Ronda's must reads!

This summer I was privileged to attend a summer institute for 24 teachers from all over the country, as well as Belgium, at the Holocaust Memorial Library in New York City.  When our time together was over we spent some time creating a list of books that all Holocaust teachers should read.  The list below is not complete, but these are the titles I added to my Shelfari list.  Since school has started, I have read two of the titles and I want to recommend both The Holocaust by Bullets by Father Patrick Desbois and Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America by Elliot Jaspin.  As a Holocaust educator, and a member of the cadre here in Kansas City for almost 10 years, I feel I have a pretty firm grasp on content or to put it differently – there’s not much more you can throw at me about this topic.  WRONG!  Father Desbois is now one of my heroes.  His courage and determination to count the bullets used by the Nazi Einzatzgruppen against the Jews in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe deserves a Nobel prize.  House to house, door to door, mass grave to mass grave, he traveled with his translator and film crew to hear and record the memories of mostly children that saw, heard, and smelled the executions.  He forced me to think about the other victims of the Holocaust, and I’m not talking about the Poles, Russian POWS, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, handicapped, and Roma-Sinti.  No, Desbois speaks to those who were forced to help and watch and in a sense become unwilling corroborators.  Most of these victims were children or young people who lived with their memories for 60 years before someone finally offered them the opportunity to talk openly about their guilt and shame.  They were allowed, unjudged, to tell what they remembered.  Desbois raises the question “Are there fates worse than death?”  For some of these victims you are left wondering how they have existed since their villages were turned into a hell on earth.  The other book I read, in my car, on my way to and from school every day was Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America by Elliot Jaspin.  Even though this is about American history, the similarities to “Bullets” was eerie.  Racial cleansing was commonplace in post-Civil War America, up until the Civil Rights movement.  Sadly, towns and counties, in the South, including Missouri, were cleansed of their Black populations a long time ago, but many of these locations remain pure white still today.  One noticeable difference from “Bullets” is in most cases the whites in the racially diverse towns only forcefully removed their black neighbors to other towns.  Whereas the Nazis removed the Jews permanently from the planet.  However, like the Nazis, the whites stole property and lynched and killed those who fought the cleansings.  As an historian and teacher, both of these books would make excellent reading to supplement your knowledge of the Holocaust and Reconstruction Era in America.  My only advice or suggestion is to not read them at the same time like I did. I was truly depressed for the two weeks it took me finish them.  I have In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson waiting for me at the public library right now and plan to start it immediately. 

• The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews by Father Patrick Desbois
• Auschwitz and After by Charlotte Delbo
• Salvaged Pages; Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust by Alexandra Zapruder
• In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
• Bloodlands; Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder
• Fresh Wounds: Early Narratives of Holocaust Survival
• Alicia, My Story by Alicia Appleman-Jurman
• Bells in Winter by Czeslaw Milosz
• Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America by Elliot Jaspin

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!

Providing context for Anne Frank

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.

Challenges

One of the struggles I face centers around how to best incorporate the Holocaust into the units I teach. My focus is not to provide an overview but to highlight certain aspects. The dilemma is should I clump these aspects together in a Holocaust mini-unit within the larger unit framework or spread them out across the unit. Clumping a few aspects while studying the rise and rule of Hitler has not been an issue. But recently students have commented that taking up to 8 days to cover the remaining aspects during the World II unit has made the teaching of the war disjointed. Generally I have taught the causes of the war, the war itself, then the Holocaust, and finally finish by teaching the effects of the war.

This year my plan is to spread the Holocaust across the World War II unit. The other benefit to not clumping might be that the Holocaust will be put into context better. I’m still working out the specifics of where to teach the different aspects because I don’t spend a lot of time teaching the war itself. Some aspects I cover, such as the Einsatzgruppen, naturally fit while teaching Operation Barbarossa and the aftermath fits with teaching the effects of the war. But others such as bystanders, resistance, and Auschwitz (done through a mapping activity and a discussion of memoirs students read) don’t seem to have as natural a fit.

What to cover? A case for studying the Einsatzgruppen

When teaching about the Holocaust most teachers face the difficult task of deciding what topics to cover. Whether students have any previous knowledge adds to the difficulty of deciding. Also whether the topic and materials are age appropriate must be considered. If the students have no background or very little then you probably will focus on giving a broader overview of the Holocaust. But if the students have enough of the basic information then the focus can shift to more specific topics. All of this must be considered within the time available to teach the Holocaust. For most of us that can be measured in days not weeks.

I am lucky to teach seniors in International Baccalaureate History. This means they come into the class with some previous knowledge and they are academically motivated students. It also means age appropriateness of topics and materials is not a limitation. The topics covered, within the 8 days I make available to teach the Holocaust, can vary from year to year based on resources available and personal/student interests. This year I added a new topic, the Einsatzgruppen.

The Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing squads who followed the German army into the Soviet Union during the Nazi invasion in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa). Their purpose was to murder anyone behind the German lines who was considered racially impure (primarily Jews but also Roma) and politically threatening (Soviet officials). The Einsatzgruppen often used willing collaborators from among the local civilian population to aid in their task. Jews were identified and then ordered to assemble in an area before being transported or marched to an execution site. At these sites people of all ages and gender were shot so as to fall into a prepared trench and then buried. Between 1-1.5 million Jews were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen.

So why teach about the Einsatzgruppen? The fact that over one million Jews died as the result of being shot locally not shipped to some distant camp is probably something few students know. The image in most people’s minds when thinking about the systematic murder of Jews during the Holocaust is the death camps. In studying the Einsatzgruppen students can learn that there were other ways the Nazis murdered Jews in large numbers even before the death camps. The issue of collaboration can be brought in as the murders were done locally and in some cases with the assistance of the local population. The question of resistance can be discussed. Why didn’t the Jews fight back? The story of survival can be explored as some victims managed to escape death. The reality is the details may not be suitable for younger students but even if its not possible to spend a day or two on the topic the Einsatzgruppen should be mentioned to make students aware.

If you’re looking for information on the Einsatzgruppen there are a couple of excellent videos available, an A&E documentary entitled Nazi Secret Killing Squads (1999 and available in the MCHE Resource Center) and a National Geographic Channel documentary entitled Hitler’s Hidden Holocaust (2009). In addition the book Masters of Death (2002) by Richard Rhodes gives a good overview of the people who carried out these murders and how they were committed. Finally the book Holocaust by Bullets (2009) by Father Patrick Desbois discusses his attempt to identify and examine all the execution sites in the Ukraine.

Recommended Resources:

The Einsatzgruppen: Mobile Killing Units
Liepaja - The Holocaust
Testimony by Rivka Yosselevska
Testimonies from Babi Yar
Einsatzgruppen
One Day in Jozefow - From Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men