Midwest Center for Holocaust Education - Educator Forum

2012-02-02T12:12:00.000-06:00

For the first time I am teaching two courses in which I will teach about the Holocaust. You're probably thinking how great this must be. I'm thinking how complicated this could be. The complication arises from the fact that the 10^th grade Advanced Studies World History class is a feeder class for IB History. So in 12^th grade I will probably have many of these same students. For years I have taught the Holocaust to just the 12^th grade IB History students. For this group I avoid teaching a general history of the Holocaust. Instead I tend to focus on a few specific topics as well as let their questions dictate some of the lesson planning. My assumption has been that these students have been taught the general history of the Holocaust in earlier grades.

With my 10^th grade Advanced Studies World History students I have the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time (maybe a whole 2 weeks!) teaching the Holocaust. This means that I will most likely touch on some of the same topics as the 12^th grade IB History students cover. I'm struggling with how to approach these topics. The dilemma is how to teach these topics in 10^th grade then vary the lessons enough in 12^th grade so as not to turn them off to the study of the Holocaust. For the first step I will be surveying my 10^th graders about what they know (or think they know) and what they have been taught about the Holocaust. Hopefully that will give me the direction that I need to plan the lessons.

Poland publicly commemorates Holocaust victims

2012-01-26T16:09:00.004-06:00

What is a monument? How do we remember? How do we honor? How do we proclaim that these people were once here, and they are no more? They lived, were a part of the rich tapestry that makes up this community, right here, and they are now gone. How do we show that? These are some of the questions that have motivated Polish community members to come together and memorialize victims of the Holocaust as individuals, to declare their personhood, cut short.

The caption under Adam Galicia’s image of a building featuring sepia-toned, full, window-sized photographs of men, women, and children reads: “Holocaust remembrance advocates plastered images of Polish Jews on buildings in Warsaw that were part of the Jewish ghetto before WWII wiped them out.” Although this caption seems a little curt and almost cold, the image is stunning. With the choice of the word “plastered” as the verb, the sentence suggests an arbitrary thoughtlessness. In contemporary parlance, to “plaster” is to slap-dashedly affix with a cheap adhesive, without much previous thought to placement, or much concern for permanence. It’s a temporary announcement, like a bill board layer. This photo, on the other hand, suggests quite the contrary. It depicts lovely, larger-than-life portraits that have been carefully attached in seemingly “just right” places on the building’s surface. The placement of the photos flows with the structure of the building itself. Some pictures cover the bottom half of windows, suggesting the very power of story itself, behind the shades; evoking a time and place once rich with vitality, dignity, and love. The architecture literally frames the people because of the way the photos have been thoughtfully selected and arranged. And in turn, the people built the structure, not the literal building maybe, but the community itself. The installation of the photographs creates a monument that declares ‘there is a plan here.’ The end result creates a kind of beauty that is at once tender, dear, and chilling.

Most of the original photographs, which are reproduced and attached to the building, were taken in studios, by professional photographers, to record someone at his or her “best.” The photographers were paid to create likenesses that would last as reminders of how someone looked at a particular age, in a particular outfit, or at a specific event like a wedding. The act of committing these loved ones to film declares that each and every individual mattered; was loved, valued, and cared for; and the photographs themselves would likely have been treasured. Perhaps they were framed, hung on walls; or maybe printed from negatives on to paper and positioned in intimate, hand-held, icon-like keepsakes, small hand-tooled leather folios where they could be opened, closed, gazed upon and tucked away for safe keeping. Maybe they were collected in scrap books. Maybe they were taken at school, or after some significant ceremony. These are not candids of people in the middle of an activity, unaware of the camera. They are posed, the subjects are looking the photographer in the eye. They are precious. And now, they have been enlarged, reproduced and lifted up, quite literally some of them, several stories, to monumentalize. They look us in the eye and, by virtue of where they are positioned, within what was the ghetto, they ask – Why?

Asking some of the same questions, Zuzanna Radzik represents an increasing number of Poles who believe that Jewish heritage is an integral part of the history of Poland, and must be taught as well as preserved. She wants her fellow citizens to know that killing during the Holocaust was not limited to places with names so many people are familiar with: Auschwitz and Treblinka. She wants people to remember that, in small communities like Stoczek Wegrowski, where 188 Jews were murdered on September 22, 1942, during Yom Kippur; vital community members perished. As supervisor for The School of Dialogue, sponsored by The Forum for Dialogue Among Nations, a Polish non-profit organization, Ms. Radzik is hoping to also combat antisemitism by creating a better-informed citizenry. Her group sends out educators; through schools in the villages, cities, and towns in Poland, to give students an idea of where Jews lived, worked, and worshiped before their numbers were reduced to less than one half one per cent of what they were before the war. Radzik hopes to make history real, and literally “bring it home” to places where today, the community members have never met a Jew or seen a synagogue. “When we show them where the ghetto was in their town and that Jews were killed there, it all becomes real.” Radzik reminds us. Her organization highlights shared religious traditions and teaches about Jewish holidays and their connections to other calendars.

On the sight of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of April, 1943, in the neighborhood of Murnaow, murals have been painted by Adam Walas. They are in the entryway of an apartment and feature prominent Jews who lived there before the war. Ludwik Zamenhof is one of them. He created Esperanto, the common language that he’d hoped would unite peoples of many cultures. One of the neighborhood’s residents, Beata Chomatowska, has designed an education project involving thirty other local individuals who are also interested in educating citizens about the district’s past.

Zbigniew Nizinski rides his bike through small villages and towns in eastern Poland to talk to elderly people who remember where Jews were buried. He is a 52-year-old Baptist who then places memorial stones on graves that have not been marked, just so that murdered individuals can be remembered. Radzik, Chomatowska, and Zbigniew all hope to help people continue to remember what made the places in Poland sacred – the people who lived there – the citizens who were individuals, who inspired, who worked, who created community and whose memory must be preserved.

Countries that Own Glass Houses Shouldn’t Throw Rocks

2012-01-19T11:39:00.008-06:00

Having just finished the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Dr.Will Meinecke’s book Nazi Ideology and the Holocaust (available for free download by clicking here), I was disturbed, but not surprised, by the Nazi’s plan for euthanasia and sterilization of the "undesirable" European population.

“From 1939 to 1945, an estimated 200,000 Germans deemed ‘unworthy of life’ were killed in the various ‘euthanasia’ programs.” These programs included Operation T-4 and Operation 14 f13. Specific groups were also targeted by the Nazis for sterilization, including the “Rhineland Bastards” or children of African soldiers and German women. The Gestapo actually set up Special Commission #3 and between 1935 to 1937, they found, identified, and sterilized (in secret) some 385 children of these mixed raced couples. In July of 1933, a law was passed by the Nazis called the “Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring."

If you were born with certain disorders that German scientists believed were inherited you were to be sterilized. These disorders included mental illness, feeblemindedness, serious physical abnormalities, seizures, blindness and deafness, alcoholism, and Huntington’s Chorea. The law was very specific about the possibility of passing on a congenital disease to an offspring. If there was a chance of this happening the state would have you sterilized. Period. After 1934, the Nazis sterilized between 300,000 to 400,000 disabled people and through this law they were also able to sterilize Roma or gypsies. Mind boggling numbers – yes? However, the Nazis were not the only society culpable of this practice. It was going on in America as well.

In the early 20^th century, some 15,000 people were sterilized in over three dozen states on the grounds of eugenics. In 1927, even the Supreme Court upheld the practice in the case of criminal punishment. But Americans were also sterilized for being poor, a prisoner, or feebleminded. Sound familiar? During the Depression over 30,000 were sterilized and most were in mental asylums or state institutions. The justification for this practice was the cost to taxpayers for institutional care. Remember the infamous propaganda poster? “This genetically ill person will cost our people's community 60,000 marks over his lifetime. Citizens, that is your money.” You probably noticed the word “marks” and figured this was German. But it could just have easily been posted on a street corner in Kansas or Missouri. That’s how widespread the practice of sterilization was in our country.

Sterilization ended in Germany when the Nazis were defeated in 1945 and throughout most of the world it began to disappear. So imagine my surprise and dismay when I woke up last week to my NPR news report at 6:00am and heard that North Carolina’s legislature had decided to compensate eugenics victims from their state. Unbelievably North Carolina continued sterilization until the mid-1970s. Some 7,600 men, women and children were seen by the state’s eugenics board and deemed unable to “improve the caliber of the population” or were seen as a welfare burden on the state. Sound familiar? One girl was sterilized at 14 after the birth of her only son. The board decided she was unfit for parenthood, because she was poor and smelled bad. Many of the North Carolinian victims had the procedure unknowingly and weren’t aware until they tried to have a child later in life. If you ever get a chance to see USHMM’s “Deadly Medicine” the end is very telling. Video clips show victims of Nazi sterilization who were having fertility tests for years before they told their doctors what camps they had been in and who had taken care of them. Only to find they were no longer able to have a child.

As a library media specialist in a middle school, I teach propaganda lessons with my 8^th grade students in the context of the Nazis and World War II. I added American propaganda this year as well to remind students of our county’s use of fear and euphemisms in persuading our citizens. However, next year when I teach the persuasive technique of “citing statistics” I will show the above information side by side so students can see the alarming parallels. Only in America, sterilization went on for another 30 years and paying the live victims $50,000 now as an apology won’t erase the crime committed on them.

Resources:

The Hiding Place revealed

2012-01-18T11:21:00.005-06:00

As educators, we realize how important it is to continue to read within our disciplines for a well-rounded mental library from which to draw. The school year gets started, we are saddled with deadlines, grading, meetings, collaborating, with all the while trying to keep up with our own family lives. It simply gets hectic. Outside reading often goes by the wayside.

In 2010, I was bestowed with the honor of becoming a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Fellow. One of the many perks is a stipend to spend freely in the USHMM bookstore. As I was relishing in my decisions, I walked past Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place. My Mother often quotes from Ten Boom’s work and as a Holocaust educator I was somewhat familiar with the premise of her story. I picked up a few other items and kept coming back to The Hiding Place. I am so very glad that I did.

