Introduction
The enormous number of Jews killed during the
Holocaust, estimated at 6,000,000, often makes it difficult
for students to understand the persecution and suffering
on an individual level. The purpose of this lesson
plan is to place a human face on the Holocaust, by focusing
on survivor's testimony, letters and journals from survivors
and those who were killed, and poetry. The intention
is to help students see the Holocaust as an event which
affected individuals and families in addition to its
larger societal ramifications.
The following links contain graphic images and
depictions of the atrocities that occurred during the
Holocaust; you will have to use the material with discretion.
The most productive and meaningful discussions of the
Holocaust will force the students to grapple with the
tragedy on a personal, as opposed to statistical, level.
These links expose students to the experiences of concentration
camp, death camp, and ghetto residents as well as to
the experiences of several camp guards and executioners.
The students should recognize that humans were on both
sides of the barbed wire fences and furnace doors.
Objectives
1. To widen student's understanding of
the Holocaust by focusing on two different, yet related,
experiences of Jews in Europe during the Holocaust,
that of death camps and life in major ghettoes such
as the Lodz Ghetto in Poland.
2. To help students trace both commonalities
and differences between these types of experience.
3. To ensure that students see the Holocaust
from individual viewpoints.
Pre-Class Prep
1. Assign students to one of the
following groups: death camp experience (can be split
into single camps (Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek,
Sobibor, Treblinka) or life in a ghetto (the two largest
in Poland were Lodz and Warsaw). Have students
read some of the testimonies listed below and write
informal reactions to what they read.
2. If possible, contact local Jewish organizations
to inquire if a Holocaust survivor would be willing
to come and speak to the class.
Lesson Plan
1. Death Camps:
How to do it:
a. Have students read some of the survivor's
testimony through the following on-line sources.
A few alternative collections of testimonies are: David
Boder (Ed.) I Did Not Interview the Dead, videotaped
testimony of five Hungarian Survivors -- The Last Days,
Wiktoria Sliwowska (Ed.) The last eyewitnesses : children
of the Holocaust speak, Yehudit Kleiman and Nina Springer-Aharoni
(Ed.) The Anguish of liberation : testimonies from 1945.
http://www.library.yale.edu/testimonies/excerpts/index.html
http://www.pgonline.com/electriczen/schalling.html
http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/#interviews
http://holocaustcenter.org/OralHistory/List.php
b. Have students summarize information about
what life was like in the death camps described in the
testimony which they read. Links and pictures/drawings
of several of the death camps are listed below.
Auschwitz, general information:
http://auschwitz.dk/Auschwitz.htm
http://home4.swipnet.se/~w-49276/docs/auschwitz/welcome.htm
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/autoc.html
http://remember.org/eichmann/participants.htm
Auschwitz, pictures:
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/auschwitz/
Chelmno, general info:
http://weber.ucsd.edu/~lzamosc/gmoreinf.html
http://history1900s.about.com/cs/chelmnocamp/
Sobibor, general info:
http://holocaust-info.dk/
http://history1900s.about.com/cs/sobiborcamp/
http://auschwitz.dk/Sorbibor.htm
Treblinka, general info:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shtetl/treblinka/
http://polandvisit.com/treblinka/eng.htm
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/Treblinka.html
Treblinka, pictures:
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Treblinka/
http://holocaust-info.dk/
2. Life in Ghettoes: Focusing on Lodz Ghetto
in Poland
How to do it:
a. Provide student's with an overview of why
the ghetto system was important to the Third Reich's
policies of racial colonization, Lebensraum (living
space), and consolidation of the Jewish population.
b. Have student's look through some of the following
web sites to gain a deeper understanding of what life
in the ghetto system was like. Ask students to
compare life in a ghetto with that of a concentration
camp. What are the similarities? What are
the differences?
Establishment of the Lodz Ghetto:
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/lodz1.html
http://www.fatherryan.org/holocaust/lodz/History.htm
Statistics of Lodz Ghetto:
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Lodz/statistics.htm
http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/lghetchr.htm
http://history1900s.about.com/cs/lodzghetto/index.htm
Journal entries/testimony from Lodz Ghetto prisoners:
http://www.yad-vashem.org.il/about_holocaust/documents/part2/doc130.html
http://www.fatherryan.org/holocaust/lodz/Suvivors.htm
Photos from Lodz Ghetto:
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/lodzpictoc.html
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Lodz/LGMap/LGMap.htm
The Perpetrator Experience
Several of your students will have heard of Holocaust
deniers, even if they have not heard or read Holocaust
denials themselves. One way to counter this movement
is to address it explicitly and to have the students
read accounts from the guards and bureaucrats who actually
executed the plans and the victims.
You might want to have the students first read
this 1962 poem by Leonard Cohen, entitled "All
There is to Know About Adolph Eichmann."
Eyes: Medium
Hair: Medium
Weight: Medium
Height: Medium
Distinguishing Features: None
Number of Fingers: Ten
Number of Toes: Ten
Intelligence: Medium
What did you expect?
Talons?
Oversize Incisors?
Green Saliva?
Madness?
Following this, you could have the students read the
testimony and/or recollections of several of the concentration
and death camp guards and other personnel.
Treblinka, First-hand testimony:
Viewpoint of SS: http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/treblinkatest.html
The following is pretty lengthy testimony from the
SD leader of one of the Einsatzgruppen (D) -- it wanders
a bit trying to establish the chain of
command, but it could be useful.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/01-03-46.htm#ohlendorf
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