DOCUMENTARY UNIT: HOLOCAUST DISRESPECTFUL RESEARCH

Since we've been considering to do the Documentary on Young people and their opinion, I decided to research into some of the stories which we had been told about involving disrespect towards the Holocaust and things involving it.

Young Men Steal the Auschwitz Sign - 2009
In the infamous Death Camp Auschwitz, there is a large bronze sign above the gate which reads "Arbeit Macht Frei" which translates into 'Work Sets you Free'. This would be the first thing that the new arrivals of the camp would see back in the days of the War. In 2014 it was reported that the sign had been stolen from the camp. 5 men had gone to the camp and taken the sign from there in 3 pieces, cutting it and then sneaking it away. After a long search, the Polish Police found the sign in the back garden of one of the thief's houses, after he back put it up there on display. The men were arrested and the article that told this story explains the the Holocaust memorial charity called this crime "an attack on the remembrance of the Holocaust" (The Guardian, 21/12/09, https://goo.gl/FUfmjX). The men were aged between 25-34 years old so this wasn't really teenagers but still young people involved. This as well was for a sign that all the prisoner would see as they entered the camp and for so many prisoner, it was the last thing they saw before the Gas Chambers. 

Students Steal from Auschwitz - 2015
In 2015, a British Secondary School had traveled to Poland to visit the Historic Camp 'Auschwitz' as part of a History Trip. 2 School students (17 years of age and both male) decided to steal a few little "bits of junk" as souvenirs from the camp and to remember the trip by. They stole; two pieces of broken glass, spoons, clothes buttons and a comb. These were very small items and the boys had no idea the issue it would cause. The museum discovered this and the boys were arrested until they apologised and gave back the items. It was explained in the article I read that "The boys, neither of whom is yet 18, picked up the fragments in the Canada section of the camp. They cooperated fully with the authorities and admitted taking the items. They are deeply sorry for the offence they have caused.” (The Guardian, 23/6/15, https://goo.gl/I3z2LK). This was said by a spokesman of the School which the boys attended. 

Straight away this jumps out and makes me question, how can you not assume people would take offence from this? Auschwitz was one of the biggest camps in the Nazi's hands and killed 1.5 Million out of the 6 Million Jews that were Murdered in the Holocaust. But they simply thought that it was just a little souvenir to remember the trip. Although no harm came to the boys and all was forgiven, it does beg the question are we beginning to think it's okay to take items from a place where 1.5 Million people were murdered? Or we could put it in a simpler way, would the boys have stolen off a Grave? I think not but this place is a grave. 

Shoes stolen from Concentration Camp - 2014
In Poland there is another Death camp called 'Majdanek', Here, the museum has converted on of the barracks which was originally for slave labour during the War and it is now where the museum display all of the shoes that were owned by the prisoners of the camp and the victims of the gas chambers. This is all that is in the Barrack (Barrack 52), but in 2014 it was reported that someone had cut into the metal display case and stole 6 pairs of adult shoes and 2 pairs of children's shoes. In Barrack 52 there are over 56,000 shoes are displayed for the public to come and see. This is to show the seriousness of the Holocaust and how many people were murdered at this camp. The article the BBC put out also explained that "Previous items stolen from the museum include victim's ashes and a cap from a prisoner." (BBC News, 25/11/14, https://goo.gl/r3OBEc) Which shows that this is still a serious issue. But none of these items were ever recovered or found again. Another article about this story said "Museums on the sites of Nazi camps now issue frequent complaints of numerous acts of vandalism and theft" (The Telegraph, 26/11/14, https://goo.gl/NrRi65) None of the stories mention anything about age, as the thief's were never identified in the articles. However, I can make the assumption that they would most likely be younger than older as the younger generation these days don't really have any connections to the war. As many of the survivors may not have big families or may have past away. So now anyone who's a teenager would have had great-grand parents in the War.

