Students will look at how language can be manipulated to soften the impact of what is happening.

• Students will consider Nazi euphamisms.
• Students will find and collect euphemisms used today.

Euphamism, manipulate, deportation, annihilation, propaganda

Nazis used euphamisms to hide or blur the reality of what they were doing. Here are some examples:

Deportation Traveling to concentration camps and killing center

Police Actions Round ups that often lead to mass murder

Final Solution The planned annihilation of every Jew in Europe

Find five examples of euphemisms in a newspaper, a news magazine, or on the Internet. Good places to start are stories about military action, business news, and the obituaries.

Read your list to the class and listen as they read theirs. Talk about the purpose of the euphemisms? Why is the language is being manipulated this way. As the reader, how does that make you feel?

• What is the difference between euphemisms and propaganda?
• In what ways are they the same?