As a Christian, living in Holland, Ten Boom tells of a very rich family life and a love of people from all walks of life, prior to the outbreak of World War II. The incredible theme in her story is not of heroism, danger and rescue, which are all present. The elements that are glaringly apparent throughout the entire account are those of common decency coupled with forgiveness. Ten Boom struggled with these in face of incredible odds. She reveals throughout prewar, during her wartime imprisonment and postwar how forgiveness & mere decency are powerful elements in living a fulfilled life. Ten Boom lost significantly at the hands of the Nazis yet she remained decent to her captors & forgiveness helped her to push through the pain of loss. Her story does not focus solely on faith, nor ethnicity or gender and it is one of my most powerful works that I have read from any genre.

Pre-War Jewish life through photographs

2012-01-17T15:22:00.002-06:00

In any study of the Holocaust, time should be spent helping students to understand what life was like for the Jews prior to the start of the war. It helps to give them some sense of the magnitude of what was lost during the Holocaust – not just numbers, but families, communities, and traditions. One way I have done this in my classroom is by having students use the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Photo Archives.

Typically, I split them into groups by country (Germany, Britain, France, Austria, Poland, Italy, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Russia, Lithuania). Each group then uses the USHMM website to locate a variety of pictures that were taken prior to the start of the war (search "prewar ______ (fill in country of choice)"). I have each group share their photos and talk about what they learned about life before the war in their country. You can have them do a formal presentation through something like power point, photo story, or voice thread or you can have them do an informal share-out of the photos they researched. The “Interpreting Historical Images” worksheet provided by USHMM is a great resource to use any time you have your students analyzing images.

Providing historical context for a memoir study

2012-01-12T14:38:00.004-06:00

When I first really started learning more about the Holocaust through the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education, we learned about the main events in “10 Core Concepts,” which I then used and adapted (“stole”) to create a PowerPoint presentation that defines these 10 Core Concepts to use with the memoir I teach about the Holocaust. The Concepts are broken down chronologically to help students better understand the time frame of what happened before the Nazis took power all the way to what happened after World War II.

These Concepts also make it easier to teach the Holocaust if you are not a social studies teacher, which I am not; I teach English/Language Arts/Communication Arts. Another nice objective of teaching the history using these Core Concepts is that the Concepts align with the objectives that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum asks teachers consider when teaching the Holocaust. I include a few video clips when I teach the notes to make them a little more visually appealing to students, but teachers can definitely personalize the notes to make them fit their own classroom instruction. I want students to understand the book we are reading socially and contextually in history, so these notes allow me to put the book in perspective (I teach Night by Elie Wiesel, but this unit could easily be used with any memoir of the Holocaust). These notes and the lessons are available on the MCHE website as well and I welcome questions.

Resources:
Student Worksheet
Teacher Lecture Notes

Finding the Holocaust in other stories and histories

2011-12-21T15:35:00.000-06:00

As an English / Language Arts / Communication Arts teacher, I am always looking for good books to read and pass on to my students. I am also always looking to read for pleasure, and as a member of a book club, I am always trying to “branch out” and read books that are not always ones that I would have been interested in on my own. Because of this, I have noticed that the Holocaust has become a topic in more and more fiction books as well as being connected to so many issues in history that I read about in non-fiction books.

For example, a few years ago I read Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos, a fiction book about the intertwining lives of people living in Seattle that had ties to the Holocaust. The link to the Holocaust was subtle, but it was there. I also read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, a non-fiction book about an African-American woman whose cancer cells have been used by doctors and scientists to discover cures to diseases, help with cancer treatments, and a plethora of other research but who never received any compensation and little recognition. This book also tied into the Holocaust very subtly because of the medical ethics established as a result of the experiments in the camps.

Some other books that I have enjoyed (both fiction and non-fiction) that have related to the Holocaust include Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer, and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.

In addition to these, there are many more books out there and the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education’s resource center has many that you may check out and read. I recommend these to my students who want to read more about the Holocaust beyond what we study in class and hope that they continue to learn about this important time period.

Concept of the "other"

2011-12-14T13:59:00.000-06:00

I teach Sociology, as well as American history. Teaching an elective allows me the freedom to stretch my wings and look at standard history from different angles and through different prisms. I have become enchanted with the concept of “the other.” “The other” is anyone who is not like you. We all create a concept of the “the other” in our heads. When we group ourselves with like-minded people, whether based on performed race, economic status, performed gender, or countless other divisions, we band together because of some form of commonality. We find those whose values we share in some way. We join with others who reinforce our beliefs. Those who don’t share our beliefs are in one way “the other.” It is difficult for us to see the world through the eyes of “the other.” We assume that those we agree with view the world with the same eyes we do, those that don’t must not have anything in common with us. When we walk into a crowded room of people we don’t know, we look for someone that we assume is like us. It is a survival mechanism and quite natural. But it is also very base. By choosing others that we think will share our interests, we are pushing away those that don’t look like they will “get” us, hence we lump them up as “the other.” (As a point of clarification, in Sociology, we discuss the fact that we are all performers, acting out a role. We perform our gender to varying levels: hyper masculinity, as seen on football teams; hyper-femininity, as witnessed on the cheer or dance squads or in modeling; Eminem is a white man who performs black culture. President Obama has been derided as a black man who “acts” white. While culture is somewhat fluid, we must understand that we all “perform” or “act” out certain traits that we wish to personify to fit in to a group. As a white male, I perform to standards that are beyond my control as a father, teacher, role model, and husband.)

When I am teaching the concept of the development of racism to a predominantly Caucasian student base, I explain the difficulty in doing cruel things to someone that I may see as a potential mate, sister, daughter, mother, etc. When I look in the mirror, or at a family portrait, is this someone that could ever be a part of that? If yes, the bar is higher, and it is more difficult for me to minimize their feelings, to do them harm. If the answer is no, though, it is much easier to act without regard to them. They are the embodiment of whatever I am not. The Kansas City Star ran an article about slavery several years ago. In a part of that article, a historian said that if it hadn’t been for African slavery, the English colonists would have enslaved the Irish. I disagree from a sociological perspective. The Irish, with white skin, would not have faced the same brutality or lasted as long in bondage as did blacks. A good history teacher will take me to task on that and describe the conditions in Ireland at the time and the cruelty inflicted. Which will bring me to my next point: The concept of “the other” works best when you have a clear, visible, physiological/physical difference that can be exploited. It can be extrapolated to neighborhoods, class, religion, or any number of culturally created cleavages. Once these cleavages have been identified, they are often exploited.

Building on Dr. Gregory Stanton’s “Eight Stages of Genocide”, we can see the development of "the other" is a process of dehumanization. As much as we attempt to say that we respect all equally, often we place our concept, our values, our norms on others, assuming that what we hold true must be universal. When others don’t share those views, we can marginalize the target. The process of dehumanization is a slippery slope, and we too often engage in it without realizing. It is our duty to help our students guard against this process in everyday life through examples from the past.

Providing context for Anne Frank

2011-12-08T14:59:00.004-06:00

I was careening through a Barnes and Noble store recently on a mission for something else when the image of Anne Frank on the cover of a book almost caused me to give myself a case of whiplash. I executed an abrupt U-turn and went back to the display table to take a look. The book that attracted my attention and made its way into my shopping bag that day was Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography. Sid Jacobson is the author of the text and Ernie Colón created the graphics. This 149 page book reads like a graphic novel and appeals to middle and high school students – especially those who are reluctant readers.

The biography is divided into ten chapters that tell the familiar story of Anne, her family, and the other residents of the Secret Annex. However, there are many details in the book that I did not know. For example the first chapter tells the history of Otto Frank’s and Edith Holländer’s families; I learned that Otto Frank worked at Macy’s department store in New York City for a couple of years before WWI. The ninth chapter tells how the residents of the Secret Annex were arrested and what happened to them following their arrests. I learned that Otto tried to convince Peter Van Pels to hide with him in the infirmary at Auschwitz; however, Peter decided to evacuate the camp as the Russians drew close in January 1945. The tenth chapter tells about Otto’s life after the war, the publication of Anne’s diary, and the creation of The Anne Frank House.

Throughout the book, the creators have provided background information to help the reader understand Anne’s story in the larger context of WWII and the Holocaust. The second chapter is devoted to explaining the rise of Nazi party in Germany. Maps are provided in several places. There are pages titled “Snapshot” that illuminate in text and graphics concepts such as Germany in World War I, the Nuremberg Laws, Concentration Camps, the Wannsee Conference, and the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. There are smaller frames tucked throughout the book that give background information about other important events such as Germany’s acquisition of territory without war between 1935 and 1938, Kristallnacht, Operation Barbarossa and the Einsatzgruppen, and the evacuation of the Danish Jews. The last pages of the book feature a chronology and a list of print and web resources for further reading.

This book would be an excellent addition to school libraries and to the personal libraries of educators who teach about Anne Frank.

Reference:
Jacobson, Sid and Ernie Colón. Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010.

Short Research Topic Lesson Plan

2011-12-08T02:30:00.001-06:00

In teaching the Holocaust to any grade, especially Middle School, it can be tough to deal with such a sad topic for any period of time. I have found that, rightfully so, the kids get very down about it and get burned out easily. While that is one of the key elements of teaching the Holocaust, letting it be sad and depressing, I think it is also important to teach about some of the positive aspects of it as well, to balance it and to let the kids see the humanity that did come out of such a devastating situation. In order to do this, and to meet the objectives for doing a research project, I had my students choose 2 people who are on the Righteous Among the Nations List and do a short research essay about them.