The Yolocaust - 2016
There is a Holocaust Memorial based in Berlin. In 2016, many 'selfies' of people at the memorial were uploaded, a lot of the people in them being disrespectful by jumping on the memorial or being disrespectful. One of the photos that stood out was this:

This was uploaded to Twitter with the caption "Jumping on dead Jews @ Holocaust Memorial" which doesn't need any justification as to why that's disrespectful. Jewish Artist Shahak Shapira, saw this and was outranged. Shahak has had many family issues such as his little Brother being attacked when he was 10 simply because he was Jewish. From this, Shahak set up a page called 'Yolocaust' and photoshopped these people into photos from the Holocaust to show what sort of thing they're actually doing in the photos. 

Once these photos went public, Shahak gave them the option to email him and apologise and they had to say "I would like to be undouched" and he would take the photos down. This really showed the world how disrespectful it was and all the people who had uploaded the selfies, emailed in and got the photos taken down.

Yolocaust Video

This was the latest issue with disrespecting the Holocaust and it seriously helped to stop. But, it didn't completely stop this. When I did a quick hashtag search on Instagram with "#holocaustmemorial" and found the following photos:

So, although we aren't having people uploading very disrespectful photos. People are still climbing on the memorial and taking this photos and this is still disrespectful. This is still a big issue with today's society because taking selfies has become huge. They're everywhere on Instagram and social media websites. 

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: MEETING WITH ZOE - CHOOSE AN IDEA

With our session with Zoe, we discussed all of our ideas as a group and begun to think of which idea we would like to go with. I started by explaining my idea for looking into Gay Adoption, Zoe explained to me that it's a classic BBC 3 way to go, but I would need to focus more on the children's side of it since the theme of the Documentary is 'Teen Spirit'. She also explained that we would need to find a very interesting character to focus on, such as my friend Ella.

Trine's Idea
Trine's idea was to make a documentary on what it was like to be a teenager during the Holocaust. This would involve getting in touch with a Holocaust survivor and either experts of the Holocaust or another survivors as well. However, Zoe suggested looking into people who disrespect the Holocaust as well to add more to the story and told us about a story of students stealing artefacts from the Concentration Camp Auschwitz. We also told Trine about the project 'Yolocaust' which was set up to stop people from taking selfies on the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. (Yolocaust Video)

George's Idea
George's idea was to focus on Young Carers. As they can have to deal with full-time education, social life and also caring for a parent or sibling with a disability or serious illness. George suggested looking into this topic and talking with young carers that are teenagers and finding out what it's like to be in that situation. Zoe explained that this would be a good topic and good for BBC3 as well as it's something that they would focus on.

Simon's Idea
Simon wanted to look into prosthetics for teenagers after he saw a video about a company that built a bionic arm for a 7-year-old boy called Alex Pring. BIONIC ARM VIDEO. Simon suggested getting into contact with a company that makes prosthetics and follow a teenager and their story as we watch them lead up to getting a prosthetic and then getting it. Zoe liked the idea but pointed out this could be really difficult to find and could have an issue getting permission.

After meeting with Zoe and talking through the ideas we all had we finally decided to go with Trine's idea since it was the most original. But rather than focusing on holocaust survivors and their experience of being a teenager during the Holocaust, look more into the suggestion that Zoe said about looking at young people discriminating the memorial and looking at that side of teen spirit.

DOCUMENTARY UNIT: GAY ADOPTION RESEARCH

After considering making my documentary on Gay Adoption or being raise by Gay parents, I decided to research into the topic more to see if there was actually a story to tell here.

Gay Adoption became part of the Adoption and Children Act of 2002 in 2005. This updated Act, made it legal for same-sex couples to adopt a child and bring up a family. The Act also changed and gave more rights to foster parents, meaning you didn't have to be married in order to adopt. The United Kingdom is 1 of only 14 countries to have not only legalised Gay Adoption, but to encourage it. As a homosexual couple or single parent/guardian, you have the same rights as heterosexual singles and couples, legally adoption agencies cannot refuse them based on their sexual orientation.
However, according to Pink Parents website, homosexual couples and single parents wait longer to be able to adopt and are usually given older children rather than babies who are typically given to Heterosexual families. From this I'm already seeing there is some sort of issue with Gay Adoption even though it's legal these days.


