Making connections in an Olympic year

With the school year quickly approaching, I’m, as always, brainstorming how I will grab these history students’ attention at the beginning of the year.  Using the Olympics as a “hook” might be the perfect connection between past as present.  We can spend some time on the ancient games and culture as well as a few games as case studies.  With my high school students, the 1936 Nazi Olympics would be a great example of how politics drive the actions of a nation and effects the international community- something we will continually come back to over the course of the year.

If making this connection is something you’re interested in, there are some fabulous resources out there.  Most notably, there is an excellent exhibition on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website, titled “The Nazi Olympics: Berlin1936”.  This is something that is easily navigated by students. It is supported by a teacher’s guide, which holds valuable, well-written activities and discussion questions. (There is also this set of lesson plans developed by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education to accompany the exhibition.)

Students might also be intrigued by the Jewish VirtualLibrary’s article “The Nazi Olympics”.  It lists out non-“Aryan” medalists in the games.  Students always are amused when they see examples of Hitler’s ideas on Aryan supremacy being nullified.

Every four years, we have the opportunity to watch the world unite for friendly competition.  I believe it is always great to remind our students what we learned from the past and have a frank discussion about what we can improve on today.

Have a great beginning to your school year!

Beyond the Pale - Teaching about antisemitism

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.

Banned and Burned Books

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.”

Student tours of Deadly Medicine - a docent's perspective

I enjoy my interactions with students, teachers, other docents, and NARA & MCHE staff as a docent for Deadly Medicine. To docent the exhibit requires careful advance preparation in order to provide an effective and positive learning experience for both students and teachers.

For Deadly Medicine, MCHE, the USHMM, and the National Archives provided training about the content, the historical background, and the facility (National Archives) itself. While this training provided a brief overview, every docent with whom I’ve spoken felt the need to learn and research more—beginning with the exhibit materials and additional suggested resources.

I viewed the online exhibit at USHMM and the pertinent resources to Deadly Medicine on the museum site as well as sites recommended by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education as I wanted to have site recommendations for students and teachers that I knew would provide accurate information to questions that needed more in-depth responses than I could provide. I also attended a session of the trainings given for teachers so I would have an idea of the background/materials they would have available.

Since most of the school groups would be spending between 30-45 minutes in the exhibit, I created an abbreviated tour guide. Using the brief introductions and summaries for the three sections of the exhibit from the guidebook provided in training, I created a framework for the tours I would lead. The exhibit provides a very intense experience for even those with in-depth knowledge of the Holocaust. Most students come to the exhibit with a minimal background in Holocaust study. To fully view and experience each section of the exhibit would require hours. I did not want students and teachers to feel overwhelmed before we even started.

At the beginning of the tour, I give a brief, general overview of what the group will be seeing and how the information will be presented. I check the students’ understanding of primary sources and describe some of the types used in the exhibit. We also discuss the term “eugenics” and their understanding of it—this gives me an idea of how much preparation they have received for the tour. Each of the three sections will include:

1) overview of the section pre-viewing

2) description of one or two specific exhibits to be sure to view carefully.

I give them about ten minutes to walk through each section, read the accompanying information, and ask questions as they go. At the end of the section, I summarize what they just saw and ask them to respond to one or two questions to check for their understanding and clarify any misconceptions about that section.

The key concepts I cover in the tour are as follows:

Section 1 –
eugenics in the U.S. & Europe, in Germany

why “race science” needed/used by the Nazis

how policies were instigated

1. through propaganda
2. through laws
3. through education
   

Section 2 –
application of Nazi eugenics policies/racial ideology - strong versus weak

emphasis on family, women, “pure Germans”

sterilization/marriage laws

Nuremberg Laws

antisemitism

Section 3 –
T-4 program

killing squads to death camps

Final Solution

involvement of medical professionals, scientists, etc./accountability

Again—this a lot of information presented in a very short time frame. But I believe it’s important for students to hear the terminology and see it in the context of the exhibit.

It is sometimes necessary to adjust the amount of time spent in a given section as students become particularly engaged in a certain display/video. At the end of the exhibit, we discuss again why/how the Nazis used eugenics, how they delivered their message, and how the Final Solution was the end result of Nazi policies. Oftentimes, students want/need additional resources to answer specific questions they have. I encourage them to use the MCHE and USHMM websites for accurate information.

As a docent, I see firsthand the effects of the exhibit on students and their teachers. High school students are obviously far removed from this period in history. Unfortunately most students do not study the Holocaust for more than a few days, if that. This exhibit helps show students a piece of that history. The exhibit engages students using learning styles and presentation styles that are most appealing to the students—posters, videos, photos, artifacts, and accompanying written descriptions that are brief and easy to follow. Due to state standards and testing, students do cover propaganda techniques. This is an effective concept to use as a connection to various aspects of the exhibit.

I have led diverse student groups through the exhibit. Some came very well prepared with an activity to complete while in the exhibit (available on the MCHE website). Some came with minimal preparation (prior to their study of the Holocaust). But all of the students became engaged in the exhibit at some point, and many asked questions about what they saw. One memorable moment was when a young lady realized that she would have been labeled an undesirable, “life unworthy of life,” because of her race/ethnicity. The exhibit took on a whole new level of meaning for her.

I am sure that most students (most adults as well) continue to process what they see and learn from Deadly Medicine well after they have completed the brief tour. As a former teacher, I know that these experiences provide wonderful springboards of learning opportunities—for the class and for individuals. I end the tour by encouraging the students to return to the exhibit with a friend or parent(s) and to visit the online exhibit.