Because this was their first research paper for me, I kept it limited and fairly simple. We focused on writing a thesis statement and putting things into their own words. I only allowed them to use two websites:

Yad Vashem’s website about The Righteous

The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous

We began with taking notes. From the Yad Vashem website, they had to take notes on The Righteous in general. What kinds of people were they? Why did they help? What forms of help were common? Then they went on to the JFR website and browsed through the actual Righteous and their information. They were to choose two people who they found inspiring, but whom they had not already learned about in class (the Frank helpers and Sugihara). For each person they chose, they were to take notes on them specifically. Who did they help? How? Why?

Finally, they put their notes into an essay form, with three basic parts.

Intro paragraph, including basic information about The Righteous and ending with a thesis statement about their two rescuers.

At least one paragraph about each rescuer, including their opinion of the rescuer and their actions.

A concluding paragraph, putting it all together. They had to include their opinions about why they thought people helped and how these Righteous could be an inspiration to them and their generation.

I, personally, did not even have them type this. I didn’t make it a major project. After studying the Holocaust for about 4 weeks at that point, they weren’t in the mindset for a large project. Instead, I wanted them to get some inspiration at the end of such a heavy topic. Reading the essays, I was not only impressed with how well they wrote thesis statements and summarized in their own words (meeting curriculum objectives), but they really did seem to be inspired. They saw a light in this dark topic and could see how something that happened so long ago, in their minds, could be applicable to them. I had not done much research myself on the various Righteous and I learned so much from reading their essays. This project took about 4 days in class, and they had a weekend to finish it up, but I think it really made an impact on them.

Classroom Handouts
Thesis Statement
Heroes of the Holocaust
Grade Sheet

A student's tribute to a WWII liberator

2011-11-30T09:39:00.000-06:00

While showing seventh-grade students MCHE’s survivor testimony about the Holocaust last spring, one of my students stated that her neighbor is in the video. All students’ ears honed in on the message of the four Holocaust survivors and the liberator, Col. Keith Schmedemann. Students continued to delve into the testimony. However, Col. Schmedemann spoke with the seventh-grade students last spring about the Holocaust and World War II. His story of liberating people in the Buchenwald concentration camp was a once in a lifetime experience for the middle school students.

When brainstorming for articles for this fall’s issue of our middle school newspaper, The Vellum, students wanted to interview and write about veterans. Col. Schmedemann came to the minds of current eighth-grade students as he imprinted a strong message to our future leaders. Thus, the following student article appeared in our fall issue. We are thankful for the gift of time, knowledge, and treasures of the many people who make meaningful connections of their history to our students, the future leaders. Thank you, Col. Schmedemann and many other speakers who share their story.

LOVE FOR OUR VETERANS
By Katie Donaldson

Hearts beating by the second these courageous heroes wait cautiously for the next gunfire. And when its shot, 1, 2, or maybe even 10 donate their life to save our country. Not only do they use their brain for strategies, they use their heart for determination. These champions are willing to sacrifice their lives for us. November is the month we honor saints and veterans. According to America, veterans are saints; saints for our country. They overcame their deepest darkest obstacles and dominated the impossible.

We recognize these advocates that may date back a while ago during the Holocaust or maybe recently in Afghanistan. Last year the fellow eighth graders witnessed an experience of a lifetime, they had the privilege to talk to a liberator in the Holocaust, Col. Keith Schmedemann. He was one of the protagonists that put his worries and selfish needs aside and focused on others. This man and several others are greatly admired for their work to our fellow brothers and sisters. God called him to offer up his life to the vulnerable. Col. Schmedemann remembers every little detail in the years he fought; from the anguish he saw thrust upon the victims in the concentration camps to the arrogant feeling he sensed when he felt victory. His words traveled on a journey, and the students felt every hill he had to climb.

He talked about how fate brought him into war. His father was in World War 1 and he happened to be born 1 year after that war; time after he would be matured enough to fight in his footsteps. Col. Keith Schmedemann started his presentation by making the statement, “We quit making automobiles, and started making tanks.” This point in history was when airplanes were modeled and new technology was being created. Soon enough he dug deeper and discussed his work in the army. With years after years of practice and training, and with the help of K-State, he accelerated from level 1 to the highest level. This hero was an infantry officer; which is a branch of army that is in the action and fighting. He was also involved in liberating a concentration camp called Buchenwald. “I crawled through the mud, dodged bullets, and leaped over creaks,” this is what this idol said about the things you see in movies that he did every day.

“I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America……” Does this sound familiar? This patriotic leader honors these words every time they are said. He believes in respecting the flag and the country because that shows your pride. Sometimes when he says these words tears form in his eyes because it reminds him of the sacrifices his colleagues and other veterans faced to free lives. He admires all the soldiers and their love for their country. Col. Schmedemann declares, “I don’t think there are wars, it is simply a conflict between beliefs. There is never going to be a winner or loser, but there will be defeats and achievements, like our achievement in defeating Hitler.”

If he could give the students at Cure’ of Ars and the rest of the children of God one advice, it would be to make the most of your time and opportunities that are available to you and to realize that school and family are giving you these advantages. This earthly saint said, “If I could change one thing in my life, I would have jumped back in time and developed a hobby or skill that would stay with me the rest of my life. I practiced piano and wrote hymns, that I know all the words by heart to this day. I wish I would’ve taken the time to learn how to play the violin or be a wood carver.” During his work in the army he took pictures and wrote about his experience, soon he developed this into his story and delivered it to all of his children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren. It took him about five years to complete this book!

To sum up is life in three words it would be: God, Country, and Family. A few years ago his second wife created a collage that depicted him. It had these three words on it along with sunflowers to represent his love for Kansas and three signatures that were his grandfathers, his fathers, and him. Mr. Schmedemann still has this collage hanging on his wall with other photos and memories of his life. He has lived life to the fullest and says that his greatest achievement was bringing humanitarian assistance to the Holocaust survivors.

Col. Schmedemann and all the other veterans teach each and every one of us to follow God’s call and put others in front of us. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The Golden Rule. Not only do these words warm his heart, he fulfills them every day. Our journey reaches a point in life when all of our worries dissolve, when our tears are cleared, and when God takes us to his kingdom. This day will come, and the only way to get through the narrow gates is to love one another as yourself. And that’s just what these veterans did.

Making a difference

2011-11-09T12:02:00.000-06:00

This has been a challenging school year. I am at a new school, again, and my district, the Kansas City MO School District, is facing a state takeover. Getting to this point has been a combination of many things, yet it’s fashionable to blame teachers for the ills of society -- even the ills of the school district. Even teachers in my region shudder at the thought of having to possibly take “those Kansas City” students. Not many teachers can do what we Kansas City teachers do- we look poverty, abuse, neglect, and ignorance in the face every day. I wouldn’t trade shoes with any suburban teacher- my students need me, and I change lives every day. My students readily grasp Holocaust lessons- they live with the ignorance and disdain that the Jews living during the Holocaust faced. They know life is tenuous, and they comprehend how important it is to understand and accept others.

The state of Missouri has been exploring options for improving the educational outcomes for my students, and one option is allowing students to attend suburban districts bordering our district. I was astounded when an area teacher who claims an interest in the Holocaust outright told me that she didn’t want “those" students. Her ignorance made me ill. In order to have a healthy society, we must view all children as ours. Didn't the core of being a bystander during the Holocaust involve thinking of society as an “us” and “them” proposition?

I know teachers who would die of shame if they had my job. I am proud of what I do. Kansas City teachers work many more hours than our suburban counterparts, and spend much more of our own money to ensure our students have what many suburban children take for granted. We work in neighborhoods most would not venture into. We comfort children who are homeless, whose parents are incarcerated. And yet our students are compassionate, accepting of others, and learn despite worries most children never face.

I have begun teaching the Holocaust to my new students. It is always astounding to experience the disbelief of what transpired during the Holocaust with a new group of students. I am always humbled by their unique insights, and know that I will learn as much from them as they learn from me.

Choosing resources that don't romanticize

2011-11-02T21:47:00.005-05:00

This is one of the ten guidelines for teaching the Holocaust recommended by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In my opinion, this is one of the most difficult of the Museum’s guidelines to follow, but nonetheless, very important.

This is difficult for several reasons. Teachers are natural storytellers. We are constantly thinking of ways to present the information in a manner that grabs our student’s attention. Sometimes, because of that, we can be tempted to focus much of our attention on dramatic and/or gruesome details that do not capture the realities of an event, including the Holocaust. One such topic is rescue during the Holocaust. Many of these stories are compelling and do approach the topic of taking action, a social justice lesson many of us hope students take away from studying the Holocaust.

Teaching about rescue should be a part of a Holocaust curriculum, but not romanticized in a way that over emphasizes its part in the history. Less than one half of once percent of European non-Jews were involved in rescue efforts during the Holocaust. “Schindler’s List” is an excellent movie, and I show it for extra credit each year, but it should not be the only instruction students receive on the Holocaust, therefore giving students the idea that this is the typical story of the Holocaust.

As educators, we need to be cognizant of the films we show to our students. In our society, which is inundated with media and entertainment, there are many movies and pieces of historical fiction that tell a great story, but fail to tell all of the history or misrepresent it. Before showing a movie, we should ask ourselves “Why am I showing this? What do I want students to get out of this?” There might be a time and a place for “Life is Beautiful”, but as a Hollywood movie that misrepresents the history, it should not be used in an historical nature. The same can be said for movies like “The Boy in Stripped Pajamas” and “Jakob the Liar”.

There are many engaging and compelling stories that are historically correct. If you are looking for suggestions, feel free to refer to this list of movies and books and also MCHE 's annotated film list.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Accuracy of fact along with a balanced perspective on the history must be a priority.” I firmly believe that we owe this to our students in all studies of history and especially when educating about the Holocaust.

Creating a Wordle lesson plan

2011-10-30T02:57:00.004-05:00

One of the things that I have started doing with my students is having them create a Wordle visual based on a certain topic and then responding to an essay question with the Wordle. I think it is a good way to incorporate a little technology, visual learning, and writing all in one. I have included the directions I give to the students and a very general sample of a Holocaust wordle.

