivors want some kind of recognition of what they suffered. Some of them want other nations to admit their crimes and apologize to the whole world. Some of the survivors want war reparations --money to try to make up for the wrongs they suffered. The United Nations has organized a conference where each country that had a major part in the war in the war will speak briefly. Each country will review their wartime history and announce their response to the victims' claims: countries will either beg forgiveness by admitting wrongs, offer reparations or apologies, or claim that they too were victims. What will your country claim?
	Task
	You and your partners are legal advisors who have been chosen to investigate your assigned country's WW II history. After you've collected data, you and your partner will decide: if your country was mostly blameless or mostly guilty during the war period, and if your country should ask for apologies and/or reparations and from whom? You will write a persuasive essay in which you describe what you've learned about your country's history and argue for your decision to say that you were (mostly) innocent or (mostly in the wrong. You must be careful that you use good evidence and tell the truth about your country's activities during the war. Many other countries around the world will be watching you to see if you decide honorably. Finally, you will have the chance to read your essay as a speech in the General Assembly Room of the United Nations in New York.