Milkweed

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Which groups of people were persecuted by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi German regime during World War II (WWII)? What methods did he use to persecute these individuals, and why? What were the consequences of his actions?

Teaching Suggestion: This question orients students with the setting of the novel: an invaded Poland in 1939. You may wish to provide students with some background understanding with information such as the following: As Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi party, Adolf Hitler sought to exterminate all groups of people that he believed to be “inferior” to the Aryan German race. In order to accomplish his goal of “racial purity,” Hitler would go on to invade regions of Europe he believed should be a part of Germany’s lebensraum (“living space”), ultimately starting WWII. Furthermore, he would eventually establish concentration camps to detain, enslave, torture, and kill those he deemed “undesirable.” Such groups included political dissidents, especially Communists; Jehovah’s Witnesses; gay men; Roma communities; people with disabilities; and Jews.

Hitler’s attempted genocide of these groups, known today as the Holocaust, had numerous detrimental physical, psychological, and emotional consequences on surviving populations, including loss of family members, destruction of property and land, and the passage of generational trauma.