Holocaust Wordle Assignment
For this assignment you will be researching a topic related to the Holocaust. You will be using the Holocaust websites from the MCHE website. Once you have completed the research you need to create a list of the 15 most important ideas/actions associated with your topic. You will then use it to create a Wordle visual that demonstrates these ideas.

The link to Wordle:
http://www.wordle.net/

How to make a Wordle:
Click on ‘Create your own’
Paste your list in where it says ‘paste in a bunch of text’ and paste or type in your list
Click ‘Go’

You may need to adjust your list several times to get your Wordle to look the way you want it to. Once you have completed your first Wordle you will follow the directions below for how to copy/paste it into Microsoft Word.

How to copy/paste the Wordles into Microsoft Word:
Once you have your final draft of your Wordle you need to click ‘Print screen’
Then open a Word document and paste it into Word
Double click on the image and then right click on the picture
Click on ‘Show picture toolbar’ and select the crop button
Crop out all of the excess stuff from your image

Note:
If you want a certain word to be more prominent than another word to represent its importance, then you should type it in more times. The more times the word appears, the larger it is in the Wordle visual. Also – if you want a set of words to be listed together (for example: many victim groups) then you should list them without a space when you type them in so that they will appear together in the Wordle (for example: manyvictimgroups).

I have included a sample below of a general Holocaust wordle so you will understand the assignment.

Sample Wordle:

Next Step: After creating each Wordle and pasting it into a Microsoft Word document, you will then write an explanation of your topic. The explanation should be a minimum of 10 sentences and based on your research.

Why I do this...

2011-10-12T21:59:00.001-05:00

Every so often I am asked some variation of the question about why I continue to study the Holocaust. People seem to assume because I am a member of the Isak Federman Holocaust Teaching Cadre at MCHE and because I take most any class offered by MCHE that, by now, I should already know everything about the Holocaust. As anyone who studies history can tell you, you may possibly get to know the general facts but its the understanding that takes time and is never really fully nor satisfactorily achieved. In addition how can you possibly know all there is to know about an event spanning many years involving millions of people in all kinds of roles across an entire continent.

So why do I continue to study the Holocaust? The question of why is always hard to explain. It almost sounds morbid and wrong to say I like studying the Holocaust. Millions of people were involved and each one has a different experience or viewpoint. The moment you think you understand even some small part another piece is revealed. Some have been able to tell their story while others never had the chance. There is still so much more to learn about. Even in recently rereading books such as Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men, or in taking courses, I find something that helps further my knowledge and understanding.

Is it difficult sometimes to continue studying an event with such horrific consequences? Yes of course it is as you may well know. But the significance of the topic and the human stories, not just the horror but also those of hope, make it a topic that I plan on studying for years to come.

Using movie segments

2011-10-06T08:54:00.002-05:00

With the time constraints placed on classroom teachers, any saved moments in preparation before the students is like gold. So, what if you could cut segments from DVDs and place them together in a constructive order, without having to fast forward or change discs? If you have the discs, I have the software. Thanks go out to Glenn Wiebe, at History Tech, for the ideas.

Here is what you will need: DVDs that you want to use segments from. It is imperative to own your own DVDs, as you can “rip” a copy, if you have purchased the original. To “rip” is to transfer the data from a disc (CD or DVD) to your computer’s hard drive. I recommend finding originals on Amazon. A lot of their used copies are perfectly good and are a super bargain. You will need a computer with a DVD player in it. That is just about any computer that is less than about five years old.

You will need specific software. I specifically recommend two from personal experience: Magic Ripper, available from the website Magicripper.com. This software will cost you a bit, but is worth it. Magic Ripper is only available for Windows based systems. If you are running a Mac, or just don’t want to pay the cost, the other option is Handbrake, available at handbrake.fr. This is a free download, and pretty simple to operate. Both programs will allow you to transfer the movie into a new format of your choice and save it on to a computer. From there, you can carry it on a jump drive, external hard drive, or other portable electronic device. Portability!!

Using either Windows Movie Maker (a free download) or iMovie (a part of iLife Suite that comes loaded on Macs, or is a cheap download), you can “trim” segments from the digital copies of your movies you have “ripped”. This is simple, and will take you no time at all to learn it. In Movie Maker, when you have segments you want in order, and are ready to use them, go to the file menu and click on “Publish Movie”. You can choose to create your finished project in a format playable on Windows based systems, or to put it on a DVD, playable in most players. I haven’t had enough experience playing with my new Mac to guide you through that, but Mac is fairly intuitive. You will need to use iDVD to create a finished DVD, similar to Movie Maker. Good luck, and if you have any questions, email me: citzsold@yahoo.com.

Ultimately, you can put together your most used segments from a series of different documentaries, movies, and videos. This is an incredible tool, and hopefully will allow you to condense your resources in one location. By having the video on the original disc, you have permission to make a digital copy for personal and educational purposes under Fair Use policies. Good luck.

Beyond the Pale - Teaching about antisemitism

2011-09-28T04:15:00.003-05:00

I teach World History. Each year I teach the Holocaust in the spring. Each spring students ask the same question: “Why did people start disliking Jews all of a sudden?” For many of my students they don’t know much about Jewish history except for the Holocaust and what they might learn about Jews from the time of the death of Jesus in Church.

I start each fall in World History teaching about the Middle Ages. We cover the basics including the plague. A couple of years ago we watched a video in class about the plague and it mentioned how Jews were often blamed for the plague (accused of poisoning water supplies) and massacred by Christians. My students were shocked and could not understand why the Christians would act in such a way.

I found a website that focused on the history of Judaism. It is called “Beyond the Pale: The History of Jews in Russia.”

Inside this exhibit there is a section called The Middle Ages. There are many images that will prompt discussions and also straight, to the point text that is easy to comprehend. Topics include the First Crusades, Anti-Jewish Myths, Patterns of Discrimination, Usury, The Jewish Community, and Expulsion and the Black Death.

In the past I have had students work their way through the website independently and then we will discuss many of the imagines and issues in class. I have attached a worksheet that I have used with students before.

I feel that to better understand the Holocaust students really need a better understanding of Jewish history in Europe. I like this website because it already addresses many of the issues talked about during most Middle Ages units so it isn’t hard to integrate it into the curriculum.It gives students a greater understanding and background knowledge when studying the Holocaust.

Righteous Rescuers Demonstrate Traits Transcending

2011-09-23T00:49:00.001-05:00

Many resources---books, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Yad Vashem, memoirs, journals, DVD/VHS movies, podcasts, encyclopedias---are available when teaching the Holocaust. However, organizations such as the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education and the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR) enrich the learning process in the classroom with these resources and continuing education in Holocaust studies. One group whom I teach in my curriculum is the righteous rescuers and their traits that transcend through a poster set that is available from the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. Courage, Ingenuity, Cooperation, Integrity, Compassion, Social Responsibility, Self-Sacrifice, Moral Leadership.

Traits that transcend teaches humanity and honors the rescuers. Why do we examine traits that transcend? By exhibiting these traits in their efforts to save Jews, ordinary people transcended their own limitation and the obstacles that stood in their paths. By affirming the potential they have to show courage, ingenuity or self-sacrifice in their own lives, students will realize that these traits transcend the confines of history. Therefore, as a class, we find the definition of each trait. Two righteous rescuers and their stories are told to represent one of the eight traits that transcends. In cooperative learning groups, students will be responsible for teaching the class about a trait and the two rescuers; thus, taking leadership of a trait. Eight presentations, which could be poster, power point, photo story or other form, take place over two to three class periods.

Courage---the state of mind that enables one to face danger, hardship or uncertainty with composure and resolve--is demonstrated with Marian Prichard of the Netherlands and Irena Sendler of Poland. Irena Sendler helped smuggle over 2500 children from the Warsaw ghetto. “My family taught me that what matters is that people are honest or dishonest, not what religion they belong to,” stated Irena Sendler.
Ingenuity---the qualities in an individual that exemplify ingenuity are cleverness, creativity, resourcefulness and cunning---is brought to life (jumps off the poster) with Olga Kukovic of Croatia and Oscar Schindler of Poland. Primo Levi describes his rescuer, Lorenzo Perrone, (If This Is A Man), “I believe that it was really due to Lorenzo that I am alive today; and not so much for his material aid, as for his having constantly reminded me by his presence,,,that there still existed a just world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole...for which it was worth surviving.”
Cooperation---the act of working together for a common purpose or benefit---is illustrated with Preben Munch Nielsen of Denmark and Dimitar Peshev. Nielsen joined a resistance group and helped 1400 Jews escape from Denmark to Sweden by boat.
Integrity---a firm adherence to a moral code---is shaped with the stories of Eugenia Wasowska of Poland and Chiune Sugihara of Lithuania. Eugenia, known as Sister Alfonsja, took in thirteen Jewish children at a Catholic orphanage where food and medicine were scarce. Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Kovno, helped thousands of Jews escape through the Soviet Union.
Compassion---a feeling of sympathy for the suffering of another and the desire to alleviate it---is displayed by Olga Rajsek of Croatia and Hasmik and Tigran Tashtshiyan of Ukraine. Escaping the Armenian genocide, the Tashtshiyan family helped their friends. Some righteous rescuers welcomed children into their home and treated the children as their own to keep the children safe and out of harms way. These people did not think twice about what they had to do, it was a compassionate act of human kindness, a trait that transcends.
Social Responsibility---an obligation to ensure the welfare of others---is highlighted with America’s Varian Fry and Poland’s Jerzy Radwanek. Varian Fry is the only American recognized by Yad Vashem, Israeil’s Holocaust authority, as a Rightowus Among the Nations. Through his actions in France, Varian helped more than 1,000 refugees escape to safety, including some of Europe’s leading culturual, intellectual and political figures.
Self-Sacrifice---giving up personal wants and need for the sake of others or for a cause---is exemplified by Jadviga Konochowicz of Poland and Aristides de Sousa Mendes of France.
Moral Leadership--the ability to influence other to accomplish a goal arising from a sense of right and caring is shown with Andre Trocme of France and Raoul Wallenberg of Hungary. From the beginning of the German occupation, pastor Andre Trocme encouraged the people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon to a adopt a spirit of resistance. The people of Le Chambon helped the Jews and by September 1944 when Grance was liberated, the people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and eleven surrounding village had saved 5,000 people, including 3,500 Jews.

