Local Survivor Testimony - In Hiding

Tonight  Jeff Benes and I will be presenting a lesson on “In Hiding” as part of Telling the Story: Teaching With Witness Testimony ~ A Seminar Series for Middle and High School Educatorsat the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.  As I viewed the testimonies of 4 local survivors for this segment, I was greatly affected by their recollections.

One in particular stood out in my mind.  Ralph Berets was two or three years old when he and his family were forced to leave their home in Amersfoort, Holland and go into hiding.  They lived for several months in a cottage that was owned by one of his father’s friends.  The Germans were informed of their presence and the family hid in a ditch until the soldiers left.  The family was forced to split up.  Ralph and his mother were hiding in an ice cream shop, where he always had something to eat.    

Other memories were of his parents’ playing cards with German soldiers and a grenade that was thrown into a window but did not explode.  They lived in a chicken coop with 12 other people and Ralph remembered the strong odor of the chickens.  Maybe his young age made his testimony so compelling to me.

It was interesting to study the different perspectives of the four survivors, not only in their ages but where they lived.  Margalith Clarenberg was 15 when she went into hiding in Holland. When Ann Walters was 13 years old, she was left with a farmer in Poland.  Maria Devinki lived in Wodzislaw, Poland.  She was a slave laborer.  She was released from the camp through the efforts of a Polish soldier who was a friend of a high school acquaintance.  He would be their protector for the next two years.  She was 23 years old when she, her husband, 2 brothers and her mother went into hiding.  She was 25 when the Soviets liberated Poland. 

I plan to use these four testimonies with my students as a lesson in perseverance as part of my Holocaust unit. You can find the documentary at the MCHE Resource Center and later this summer you can find the lesson plans we are teaching tonight on the MCHE website!

Fall 2012 School Programs announced

WHITE ROSE STUDENT ESSAY CONTEST
 
The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education is pleased to announce its eighteenth annual White Rose Student Essay Contest, open to 8th through 12th grade students in the 18 county Greater Kansas City area. This year's contest commemorates the 80th anniversary of the Nazi rise to power and is designed to address the new Common Core education standards.

Click here for complete theme, research sources, teaching tools, criteria and entry forms.
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FLIGHT FROM THE REICH: A PROGRAM FOR EDUCATORS

October 15, 2012
4:30-7:30 p.m.


Conference Room C
Jewish Community Campus
5801 West 115th Street
Overland Park, Kansas

Join Scott Miller, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as he discusses Jewish emigration from the Reich and the search for safe havens in the 1930s. Co-author of Refuge Denied: The St. Louis Passengers and the Holocaust, Mr. Miller spent a decade tracing the fates of the 937 passengers aboard the St. Louis and exploring how their lives were impacted by immigration and refugee policies.

This training is offered in conjunction with the White Rose Student Essay Contest and directly addresses the 2012-2013 theme. Educators interested in sponsoring student essays are encouraged to attend, but all 7th-12th grade educators are welcome.

A registration fee of $20 includes light supper. Registration is available by clicking here.
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ECHOES AND REFLECTIONS CURRICULUM TRAINING

December 11, 2012
4:30-8:00

MAC Room
Jewish Community Campus   5801 West 115th Street   Overland Park, Kansas

This training prepares 7th-12th grade teachers to implement the Echoes and Reflections curriculum. A $25.00 course fee includes a complimentary copy of the curriculum ($100 retail value), light supper, and valuable handouts and resource materials. Educators who register by November 21, 2012 will receive a coupon good for 10% off on-site resource purchases the day of the course. CLICK HERE to register for the December 11th training.

JFR European Study Trip

Every summer I look to participate in some enrichment activity/course related to what I teach. This past July I had the opportunity to be part of a group of educators traveling to Germany and Poland for two weeks thanks to the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR). Our arrival in Munich launched us into an almost non-stop tour of the Holocaust that took us to Nuremberg, Weimar, Berlin, Warsaw, Tykocin, Krakow, and Oswiecim. Along the way some of the stops we made included Dachau, Buchenwald, Grunewald Station (Berlin), the House of the Wannsee Conference, Treblinka, Majdanek, Auschwitz, and Birkenau. In addition we had the opportunity to meet some of the Righteous Gentiles living in Warsaw at a luncheon sponsored by the JFR.

There were several aspects of this trip, in no particular order, that make it one the best enrichment opportunities I have participated in. First, Robert Jan Van Pelt traveled with us. Having an expert, not just a tour guide (no offense to tour guides of the world), meant we got a more thorough and thought-provoking insight into the history of the various places we visited. Second, meeting the Righteous Gentiles at the luncheon was a humbling and inspiring experience. These are people who risked everything, including their lives, to help Jews under the most difficult of circumstances. It made me wonder about how I would have reacted and what can/should I do today for those facing persecution throughout the world.

