Discussion Topics/QUESTIONS for:
Api’s Berlin Diaries
What makes this story of 75 years ago interesting to us today?
How the long shadow of the Nazi past caught up with Robinson and why she wrote the book
We are not responsible for what our ancestors did but we are accountable. How Edward Ball’s Slaves in the Family helped Robinson overcome her reluctance to tell her story
Ordinary citizens in totalitarian regimes. A doctor’s daily life in Berlin 1945. Conditions in medical bunkers
Effects of a steady diet of propaganda and lies
The process of de-Nazification
German guilt and German silence
All our political responsibility. What would I have done?
The power of stories to create empathy
Renewed appreciation of what binds us together, a lesson reinforced by Covid and protests against racism
Why and how to tackle a difficult past
Better Homes of South Bend
Jim Crow in the North, then and now. The situation in South Bend
Redlining and housing segregation in the North
What has changed since the 1950’s and what has not?
The importance of home ownership for future generations: the children of Better Homes
A Case for Reparations?
German Settlers of South Bend
19th century immigration and immigrants today, chain migration
Why people emigrate then and now
Assimilate or not?
Hyphenated Americans