Therefore, these eight traits transcend through the righteous rescuers. Not only do students learn the word or trait but also identify a person who has put this trait into action. Additionally, meaningful connections are made to people and events of today as well as strong discussion regarding what my students can do as future leaders, professionals, and contributing editors to our community.

The criteria for awarding the Honor of “Righteous Among the Nations”, determined by the public committee of Yad Vashem, is as follows:

An attempt that included the active involvement of the rescuer to save a Jew regardless of whether these attempts ended in success of failure.
Acknowledged moral risk for the rescuer during the endeavor during the Nazi regime, the warnings clearly stated that whoever extended a hand to assist the Jews place not only their own life at risk but also the lives of their loved ones.
Humanitarian motives as the primary incentive---the rescuer must not have received material compensation as a condition of their action.

Thus, “Righteous Among the Nations” or righteous rescuers continue to be honored today. Rescuers were in every corner of Europe. They are ordinary people and are models of moral courage, ingenuity, cooperation, integrity, compassion, social responsibility, self-sacrifice, and moral leadership. Today, my students have access to information on these rescuers through Yad Vashem, USHMM, and the JFR where they link the past to the present.

“I want them to know that I tried to open my door. I tried to tell people, ‘Come in, come in.’ In the end, ‘Remember that in your life there will be lots of circumstances that will need a kind of courage, a kind of decision of your own, not about other people but about yourself.”

Magda Trocme, French rescuer

Teaching about resistance - the partisans

2011-09-14T09:50:00.002-05:00

Following a presentation by Mitch Braff, the Executive Director of the Jewish Partisans Educational Foundation, during the summer course offered by MCHE, I decided to explore the JPEF website. What I found was a user-friendly wealth of information about Jewish partisans (a little-known/taught area of the Holocaust from my experience)--primary sources including first-person testimonies, videos, photographs, and letters; interactive maps, lesson plans and accompanying materials for easy download, and a fascinating set of courses provided though E-Learning.

From the homepage, select Teach, then E-Learning. After creating your account (which is free), you are ready to select a course. I started with “How to Use the JPEF E-Learning Platform.” This course provides comprehensive background on the partisans and resistance basics. Upon completion of this course, a teacher is prepared to teach a 45-60 minute class on Jewish resistance. The presentation is engaging, using interactive maps and photos to cover forms of resistance (including spiritual, artistic, sabotage, and humor). Many interesting anecdotes enhance the material; and the film, Introduction to the Jewish Partisans, provides a fascinating overview narrated by Ed Asner, whose cousin was a partisan (an interesting local connection there).

Each lesson provided is designed to be used in a single class period. The films range in length from 3-21 minutes. Everything I viewed is designed to be very teacher-friendly. There is a virtual underground bunker for students to explore. The themes covered in the lessons include heroism, ethics, leadership, power, resistance, and one’s personal responsibilities.

One of the student activities that I found most creative is entitled “Someone Like Me.” A student is paired with a partisan with similar characteristics—the student can then read a biography of that partisan, do additional research on the site, and share the information with the rest of the class.

The purpose of the activities is not only to help students learn about Jewish resistance and the partisans but to also help students apply the life lessons from this history. I highly recommend the site—but preview the films and activities carefully as some are more suited for high school students. The E-Learning classes (I just completed the one on Women Partisans as well) make use of unique and engaging primary sources—almost makes me wish I were still teaching (almost)—I know students would benefit from these creative activities.

Essay Contest theme announced

2011-09-09T16:53:00.004-05:00

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education is pleased to announce its seventeenth annual White Rose Student Essay Contest, open to 8th through 12th grade students in the 18 county Greater Kansas City area.

1942: Destruction of the Polish Ghettos

After the establishment of the death camp system in 1941, the full-scale destruction of the Polish ghettos commenced in 1942. By summer and early fall, massive deportations were under way and the Operation Reinhard camps (Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka), which were designated for the murder of those communities, were operating at full capacity.

Part A: Research the history of one Polish ghetto from the list below and explore the first-person testimony of at least one Jewish person who experienced or witnessed the deportation from that ghetto during 1942. Describe the conditions in the ghetto, the circumstances that deportation created for the Jewish community in that ghetto, and how the person you researched personally experienced the history you have described. Part B: How does learning about the Holocaust through the personal testimony of an individual make this history more meaningful to you? You must base your research on one of the following ghettos: Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lvov, Miedzyrzec, Prezemysl, Radom, Tarnów, Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Zamosc

Part A: Research the history of one Polish ghetto from the list below and explore the first-person testimony of at least one Jewish person who experienced or witnessed the deportation from that ghetto during 1942. Describe the conditions in the ghetto, the circumstances that deportation created for the Jewish community in that ghetto, and how the person you researched personally experienced the history you have described.

Part B: How does learning about the Holocaust through the personal testimony of an individual make this history more meaningful to you?

You must base your research on one of the following ghettos:
Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lvov, Miedzyrzec, Prezemysl, Radom, Tarnów, Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Zamosc

Full details including teaching resources, entry forms and criteria are available on the MCHE website at www.mchekc.org /whiterosestudentessaycontest.

Complicate Your Thinking

2011-08-31T08:51:00.001-05:00

When I signed up for MCHE’s four-day summer education seminar, “Responses to the Holocaust: Perpetrators, Victims, and Bystanders,” I assumed it would be a chance for me to review and solidify my understanding of the Holocaust.

Well, the seminar ended up being a good reminder that it’s not wise to make assumptions, because I spent most of it “complicating my thinking.” Mitch Braff, executive director of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, used this phrase to encourage us to embrace the Holocaust’s complexities. The presenters made me question basic assumptions I had about the Holocaust. Here are some examples:

· By analyzing actual train shipments, noted historian Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt challenged the commonly held belief that the Germans diverted resources from the Eastern Front to murder Jews. According to his research, in 1944 at the height of the Hungarian deportation, only ten of every 25,000 trains running each day in Europe were designated for the deportation of Jews.

· Dr. Severin Hochberg, a former historian with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, discussed the extent to which the Catholic Church, and specifically Pope Pius XII, was a bystander.

· On the final day, we explored the role of Jewish partisans in the war and the ethical issues they faced.

This seminar did complicate my thinking, but in a good way. Participating in these discussions reminded me that history is about real people, and it must be understood with all of its complexities to do it justice.

Alfred Lerner Fellow Summer Institute for Teachers

2011-08-31T08:45:00.000-05:00

This is a guest blog by Terry Beasley, an educator at Lakeview Middle School in the Park Hill School District. This summer Terry was MCHE's representative to the Alfred Lerner Summer Institute for Teachers held by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.

__________________________________________________________________________________

I headed to New York on June 25, 2011 to participate in the Alfred Lerner Fellow Summer Institute for Teachers. I was one of 35 educators selected for this prestigious program held on the campus of Columbia University. I was looking forward to gaining new knowledge and instructional strategies that I could use in my classroom during our studies of the Holocaust. I had completed my assigned readings, completed my pre-institute assignments, and had my suitcase packed.

My experience with the Alfred Lerner Fellowship Institute was more than I could have imagined. The caliber of instructors and presenters during the week was exceptional. I was very fortunate to have this opportunity.

Professor John Roth gave a historical history of the evolution of anti-Semitism based on the religious differences throughout history. Professor Volker Berghahn discussed the interwar period in Germany and the impact of World War I on all the nations, which helped clarify the mindset of the various nations. Professor Harry Reicher, University of Pennsylvania Law School, gave an amazing and very insightful presentation on how Hitler and the Nazi regime used the law to manipulate Germany and its citizens. I found this session extremely interesting because it clarified how the Nazi Party was able to use the legal system as a tool or vehicle to obtain the goals of the Nazi organization. Professor Peter Hayes discussed the use of big business by the Nazi government and really explained how businesses became involved and then immersed in the crimes of the Nazis. Henry Feingold addressed the issue of refugees and the responses of individuals and countries to this world crisis. Professor Jeffrey Burds did an excellent presentation on the use of propaganda by the Nazi regime. Much of the information that Professor Burds shared was new documentation that he has been researching in recent years. This new evidence shows how the Nazis targeted propaganda for different regions of Europe to personalize anti-Semitism in specific areas.

Sheila Hanson from the Shoah Foundation instructed us on how to access IWitness to access the visual history testimonies of over 52,000 individuals from 56 countries. These resources can be used in a variety of ways by teachers or by students. Roman Kent shared his personal story of his life and survival before, during and after the Holocaust. He stressed that any study of the Holocaust should include who the people were before and who they were afterwards. Mr. Kent was so personable and his story was quite emotional. The author and instructor Nechama Tec shared her personal testimony and then led a question and answer session regarding her books she started writing in 1970 when her memories started becoming an issue for her.

Our final day was spent with Robert Jan van Pelt, who traveled to Germany in the fall of 1989 following the fall of the Berlin Wall to search the archives of Nazi Germany. Professor van Pelt told many fascinating accounts of his experiences with Holocaust research and documentation.

Another aspect of this experience was the connections and friendships that evolved. I met many passionate and dedicated educators from all parts of the United States who are dedicated to teaching the truth about this historical event. I had the pleasure of sharing my room with Katarzyna from Minsk, Poland. We had four educators from Poland, one journalist who works at Auschwitz, one employee from the United Nations, and two educators from Croatia in our fellowship. The opportunity to discuss and collaborate with educators from these areas was so insightful and meaningful as we shared teaching strategies, as well as historical perspectives. It was a wonderful group of individuals with whom I will continue to communicate with in the future.