The first two aspects alone make this trip incredible but there are two others that contributed most to making this trip extraordinary. While I have taught the Holocaust in some form for 18 years there is always more I want to know. This trip afforded me the opportunity to expand on what I know. Most importantly I got to see some of the places themselves. Visiting the various camps and other locations helped provide an understanding that cannot be found in a book. For example, spending 8-9 hours walking the grounds at Birkenau enabled me to better comprehend the layout of the camp. Now when I teach about Birkenau I can provide a better sense of the space it occupies within the camp itself and externally within the surrounding area.

Finally, traveling with other dedicated Holocaust educators proved invaluable in many ways. Practically speaking we had two weeks to share ideas on lessons we teach as well as to offer recommendations on books and other resources. I came back with extensive lists of recommended resources that will keep me busy learning about the Holocaust for quite sometime. I also found it useful while visiting the various locations to have a group of people with whom I could discuss what we just saw. While other people may not understand why I spend so much time and effort on studying the Holocaust it was nice to be part of a group that understood.

Another successful year

In reflecting on the past year, I feel that using the Echoes and Reflections curriculum with my 8^th grade literature students was very successful.  This program is divided into ten lessons.  Each lesson provides a historical context for the topic as well as survivor testimony and primary source material, including photographs, diary entries, poems and historical documents.   It is an excellent resource for material to use in your class.  You certainly do not have to teach all of the units by incorporating the survivor testimony would be a great way to bring the individual aspect of Holocaust study to you students.

My students finished the lessons on studying the Holocaust and antisemitism.  They also studied the history of Nazi Germany leading to the unit on the Final Solution.  This program offers them an opportunity to analyze photographs and propaganda material.  I conclude each unit with a test over the material and an ending project.  

In addition to Echoes and Reflections, my students also read a variety of Holocaust literature.  Within their literature circle groups, they read The Diary of Anne Frank, A Coming Evil, the Boy Who Dared, Behind the Bedroom Wall, Torn Thread, Play to the Angels, Someone Named Eva, Yellow Star, I Have Lived a Thousand Years and All But My Life.

As a class they read Surviving Hitler by Andrea Warren.  This memoir chronicles the experiences of local Holocaust survivor, JackMandelbaum during his adolescent years in World War II Europe.  There is an excellent teaching guide for this memoir on the MCHE web site.

I used Jennifer Jenkin’s lesson on a wall of remembrance quilt with my students as a culminating activity.  This offered them an opportunity to reflect on the material they studied and choose something that personally affected them.  The other students in the school and many parents asked questions about the quilt squares and this lead to discussions about the importance of the study of the Holocaust.

NOTE: The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education will be offering a training, conducted by an educator from Yad Vashem, over the Echoes and Reflections curriculum on July 25, 2012. All participants receive a complimentary copy of the curriculum! Enroll now!

Meeting Common Core Standards with Echoes and Reflections

With much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair, education is once again trying a new initiative – Common Core State Standards (CCSS).  CCSS hopes to make clear what our students are expected to learn as well as “The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.” (http://www.corestandards.org/) 

It’s not the mission of CCSS that is making teachers moan, rather it’s the idea that we’ve all been down this road before and this is just the next, newest, brilliant idea.  As a library media specialist and Holocaust educator, I see the CCSS differently.  CCSS reading standards talk about creating a “staircase” of complexity in what students are able to read K-12 so they are ready for college and career reading.  CCSS presents an amazing opportunity to use primary sources from the Holocaust to provide students with the complex text to become better readers whether it’s diary entries, letters, poetry, or documents.  

In the Echoes and Reflections: A Multimedia Curriculum on the Holocaust and its companion IWitness, you can find a multitude of primary resources and ideas.  Search for topics from over 9,000 search terms.  Even better, there are 1,000 survivor testimonies and thought-provoking lessons to go along with all of these resources.  CCSS for reading gives teachers permission to use complex text to make students better readers.  “Echoes and Reflections” and “IWitness” provide that complex text as well as multiple perspectives through ample primary sources.  Both make the Holocaust more relevant to our students and ultimately to their success.  

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The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education has been designated as an Echoes and Reflections training center. Echoes and Reflections is a testimony-based curriculum for educators of grades 7-12. Arranged into ten chapters covering the scope and sequence of the Holocaust, the curriculum is scalable and relies heavily on exploration and analysis of primary sources. A local training will be held on July 25, 2012 with an educator from Yad Vashem.

1942 and the Final Solution - A Course for Educators

This course explores the path and process of the Final Solution, offers in-depth analysis of the death camp system with a special emphasis on the Operation Reinhard Camps, and considers the impact of a short 11-month time frame from mid-1942 through mid-1943 that saw the destruction of millions of people. Analysis of primary source documents, exposure to ready-made lesson plans, and practice with these resources will equip teachers with tools to engage their students in meaningful learning about the Final Solution. 

 

Appropriate for 7-12th grade classrooms. 

 

Complete details and registration available HERE!

Teaching about resistance - the partisans

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.

Alfred Lerner Fellow Summer Institute for Teachers

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.

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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.