As well as this, I spoke to my friend Jason who is currently looking into adopting, told me about a book called "The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I decided to Go Get Pregnant" written by Dan Savage. It tells the story of how he and his boyfriend went through the adoption process but this was before it was legal and it takes the readers down an emotional tale of the details of the adoption process and how it effected his life. It shows the issues he faced both legally and socially with people giving him abuse and negativity for wanting to raise a child in a homosexual relationship. This is both a good point of research and also a good potential interview if I could get in contact with him and his partner.

As well as this. I've also got a friend called Ella who was raise by 2 Mothers. In High School, I would always see people bullying her about having gay parents. This would be a regular occurrence. Although, she pushed through it and ignored all the bullying she got because she loved her family and also saw nothing wrong with having 2 Mothers (as there isn't one). People would also tell her that she would also end up coming out as Homosexual since she's been brought up by 2 women. However, this hasn't been the issue since she has now been in a relationship for over 2 years with her boyfriend. But she's a good example of how gay adoption isn't socially accepted and can lead to the children being bullied. But this can also help to question whether or not Gay Adoption really is accepted in our modern society.

DOCUMENTARY: MY DOCUMENTARY IDEA

When planning out Documentary ideas I had a think about what I could possibly do or the topics I could cover which would not only been interesting to watch, but would also aim to the audience of BBC 3. After looking through the BBC 3 Commissioning guidelines, it states that their target audience is "The channel is disciplined in its focus on young audiences and 16-34 year-olds are its centre of gravity: people who are young in spirit and mindset." But from this I would actually say it's aiming more towards a 16-25 audience as the majority of people will gain full-time and well paid working jobs. As well, a lot of the channel's content, both before and after it went online, aimed at young people, students mostly. 

TV Channel
When it was still broadcasted as a TV channel. BBC 3 was almost like the starter channel, if you pitched an idea and it was a genre that the BBC wasn't sure would fit the typical BBC1 audience, you'd get a slot on BBC3. This could have been because of the content, humour, story, etc. but programmes like Gavin & Stacy, Torchwood, The Fades, Little Britain, Bad Education, Russell Howard's Good News, etc. All began on BBC 3, some stayed their for their entire broadcast time. BBC 3 became known for his 'adult' content and comedy. It was a channel where you would get much more graphic and humorous content. When the programme announced that it was moving online, a lot of programmes didn't want to go with it. Specially, Russell Howard's Good News, Family Guy and American Dad. 3 of the most popular programmes for BBC3 and they didn't want to move as they feared losing audience numbers and moved to different channels. 

Online Channel
Since going online, BBC 3 has (in my own opinion) lost it's popularity. Since it is technically competing with Netflix and Amazon Prime, it's got a lot of competition and doesn't really stand out as a channel anyone. Having lost very popular programmes by choosing to go online. However, it has begun to create more shows that only came about from going online. BBC 3 has begun to commission and broadcast short documentaries now. Between 15-25 minutes as well as longer ones (30-60 minutes). One filmmaker who's becoming well known through BBC3 is Livvy Haydock, she's a self shooting film maker who 

goes for the more nitty and gritty stories, danger tends to be a big theme with her stories as she's covered gang crime, drug dealing and abuse and inside the UK's worst Prison. But all the time focusing on the young generation and how it effects them. She's become really well known for risking her safety and gaining the trust of people such as gang members and drug dealers and interviewing them and talking to them without giving away their identity but still making it interesting to watch.


My Idea
When thinking about what sort of topic I would want to cover. One area that I'd like to cover is Same-Sex Adoption. My reason for this is because being homosexual is completely legal and accepted these days. With same-sex marriage being legalised and also same-sex adoption becoming legal since 2005 but fully accepted in 2009. However, although fully legal and accepted in the eyes of the law, I've had many friends who have come out as gay but have been bullied or shamed for wanting to raise a family by adopting. This still seems to be an issue (socially) even though it's been accepted. But this is only from my friends that I've known back home and I'm not sure if this really is an issue. I've had friends and met people who have been brought up by gay parents. I've also got a friend in London who has been married to his husband for over 3 years now and is considering adopting. They have been really involved in Gay Pride and both have worked and lived between America and the UK for over 5 years so they've both got a lot of friends who are also involved in Gay Pride so they'd be great to help find people to talk to.