On a personal note, my selection as the recipient of the Eduard Sonder Award was extremely impacting for me. Based on my application, the granddaughters of Mr. Sonder select the recipient of this annual award. I met both of the granddaughters, as well as a great-granddaughter and a great-great granddaughter while I was attending the ALF Institute in New York. I had an opportunity to visit with all of them following a presentation. I was given a copy of the family story, a copy of a family photograph of Eduard Sonder, and a box of chocolates from the same Swiss Chocolatier that Mr. Sonder would bring to his granddaughters from his business travels when the family lived in Germany. Both of the granddaughters are such delightful ladies and I was so humbled that they selected me.

I am thankful for the opportunity to have been an Alfred Lerner Fellow and to those who encouraged me to apply, as well as to those who helped support my journey. I believe that I am better equipped as a teacher to help my students understand the depth and the impact of the Holocaust.

Auschwitz In The Courtroom

2011-08-09T11:33:00.000-05:00

Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, the world’s leading authority on Auschwitz, addresses the trials that brought Auschwitz into the courtroom in this podcast of his July 19, 2011 presentation at the Jewish Community Campus.

Dr. van Pelt served as an expert witness for Deborah Lipstadt’s defense team in the suit brought against her by Holocaust denier David Irving in 2000. The author of numerous books and articles, Dr. van Pelt is currently a professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

Unique Summer Course

2011-06-21T11:46:00.004-05:00

Responses to the Holocaust: Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders

July 18-21, 2011
8:30-4:00

Jewish Community Campus
5801 W. 115th Street
Overland Park, Kansas

This one time only graduate-level course examines the roles of Jewish victims, perpetrators, bystanders, the Allies and neutrals in the Holocaust. The course will feature lectures by guest historians, content-based readings, primary source analysis, survivor testimony, group discussion, and practical application for 7th-12th grade classrooms.

SCHEDULE OF SPEAKERS
July 18-19 will feature presentations by internationally-renowned Auschwitz expert Dr. Robert Jan Van Pelt. Through lecture and discussion, based on his book Holocaust: A History, he will focus on the responses of Jewish victims and perpetrators.

July 20 will feature presentations by Dr. Severin Hochberg, formerly of the Senior Historian’s Office at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and currently teaching in the history department at George Washington University. His sessions will include an in-depth analysis of the international response to the Holocaust - including a focus on refugee issues and bystanders - and the responses of the churches to the Holocaust.

July 21 will feature Mitch Braff, executive director of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation (JPEF). Through the use of web-based testimonies, he will bring participants’ focus back to Jewish responses to the Holocaust, specifically armed and unarmed resistance.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION
The course includes pre-reading for the sessions. Readings will be mailed to those who register by Friday, July 1, 2011.

A registration fee of $75, payable to MCHE, covers lunch on site Monday and Tuesday, course materials, including Robert Jan Van Pelt’s book, Holocaust: A History as well as curriculum materials and a DVD of partisan testimony from JPEF. Snacks and beverages will be provided each day, with lunch on your own Wednesday and Thursday.

Two hours of optional graduate credit will be available from Baker University. A separate enrollment fee of $100, payable to Baker University, will be collected on the first day of class.

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORM AND COMPLETE INFORMATION!

Utilizing picture books in Holocaust studies

2011-05-31T13:22:00.006-05:00

Three books covering separate topics related to World War II and Holocaust study can provide quick and engaging introductory experiences for students—Passages to Freedom, Baseball Saved Us, and Through Eva’s Eyes. All three have websites providing additional information and/or supporting curriculum which can save teacher-time and provide creative, cross-curricular activities for classroom use.

In her May 8 blog post, Jennifer Jenkins discussed using a short story about Chiune Sugihara, a rescuer from Japan, with her middle school students. The picture book entitled Passage to Freedom – The Sugihara Story by Ken Mochizuki with illustrations by Dom Lee was published in 1997. It received many awards including the ALA Notable Book Award.

Sugihara’s story is told through his young son’s eyes. The focus is on Sugihara’s actions to save Jews while a member of the Japanese government diplomatic service stationed in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1940. At risk to himself and his family (and against his orders from the Japanese government), Sugihara wrote hundreds of visas daily for about a month until he was forced to leave for Germany for reassignment. The story clearly illustrates how Sugihara and his family decided to help the refugees—how Sugihara and his wife had told their son to “think as if I were in someone else’s place.”

The afterword, written by Sugihara’s son, tells of his father’s life after the war. He was forced to resign from the diplomatic service when the family returned to Japan. He was eventually chosen to receive the “Righteous Among Nations” Award from Yad Vashem in 1985 and continued to hear from many of those he helped to survive.

Students certainly learn from this story that one person can make a difference. On the back cover above a picture of Sugihara and his young son is a Jewish Proverb: “If you save the life of one person, it is as if you saved the world entire.”

A Teacher’s Guide can be found online with suggested lessons for most subject areas (including ESL—the book is available in Spanish).

Sample Activity for Art:
Study the illustrations in the book. Why did the artist use brown (sepia) tones instead of bright colors? What moods do the illustrations create? How do people’s hands help explain the story?

The pictures are stunning. They were created by applying “encaustic beeswax” on paper. The illustrator then scratched out the images and applied oil paint to add color.

Students can also listen to a Book Talk by the author where he discusses his process for writing the book and the theme of moral choice.

An earlier book written by Ken Mochizuki and illustrated by Dom Lee is entitled Baseball Saved Us. This story was inspired by the author’s parents’ experiences in a Japanese internment camp in the U.S. during WWII. Note—technically, this is historical fiction. A Classroom Guide provides many interesting follow-up activities to help the students process the story and its setting. (I would not use the first Social Studies activity as USHMM Guidelines for Teaching the Holocaust do not recommend comparing experiences in this way.) I used the book to pique student interest and help them generate questions about the internment camps—students were not familiar with this piece of American history for the most part. Once they wanted to learn more, we read a story entitled “Home Was a Horsestall.”

This story was included as one of fourteen in a magazine from a kit (The Shadow of Hate) which I received from The Southern Poverty Law Center – Teaching Tolerance. The major theme of the kit was intolerance found in American history. One objective was to show students aspects of our own history that may not typically be studied in depth and from which we certainly need to learn lessons. I included information about Japanese internment in a study of the Holocaust for several reasons—most importantly to show that hatred and intolerance can occur anywhere, including our own country, and that we need to know how to fight against those actions. Classroom Activities can be found here.

Sample Activity:
Choose an item that defines you culturally. Bring it to school with you. Explain to the class why this article is important to you and how you would feel if you had to part with this item for an indefinite period of time.

Phoebe Unterman began this book when she was thirteen years old. She wanted to tell the story of her grandmother’s experiences as a young girl (from age six to through twelve) during the Holocaust. Her grandmother and her family are living in Lodz, Poland, at the beginning of the story. As German soldiers occupy her town and Jewish freedoms are taken away, the story is told through the grandmother’s voice. She remembers wearing the yellow star, being forced to quit school, and eventually being sent to the ghetto. The family is ordered on a packed train to Stutthof. Eva and her mother are separated from her father and sent to work in a munitions factory in Dresden. When Dresden is bombed, they are moved to Theresienstadt where, soon after, they are liberated by the Russians. Mother, Father, and Eva are reunited.

The story will certainly encourage student interest and questions about Eva’s experiences. The author-illustrator’s delicate, detailed paintings are beautiful complements to the story. Have students research photos of the various ghettos and camps and compare them to the paintings in the book.

Additional information can be found at the author-illustrator’s website.

The book was created as an entry in the 2006 National Kids-in-Print Contest for Students sponsored by Landmark House, Ltd. in Kansas City, Kansas. This contest was inspired by David Melton, author of Written and Illustrated by . . . . I could not find any information about the contest existing beyond 2010, but information for 2011 just may not be posted yet.

Written and Illustrated by . . . is a fun, step-by-step guide to helping students write, illustrate, and bind their own books. The finished products created by my students always amazed me. While none of my students ever won the Landmark Editions contests, the librarian always purchased the winning books each year so we could enjoy them in class. Writing and illustrating a book can certainly give a real-world audience and purpose to not only a fiction creation, but also a well-researched non-fiction book such as Through Eva’s Eyes.

All three books present interesting situations and people to discuss in relation to the universal theme of “man’s inhumanity to man.” The artwork provides an additional avenue for visual understanding and discussion.

art:21 - Classroom Resources

2011-05-19T16:14:00.001-05:00

The PBS series, art:21 (art in the 21^st century), provides excellent teaching resources for several themes associated with Holocaust education. Free educators’ guide pdfs are downloadable from the website. Hard copies are available, by request, for seasons 3-5. The website is rich with short theme-specific video clips of the artists working and talking about their creative process; artists’ interviews; complete video features; an educators’ blog; and hundreds of lesson plan ideas. As with all video, please be sure and preview for content appropriateness before showing to students. Here are just a few examples of artists and subjects related to Holocaust studies:

Krzystof Wodiczko – Monuments, Collective Memory, Peace, Power
Wodiczko projects live feed, victim video testimony on buildings and monuments. He hopes to promote peace by publicly protesting violence and aesthetically reflecting collective memory. Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1943, Krzystof explains: “My mother, being a Jew whose entire family was killed in Poland during [the] ghetto uprising, gave birth to me in the midst of all of this – my childhood was on the ruins of war; physical, political, and perhaps moral, definitely psychological.” Much like Margaret Bourke-White’s camera while photographing the horrors of concentration camp life, Mr. Wodiczko’s sketchbook acts as a buffer between him and his subject matter. Krzystof admits he cannot relive each story as he hears it, because of the trauma it might trigger. So he sketches, and re-sketches, designing his video installations. Wodiczko’s work has received many awards and honors including the Hiroshima Art Prize for contributing to world peace.

