Echoes of History

“Stories are memory aids, instruction manuals and moral compasses.” – Aleks Krotoski

How is storytelling an effective weapon against hate?

This project: Echoes of History focused on different forms of storytelling, how they are effective in counteracting hate and how they can teach others, specifically children, the dangers of intolerance. We first did research on the holocaust, where we learned about the power of storytelling, and then we proceeded to move on to learning about the ways to present complicated topics to children.

The Power of Texts

• Ex.1 Night

After a reading of Night by Elie Wisel, I came out with a few key takeaways. One of them was about the true power of testimony. As said in the quote above, stories really are moral compasses and instruction manuals. By reading Elie’s story in his own words, one can figuratively pull out feelings and ideas based only on the tone of his thoughts that shine throughout the novel. For example, he would describe something so gruesome in an extremely matter of fact way, and through that you could learn exactly how the experience occurred and how it was processed in his brain. That is why first person stories are so valuable, because it’s not just “the human experience”, it’s a human’s experience.

• Ex.2 Testimonies

The same reasons that made Night so impactful are what make recorded testimonies an incredible resource for powerful storytelling.  As we were watching the testimonies from the Shoah Foundation, I began to realize the power of spoken word. Physically hearing the survivors of the Holocaust tell their stories and explain what they went through was an experience that I believe could change lives. It helped me learn the importance of recording and preserving stories that are dying out with time. What is the value of these stories?

• Ex.3 Social Media and Propaganda 

Another piece that was really helpful to connect with was the information we learned about propaganda and Hitler Youth. It was effective to connect the propaganda of Germany in the 1930’s to social media today and the influencers and creators that start their own dangerous communities based ion intolerant ideas. By understanding how social media and the internet can start these movements from the ground up I was able to more clearly picture and interpret why Germany reacted to Hitler the way they did. The same propaganda tactics that were used in Nazi propaganda are being used today online, such as: beautiful people, cult of personality, and creating an enemy.

The Book

• Ex.1 Learning About Our Audience

When making a product that is designed to teach, arguably the most important step is knowing your audience. That’s why I really enjoyed the process of understanding how kids interpret messages and difficult topics. From visiting the kids early on in the project to watching a documentary on the impact of Mr. Roger’s, I felt prepared when making my final children’s book at the end of the project. My work with the Mr Roger’s approach to teaching is most likely my best evidence of analyzing and understanding the audience and what to put to use in my own creation. Mr Roger’s Analysis

• Ex.2 The Style

The next part was researching art styles and children’s books to know what they respond well to. After reading children’s books about the holocaust it was easier to pick out what elements work for our target age range and what aspects are too much. Knowing that images really do make an impact, I decided to use that and make my book more colourful and animated than realistic.

 

• Ex.3 The Kids

After creating the book, we read them to the kids. The results were mixed, some kids really liked the style of art and understood the lesson of intolerance well, whilst others were more confused and didn’t love the art style. I think this really boils down to the fact that every person is different. What works for some people will never work for others. Although you can pick and choose elements of a story that most people in a target audience will react well to, it will never be 100%. Every person comes into learning with different experiences and different world views, which is why it’s important to have a variety of stories available.

 

How is storytelling an effective weapon against hate?

Storytelling is an effective weapon against hate because every human story told and recorded is an opportunity to connect two humans to each other, storyteller and listener. Through that human connection, experience and knowledge is passed on. Each listener comes to a story with their own past experiences and beliefs, and they leave with a new experience to add to their worldview. Hate spawns from the theory that some lives are worth more and some are worth less. It mixes the idea of specific human superiority with weak morals and has created massive amounts of destruction and problems since the beginning of time. From Hitler and his Nazi’s to your average misogynist to a little kid telling racist jokes, hate has the ability to spread even faster through misinformed people. So, by adding human experience stories to the worldview of misinformed people, and spreading the quality of empathy, storytelling can figuratively be one of the most powerful weapons to defeat intolerance and ignorance. This would best start with the targeting of young people, who by default have more ignorance on these important topics due to lack of experience in the world, not a lack of empathy.