Process Paper

We had a difficult time deciding on our topic as a group but it was evident that we both wanted to do a topic that related to the Holocaust. After a fair amount of searching, we selected Nuremberg or more specifically, the Nuremberg Laws, as our possible topic. We found this interesting because of its relation to human rights as well as its moral issues toward the Jewish people. The fact that The Nuremberg Laws would become the first legal action in what is now known as the Holocaust became significant to us choosing this topic. The topic also gave us further inspiration to research The Holocaust as a whole. Our research was extremely important to us understanding our topic and finding support behind our claim. One unique experience we had while researching was at the University of South Florida library. We used this time to find Nuremberg books as well as academic journals regarding the laws. Through all this research, there was one source, though, that we felt was the most important of all: the speech that Adolf Hitler gave regarding the first legal action against the Jews (the Nuremberg Laws). This was a difficult source to acquire but when we did, it truly did open the doors into the minds of the German nation at the time. We knew that we wanted to do a website right from the beginning. We both had our strengths; one as a technician, the other as a writer. We created our project by first designing the website, and then we added the information. This process seemed to work the best and most efficiently for us. We chose a red color for our glow and red for our buttons because the time period was all about Germany and, at the time, the flag was red. We learned that finding the tools were harder than it seemed. We also found that the design choices were difficult because we were not sure which would suit our topic best.

In many ways throughout the duration of our project, we found other scholars that also felt The Nuremberg Laws were very crucial in the early development of World War II and the Holocaust. For a short period, The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jewish people of their basic rights and made them the focus of segregation. In the long run, it was a predecessor to many other racial discriminatory laws in history (even ones involved in WWII), good or bad. We felt that our topic related to the theme of National History Day, rights and responsibilities in history, extremely well. The Laws stripped peoples rights where the Reich believed it had the responsibility to protect the German people. The Jews were denied their rights and treated very poorly due to the Nuremberg Laws. The Jews did not deserve to die nor be exploited, and due to this lack of natural rights the Jewish population was treated with hatred and complete disrespect throughout the course of the war.