Layhal Ali – Political Resistance, Bullying, Racial Inequality, Protesting Violence, Power
A person of color growing up “in an all-white school,” Ali creates abstract human-like figures in poses that are evocative of victimization, dominance, subservience, resistance, and protection. Her series of brown-skinned, gender-neutral figures named Greenheads engage the viewer in identity questioning with their stylized masks, weapons, wounds, and armor. She talks about how cruel the game of dodge ball is on a school playground, and asks intriguing questions about the physical properties of color and perception with regard to racism. In the video clip about characters and color, she ventures “Sometimes I wonder, is that what it is about . . . dark-skinned people? - their face absorbs more lights so you have to look into them more? They are more mysterious? I mean . . . what is it?? . . . Could racism be just attributed to bizarre visual phenomena, you know? . . . There’s a question!”

Jenny Holzer – Censorship, Media, Government’s Role Holzer’s work, she confesses, “ focuses on cruelty in hopes that people will recoil.” She creates moving typography projections; word and image installation pieces; and signage that make people think about what they are NOT seeing, reading, and hearing. He artwork publicly questions authority and proclaims aphorisms such as “abuse of power comes as no surprise.” One of her studio projects recreates a series of redacted government documents, enlarged and presented in lovely, colored, jumbo silkscreened prints.

Matthew Ritchie – The Individual in Society, Conformity, Hope
Ritchie works with line, and large-scale graphic installation, to make ideas tangible. His sculpture piece which he refers to as a “human cell,” shows how people often imprison themselves; in their own thoughts, words, ideas, or even possessions. It is formed from a series of intricately designed and elaborately cut metal plates that interlock and intersect to create a void in the middle, just the right size for an adult human body to slip in and be visible, but immobilized. The cell evokes a type of cocoon or globe that completely traps an individual. Ritchie fashioned the husk, or human shell out of drawings that he enlarged and then transferred by computer to a metal smith, who in turn, cut them with a high-power jigsaw. Marks become monumental as these large, round, flat metal planes meet at the x, y, and z axes, creating a massive globe-like structure at least ten feet in diameter. The video features several of his other animated, but flat, calligraphic linear creations. Some of them are only inches thick, but sprawl all over a gallery at different levels off the ground. What Mr. Ritchie manages to accomplish is to make tangible what typically falls into the realm of pure emotion, mark-making, movement, and flow. Thinking takes on form and ideas become concrete. What if ideas about combating indifference and intolerance could take on form and become REAL enough that students could better “deal” with them? How could we motivate students to name and make real the aspects of human behavior that lead to marginalization, hatred, bullying, and we/they mentality? Once concrete, could these ideas then be destroyed, or publicly displayed in protest, for healing, hope, and re-creation?

Banned and Burned Books

2011-05-17T08:16:00.003-05:00

Last Tuesday night I had the privilege of viewing the traveling exhibit from USHMM called Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings at the Wyandotte County Historical Museum. If you’ve never seen this exhibit it’s sobering to say the least. The primary source photos and text focus on the book burnings of May 10, 1933 and America’s response to this tragedy. I overheard someone at the viewing say “It’s too bad America wasn’t as upset about the people burning later as they were when the Nazis burned the books!” How sad but true. However, my part in the evening, as a middle school librarian, was to speak about book burning in America today and comparing it to the Nazis destruction of eventually 100 million books throughout Occupied Europe in their 12 year reign.

I work with my 6^th – 8^th graders every year through our “Right to Read” lessons in September. So I had lots of insight into challenges and bannings that go on in this country. I also teach my students why these books are offensive to some people. These same people then work to have these books removed from libraries not just for their own children but for everyone’s! Thankfully these folks are rarely successful but that’s because we have a 1^st Amendment and the ALA (American Library Association).

Preparing and delivering this presentation, I was struck by the similarities between the Nazis and their reasons for burning books almost 80 years ago and our reasons today: Homosexuality/sexual content and profanity, Un-German/Un-American, not age appropriate/degenerate. I was also amazed at how shocked most of my audience was when they saw the ALA’s Top 10 List of most challenged books in 2009. The titles and reasons were absurd in many cases and people’s nervous laughter made me realize the importance of my words that evening.

Awareness is everything and avoiding book burnings in our own country takes our vigilance and constant attention. As the Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, once said, and it can’t be said enough, “Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too.”

Dr. Seuss' Political Cartoons

2011-05-11T08:52:00.006-05:00

Rebecca Parker’s blog of 3/11 about using Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel reminds me that I created a word and image activity to use with high school students relating to this same book. Basically, I had them match the captions from the cartoons, to the images. It took longer than I thought it might, perhaps because students had to really look at what Geisel drew, to figure out the best match. The activity can be arranged in any of a number of ways. Either project just the images, and pass out the words in a list, or on little slips of paper. The class can work as a group, or compete in teams, for points. Or a power point can be designed with 6 or 7 captions to choose from on one side of a slide, and one image on the other side, or arrange several images and one caption, having students select the best image. Use clickers to see which team gets the correct answer first, the most answers, or have individuals raise hands. If they are close, but not right on, see if someone can find a better caption and then award points for the specific things in the picture that show this is a better match.

Once the images are matched correctly, the class can group the cartoons into categories such as:

Anatomy of a Dictator(ship)
American Isolationism
Europe Falls Prey to the Third Reich
(Un)equal Rights for Who?

Another way to encourage students to look more closely is to have them do a series of searching activities. For example, project a cartoon and its caption, and have students take 60 seconds just to look, and try and see as many different details as possible in the image. Or have them look and list as many things as they can see. As a way of checking what they saw, have them pair up. One person in the pair faces the image, and the other backs it. Have partners trade off and quiz each other. “How many ostrich heads did you see?” “What is Hitler holding in his hand?” “Which countries are listed?” “What was the longest word in the caption?” Do a ‘stump the teacher’ round. Turn off the projector and have students take 3 minutes to list what they saw. Encourage them to write as many things as possible. Or break it down into specific categories like “list what is visible in the top half of the cartoon, behind the statue, in front of the jeep, to the left of Hitler, etc.”

If you do this with teams, scratch off the items included on both teams’ lists and see who has the greatest number of unique responses. Expand student responses by having them write what this reminds them of or makes them remember. Is there a book, song, poem, story with the same message? Have them list three things in the cartoon that interest them. Show them 5 different cartoons and have them make a list of three different things they think were important to Geisel.

As a follow up, have the class collect contemporary political cartoons and see how these might compare to Geisel’s. Are there any with similar messages, using different circumstances? Follow up with students making a list of what they think needs to be changed at their school. Have students create their own political cartoons, exhibit them in the hallways, or see if the school paper will publish any of them.

New Lesson Plans

2011-05-10T15:17:00.001-05:00

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education is pleased to announce the addition of several new lesson plans to it's website at www.mchekc.org/lessonplans. Written by members of the Isak Federman Holocaust Teaching Cadre, these lessons explore relevant connections between the Holocaust and at least one other modern genocide. The lessons added to date are:

· Bystanders in the Holocaust and Rwanda
This lesson explores testimony of bystanders to the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide. It encourages students to understand what it means to be a bystander and to refrain from being one in the future.

· Document Based Question on Resistance in the Holocaust and Rwanda
This document based question explores resistance in both the Holocaust and Rwanda. It is designed to allow students to practice all the necessary DBQ skills while learning about the Holocaust. Approaches to deconstructing the DBQ and utilizing the documents in other settings are explored.

· Children's Genocide Diaries - Bitton-Jackson and Zlata's Diaries
Utilizing the memoir I Have Lived A Thousand Years (Holocaust) and Zlata's Diary (Bosnia), this lesson plan allows students to analyze and explore the impact of genocide on children.

· Children's Genocide Diaries - Sierakowiak and Zlata's Diaries
Utilizing The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak (Holocaust) and Zlata's Diary (Bosnia), this lesson plan allows students to analyze and explore the impact of genocide on children.

· Children of Genocide: Communicating Through Art
This lesson plan helps students analyze art created by children during the Holocaust and the genocide in Darfur.

· Connecting a Holocaust Memoir Study to Modern Genocides
This lesson plan helps students make relevant connections amongst genocides by utilizing first hand testimony of genocide survivors and witnesses at the conclusion of any Holocaust memoir study.

· Propaganda in the Holocaust and Rwanda
This unit explores propaganda utilized by a variety of media outlets in both the Holocaust and Rwanda. It was specifically designed to help middle school students learn about the elements of propaganda and their effective use, but has wide applications in high school and history settings.

Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda

2011-05-03T15:23:00.005-05:00

In a recent class (one of a series sponsored by MCHE entitled Relating the Holocaust to Other Genocides: A Seminar Series for Educators), a fellow cadre member Dianne O’Bryan shared drawings from Witness to Genocide. I had been preparing a lesson for the class comparing/contrasting the artwork of children from Terezin with the artwork of children from Darfur. I decided to explore the children’s art from Rwanda as shown in this book.

As a middle school English teacher, I looked for resources that were engaging, historically relevant, and easily adapted for use in one or two class periods to enhance our study of the Holocaust. Witness to Genocide provides two short introductory pieces, one by Hillary Clinton and one by Richard Salem, that can be used to generate student discussion about the importance of sharing the story of the genocide in Rwanda and to show how art can be used as testimony and healing.

The three main sections in the book (The Genocide, The Children, and The Future of Rwanda) tell the history of the genocide the effects of trauma on children, and the importance of remembering as these children face the future. The captioned artwork supplements the text and acts as witness testimony and a healing process for the children. The simple, yet powerful drawings will engage those who see them and will encourage students to learn about the past and ways to help secure a better future for these children and other victims of traumatic experiences.

Witness to Genocide is available in the resource center at MCHE. Supporting lesson plans can be found at http://www.mchekc.org/lessonplans.

