Rev. George Chassy | S.C. Voices: Lessons from the Holocaust

Reverend George Chassy, an Episcopal priest in Columbia, joined the Air Force right after Pearl Harbor. He was part of the invasion at Normandy Beach. He found it incredible what Nazi power had done to people. In the town of Erca, there was a sense of death. There was a concentration camp outside the village. When given the task of removing bodies, Germans claimed they had not known it was a death camp. He saw the remains of bodies hanging on barbed wire fences, pyres where live people had been burned, the sites of hangings. He used pictures of the camps to teach high school history and to show friends. Rumors were thus validated. "There are people who don't believe in the Holocaust," says Chassy. "I witnessed the results in one place of what happened. To say it is a myth distorts history. I have evidence in my mind, my heart, and in pictures that it occurred."

Standards

• 5.3 Demonstrate an understanding of the economic, political, and social effects of World War II, the Holocaust, and their aftermath (i.e., 1930–1950) on the United States and South Carolina.
  • 5.3.CE Analyze the cause and effect of government-sponsored policies within the United States and Europe related to the status of different groups, to include the Holocaust.
• 6.5.CE Explain the impact of nationalism on global conflicts and genocides in the 20th and 21st centuries.
• 7-4 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the causes and effects of world conflicts in the first half of the twentieth century.
  • The influence of both world wars and the worldwide Great Depression are still evident. To understand the effects these events had on the modern world, the student will utilize the knowledge and skills set forth in the following indicators:
    • 7-4.5 Summarize the causes and course of World War II, including drives for empire, appeasement and isolationism, the invasion of Poland, the Battle of Britain, the invasion of the Soviet Union, the "Final Solution," the Lend-Lease program, Pearl Harbo...
    • 7-4.6 Analyze the Holocaust and its impact on European society and Jewish culture, including Nazi policies to eliminate the Jews and other minorities, the Nuremberg trials, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the rise of nationalism in Southwest...
• 8.5.CO Compare South Carolina and U.S. wartime contributions and demobilization after World War II.
• USHC-7 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the impact of World War II on the United States and the nation’s subsequent role in the world.
  • In defense of democracy, a government may need to confront aggression and ask its citizens for sacrifice in wars and providing foreign aid that, in turn, affects the practice of democracy at home. To make informed political decisions about when and ho...
    • USHC-7.4 Summarize the economic, humanitarian, and diplomatic effects of World War II, including the end of the Great Depression, the Holocaust, the war crimes trials, and the creation of Israel.