WWII: How is it Remembered?🎬
This project was something I had been looking forward to learn about for a very long time. I’m happy to say that I really enjoyed this project and learned lots. This is going to be a rather long post because we did a lot during this project and it was our theme for this years winter exhibition!
The main theme: 💣
The main theme for this project was (obviously) WWII. Our main idea was to look at (and make) some examples of media that remembers WWII. We watched two movies, looked at lots of propaganda, made our own propaganda, and compared recent history with some events of WWII. All of these things were to help us answer the driving question of our project which is “How do stories, media, and propaganda shape how we remember World War II?” We discussed a lot about perspective and how the side the media is taking can manipulate the audience into feeling a certain way.
Driving Question: “🏎️How do Stories, Media, and Propaganda Shape How we Remember World War II?🏎️”
Stories, media, and propaganda play a huge role in how we remember World War II because most people now didn’t experience it firsthand, and only have the opportunity to learn about it using the media that has been created. Stories help make the war feel personal. Memoirs, novels, and interviews focus on individual soldiers, families, or survivors, which makes the war easier to understand and emotionally connect to. However, these stories usually show only one perspective, so some experiences get more attention than others while some are left out.
How did Europe let it happen? 📝
This was an activity to start off our project. We were told to make an infographic of the main reasons why WWII happened. The four main factors were the Treaty of Versailles, apeasement, the Great Depression, and expansionism. When WWI ended, Germany was punished severely by the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty made Germany take full blame for WWI and made them pay for damages which amounted to roughly 44 billion Canadian dollars. When Hitler started to become more aggressive, they let him get what he wanted in hopes that appeasement would be enough to hold off another war. (Spoiler alert, it only made him bolder). The Great Depression hit Germany harder than most countries, which allowed Hitler to rise to power by promising the angry and humiliated German people that he was going to fix everything. Most of the other countries were to busy with their own problems to notice Hitler slowly rebuilding his army. Italy, Japan, and Germany were all interested in expansionism. They all wanted more land and power for their countries. This eventually led to the allies not being able to ignore Hitler and his aggressive actions anymore and led to the start of WWII.
Then and now remembrance activity:🏙️
Our next task was to see how the remembrance of historical events changes over time. We were tasked with finding an old article on a historical event of our choosing (my group with Brooklyn and Carmyn chose 911 as our event), and then compare the old article to a new article of the same topic and see how the remembrance changed. This helped us get into the habit of noticing how time can change the story or even how our thoughts and feelings can change about an event.
Take a look at our notes HERE
Create your own propaganda:🗣️🇸🇪
Propaganda was used during the war to influence how people thought and felt. Governments used posters, radio, and film to build support for the war, boost morale, and portray enemies in a negative way. Even after the war, some of these ideas stuck, shaping long term attitudes and memories about who was “good,” who was “bad,” and why the war was fought.
I wanted my propaganda to be original and well thought out, so I did some research on some actual propaganda that was featured in Sweden. My propaganda poster is something that the Swedish government would have been reminding Swedish citizens throughout the whole war. Sweden declared neutral for the entirety of WWII, so their main concern was preventing espionage at the hands of the public. When the war broke out in 1939, The Swedish Advertising Association offered its services to the information agency in connection with possible propaganda campaigns. At this point, neutrality was very vulnerable in Sweden so the government wanted as little chatter as possible.
The background symbolizes Swedens national colours and maintaining pride. “Håll Käften” means “keep your mouth shut”, which would have been a common term during those times. “En Svensk Tiger.” The word “svensk” means “Sweden” or “swede”, and “tiger” has a double meaning, “tiga” which means to “keep ones mouth shut”. So the meaning of the Swedish tiger is directly “a swede keeps their mouth shut”. I really liked this symbolism and it is still a popular saying in Sweden. The government was very serious about the public not relaying important or sensitive information that could potentially get back to the Axis powers or the Allies.
I go more into detail HERE
Movies:📽️
Media, especially films, documentaries, and newsreels, shape strong images of the war. Movies usually simplify events into clear heroes and villains, which can make history easier to follow but sometimes less accurate. For example, many films focus on battles involving certain countries, which can make it seem like those were the only important parts of the war.
Dunkirk:⚓️🪖
I really enjoyed this movie, it was intense, the soundtrack was incredible, the acting was really good, and the overall theme was captured really nicely. I liked the way that there were three separate stories that sort of molded together in the end. In the beginning, it was hard to follow along but it became clearer the more you watched. I think this movie did a good job in representing the stressful situation France and Britain was in, but not so much in giving background information, and insight into what the Germans were doing and even talking about France’s contributions (which is ridiculous because the whole thing happened in France). The movie definitely portrayed Britain as the “good guys” and had a bit of British propaganda in it. It highlighted the struggles but also the victories that British troops endured during that time.
(For a little overview of what the movie is about): The Dunkirk evacuation happened during World War II in 1940. Allied soldiers from Britain and France were surrounded by German forces in northern France. Hundreds of thousands of troops were rescued by military ships and civilian boats and taken across the English Channel to Britain. This evacuation helped save the soldiers so they could continue fighting later in the war.
Jojo Rabbit:🐇
This was the perfect movie to represent propaganda and control. Jojo Rabbit is a movie about a young boy living in Nazi Germany during World War II. He strongly believes in Nazi ideas at the start, mostly because that’s all he has been taught. Jojo is portrayed as the Nazis biggest supporter, he has lots of posters and propaganda pieces in his room and his imaginary friend is Hitler.The movie mixes humour with serious topics and focuses on themes like propaganda, growing up, and learning to see others differently. The story takes place near the end of the war, when Germany is starting to lose and the Nazi government is still controlling people through strict rules and fear. Children were trained in Nazi beliefs through school and the Hitler Youth, and Jewish people were being hunted, forced into hiding, or taken away. Fear was used to control and force society into obedience.
Winter Exhibition:🛩️
Our winter exhibition was a little bit different this year. Since Avatar: Fire and Ash came out very close to the exhibition date, the teachers wanted to make the theme Avatar. At first it was a bit difficult to relate WWII to Avatar but we actually found a few connections to make. My groups theme was Technology, Innovation, and Consequence of WWII and Avatar.
To make connections between the two, we chose the spitfire and the ikran (both flying technologies used by the “good guys”). The main connection is how both in WWII and Avatar, propaganda was used to manipulate how the audience feels about certain sides of the story.
Our group was very successful at improvising and making last minute changes. We had a group member be sick the day of, we had mishaps with lighting, and room decor changes. We managed to push past the bumps and preform really well. We got lots of compliments saying that we were all very engaging, interesting, respectful, polite, and most importantly, we knew what we were talking about and were all very knowledgeable on the subject and could answer people’s questions.
there are some more notes HERE