Extending your unit to talk about the Rwandan Genocide

2011-04-20T09:20:00.000-05:00

In 2005, I was looking for a movie to watch at Blockbuster. There was a case on the bottom shelf that caught my eye. I picked it up, read a little, and took it home. I watched it alone, on a Friday night, and couldn’t look away. Sometimes in April is an overview of the Rwanda genocide, told in a didactic format jumping between 1994 and 2004. When I first watched it, there were no major Hollywood stars to distract me. I grew up well after Debra Winger had peaked. In 2011, Idris Elba did a season of The Office, but still plays his role so convincingly, that you lose yourself in him. Without recognizable stars, you can truly focus on the story.

Having watched Hotel Rwanda, and having read up on the genocide from different perspectives, I felt I understood the man on the ground story of the genocide. Sometimes in April goes so far beyond that. Our protagonist is a Hutu married to a Tutsi. The use of the radio to spread propaganda and enlist the masses is explored effectively. The relationship of Rwanda to other nations, including France, Belgium, the United States, and China is also explored in this film.

Sometimes does a great job of covering all of the big details of the genocide. It is critical that any instructor choosing to show this film does some research on the events of the genocide. This movie does an incredible job of covering all the major aspects of the Rwanda from a macro perspective. Doing some research into the background, the American reaction to the killings, and the United Nations reactions will allow a viewer to extend the lessons further.

Rwanda was a society divided between two major tribes: Hutu and Tutsi. The movie does a good job of explaining the historical complications between the two, caused in large part by European colonial powers. The ongoing conflict in Rwanda is discussed, and the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), a militia force in exile, attempting to drive the Hutu heavy government out. The role of Belgium and France in allowing weapons (machetes) to be imported from China in incredible numbers, providing support to the government in power, and providing refuge to the government when things went south are all documented. Rwanda was 95% Christian at the time of the genocide, and the role of the churches in the genocide are touched on. American news stories covering cultural events of the day are contrasted with the escalating violence in Rwanda. The internal debates at the Department of State are explored. The International Court Tribunals in Arusha present both the positive and negative of Europeans in Rwanda. As the RPF enters and the massacres die down, the attempt to prosecute the criminals and the attempt to move forward as a nation are shown. Graphically, this movie is fairly tame, but psychologically, it takes the viewer to a much heavier level.

What makes this film so powerful is that it does not leave you feeling uplifted. In the end, 800,000 people were killed. Paul Rusesabagina did all he could to save so many, but at the end of Hotel Rwanda, one feels a sense of relief that he saved so many. At the end of Sometimes in April, you don’t get to walk away feeling satiated. Questions the movie raises are answered, but it is a bitter pill. The inaction of the American government during the genocide, and the further failure to stop the perpetrators from fleeing into refugee camps in neighboring countries raises new questions. This makes an incredible wrap up to a study of the Rwanda genocide and America’s current involvement in Libya and the Ivory Coast. Paul Kagame, leader of the RPF as they entered in 1994, was just reelected for a second seven-year term as president of Rwanda. This is still an incredibly current issue, that has wide ranging extensions in current events.

When we begin our studies, I read aloud, and discuss the meaning behind Primo Levi’s poem, “Shema”. I think this is a powerful tool to create a sense of urgency in the students. We must not allow this to happen again. I end the poem by telling them that they can no longer claim ignorance, and that it is now on them to be active and involved in world issues. Gregory Stanton’s “Eight Stages of Genocide” is available in a slideshow format, as well, and a great asset to anyone with the time to teach genocide issues. We have a limited amount of time to spend in the classroom on genocide, but it is incredibly topical. As we grow into a global community, we must be aware that our neighbors are no longer so far away. With the news out of the Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, and Egypt, we must not turn our eyes away. Instead, we must seek out information from a neutral source, and call on our politicians to do what is right and just. We must act morally and ethically, and not shy away from the hard choices. American presidents should be held to a foreign policy standard by an educated voting population, and that becomes our responsibility. An educated population should determine if American foreign policy should extend to humanitarian action or if American military force should only be used in the defense of tangible American interests. As for me, it would seem to be in our best interest, as the most powerful nation on Earth, to stand up for the meek, and act in a just way. American failure in Rwanda jeopardizes future American actions. We must never forget.

Holocaust Photo Analysis

2011-04-14T09:14:00.001-05:00

A great activity to use with students studying the Holocaust is analyzing photos. It helps to actually create a “picture” in the minds of our students of the real people affected by the Holocaust. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a photo archive that is filled with powerful photographs. You can access the photo archive by going to http://www.ushmm.org/research/collections/photo/.

Here are some of the questions you can use with your students when analyzing photographs:

Describe the photograph. What is happening in this photograph? What does it tell you about the time period and people portrayed in the photograph? What social class do you think they belong to? Do you know when and where this photo was taken?
Who do you think took the photo? How did you come to that conclusion?
Why do you think this photograph was taken?
What are your personal reactions to this photograph? What does this photo tell you about the lives of the people in it?

This can be a great individual writing activity with students where they write a reflection about a photograph or can be easily incorporated as a group activity. Students can share their analysis of the photographs with the class which can be a great starting point for discussion about many aspects of the Holocaust.

Making connections

2011-04-07T11:46:00.002-05:00

As a language arts and reading teacher, I am constantly asking my students to connect what they read to their own personal experience, background knowledge, other texts they have read, and the world at large. I recently finished a book that caused my brain to fire with connections to the Holocaust.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand tells the true story of Louis Zamperini whose pursuit of the four-minute mile took him to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Chapter 4 offers a fascinating description of the Nazi Olympics, Louie’s encounter with Hitler, and his theft of a Nazi flag from the Reich Chancellery. It also relates American basketball player Frank Lubin’s experiences when he lingered in Berlin and watched the city reinstate the antisemitic signs and newspapers that had not been present during the games.

Following the Olympics, Louie enrolled at USC and began training for the 1940 Tokyo Olympics. Of course, that dream was dashed when World War II began. Louie joined the Army Air Corps before Pearl Harbor and was trained to be a bombardier. While searching for a missing plane over the Pacific on 27 May 1943, Louie’s own plane crashed at sea killing all but three of the men aboard. The survivors floated on a raft in the Pacific until mid-July when they were captured by the Japanese.

Until the end of the war, Louie was held in Japanese POW camps where he and his fellow inmates were subjected to dehumanizing and sadistic treatment from his guards, inadequate rations, unsanitary living conditions, exposure, disease, lack of medical care, and slave labor. What I find remarkable about how the POWs endured the Japanese camps is the same thing that I find remarkable about how the Jews survived conditions in the Nazi camps – the use of spiritual resistance. On page 243 Hillenbrand describes acts of sabotage and smuggling that “were transformative. In risking their necks to sabotage their enemy, the men were no longer passive captives. They were soldiers again.” On pages 268-269 she describes a Christmas play that the POWs staged for themselves to boost morale. On page 282 she told how Tom Wade recited Shakespeare’s soliloquies and speeches from Churchill and Lincoln to his fellow POWs while they carried back-breaking loads of coal.

The book does not end with Louie’s liberation. It goes on to tell of his struggles with nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, and finding a purpose in his post-war, civilian life. Woven throughout Louie’s story, Hillenbrand also tells of efforts made to prosecute the Japanese camp guards for war crimes. Ultimately, Louie finds a way to forgive his Japanese persecutors and redeem his life.

Students in my classroom and participants in workshops at MCHE have often asked me, “How do you manage not to become depressed when you study the Holocaust?” I have been affiliated with MCHE for 14 years now. During that time of intensive learning about the Holocaust, there have been times when I have broached a topic that was simply more than I could bear. However, mostly, I find my studies uplifting. I have read and heard countless testimonies to the strength and resilience of the human spirit. In the face of unimaginable evil, people have acted with kindness, courage, hope, and integrity. I have personally heard survivors as world-famous as Gerda Weissmann Klein and as beloved as our own Bronia Roslawowski speak about the importance of forgiveness.

I believe that all of us are challenged to live our lives with kindness, courage, hope, integrity, and forgiveness. The Holocaust survivors, who have every reason to be fearful, bitter, complaining, and unforgiving, serve as an example for the rest of us when they choose the alternative. Louis Zamperini, through Laura Hillenbrand’s wonderful book, now serves as another shining example for me.

Children in the Holocaust and genocide

2011-04-04T10:29:00.008-05:00

My 8^th graders have just finished studying the ghettos of Poland with emphasis on the Lodz ghetto. I had them view a documentary entitled The Lodz Ghetto which I found at the resource center at the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education. This video was divided into 4 parts with discussion questions for each one. This gave my students a great introduction and overview of the ghettos. I would certainly recommend this video for classes either to be seen in its entirety or in parts.

The next reading selection for my class will be Surviving Hitler. It is a memoir written by Andrea Warren about the experiences of Jack Mandelbaum, a local Holocaust survivor. There is a curriculum unit which can be found on the MCHE website which is very good. My past students gave great reviews on this book. They seemed to especially connect with the fact the Mr. Mandelbaum is from the Kansas City area. Of course, they all want to meet him after reading his memoir.

I will be ending my Holocaust unit with a lesson comparing and contrasting the diaries of two young people. The students will read excerpts from the Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, a young man who lived in the Lodz ghetto and the diary of Zlata Filipovic, who lived in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. This lesson is designed to connect lessons learned from the Holocaust with what has happened in the world since the end of World War II. I used this lesson last year and it was a success.

Extra Credit Video Assignment

2011-03-31T09:34:00.000-05:00

Because I am an English teacher and only teach the Holocaust in conjunction with teaching the memoir, Night by Elie Wiesel, I do not spend as much time on other aspects of the Holocaust as I would sometimes like, especially with snow days. So, to provide students with an opportunity to learn a little more about the Holocaust on their own, I allow them to watch a Holocaust video for extra credit, using the attached list and assignment qualifications. I do always try to preface the extra credit opportunity by saying that some of the selections are a Hollywood portrayal of the Holocaust and may have some inaccuracies. The students must write about the movie, making connections to what we have learned in class and reviewing the movie’s “credibility.” So, the extra credit opportunity also requires the students to practice some of the good writing habits that they are supposed to be developing in class.