Stories From the Holocaust

This lesson is designed to supplement a study of World War II. Students will read first hand accounts of individuals who escaped Nazi persecution and eventually settled in Asheville, North Carolina. This lesson may be used as an 8th grade Social Studies or English project(It could also be used as an integrated project), 10th grade English, or 11th grade US History. This lesson use the NCEcho portal to access the material.

A lesson plan for grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies

By Billie Clemens

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Learning outcomes

Goals:

• Students will access primary source material that relates to life in Nazi occupied Europe.
• Students will enhance their writing skills through journal writing.

Objectives:

• Students will trace lives of key individuals as they journeyed from occupied Europe to the mountains of North Carolina.
• Through the use of pictures and maps students will create a poster illustrating the individual’s journey from occupied Europe.
• Students will create a journal that describes life in occupied Europe.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

7 Days

Materials/resources

Materials:

• Regular Notebook and a writing utensil for each student
• Eight pieces of poster board
• Markers to be used on the poster board
• Two-four pairs of sissors

Classroom Environment:

• Computer lab with access to the Internet for all students
• At least one printer(preferably color) for students to print photos and maps
• Room for students to work in small groups

Set-up

• The teacher should provide students with a list of the internet sites to be used.
• Each student should have a copy of the vocabulary sheet. See attachment, “Vocabulary List for Holocaust Readings.txt”
• Each student should have a copy of the time-line.

Technology resources

Monitor with access to the Internet for each student

Pre-activities

The teacher should have a clear understanding of events that occurred during the occupation of Europe by the Nazis.

Some very good websites to visit:
An excellent place to start your quest for information about the Holocaust is the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. This has a wealth of resources.
http://www.ushmm.org/

This website is from the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust. It has some very useful links, list of workshops, libraries, speakers, and available resources.
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/holocaust_council/

A day prior to beginning the activity, the teacher should distribute the vocabulary sheet (see vocabulary attachment). The students should know the terms on the sheet in order to comprehend the information in the entries. The teacher should also explain that the country of Israel did not exist until 1948, and this place was called Palestine.

Activities

Parts 1-8 should take two days. The first day will be used to do research, gather materials, and begin the poster. On the second day, part of the period will be used to complete the poster, and the rest of the period will be allotted for presentations. The journal writing activity should be completed over several days.

1. Divide students into eight groups, preferably two-three students per group.
2. Assign each group to research a person from the list below:
   
   • Julius Blum
   • Wolfgang Richard Braun
   • Ruth Marx Chicurel
   • Egon Friedlander
   • Hilde Hoffman
   • Markus Reich
   • Rita Reiser
   • Walter Ziffer
3. Each group is to log on to the following website: http://toto.lib.unca.edu/projects/Shoa/Default.htm This website may accessed through the NCEcho portal. Go to online collections and search “From Shoah to the Mountains”.
4. Each student/group will click on his or her assigned person.
5. Individuals within the group should read the person’s story. They should take notes about events in the person’s life.
6. Each group is to create a poster with the following information:
   
   • Name of the person
   • Picture of the person (if available)
   • Map(s) showing where the person grew up and where they traveled in Europe trying to escape persecution.
   • Travels in America
   • Bullets listing key points of the person’s story
7. Useful maps may be found at the following website: The US Holocaust Memorial Museum
8. Each group should stand before the class and present the information they have learned. Allow about 3-5 minutes for each group’s presentation.
9. After all the presentations are completed, the teacher should provide a closure activity with the following discussion questions:
   
   • What were some common ways that one would escape from Nazi controlled Europe?
   • Why would people stay in a country when things seemed to be going so badly?
   • What would you do if the government was trying to limit your freedoms? At what point do you think you would consider leaving your country?
   • What type of cultural contributions do you think the survivors brought to Western North Carolina?
   • Is there an aspect of mountain culture that you think would be compatabile with the survivors?
10. Journal Writing Activity:
    
    • Students are to create a diary with five entries. The entries do not have to be on consecutive days. The length of the entry should be determined by the teacher.
    • Assignment: students are to think about the stories they have heard. Students are to imagine they are Jewish and living in Nazi occupied Europe. In the entries, students are to describe what life is like, what events happens to them, what is going on with their families, and any other information that makes it seem like a real diary. Students should include lots of details and specific facts such as a name, place of birth, where they live, type of work, interests, etc… Encourage students to be creative. Students can be given 15-20 minutes in class over a five day period to complete the assignment or it may be given as a nightly homework assignment.
    • As closure, the teacher may ask students to share with the class selections or information from their journal.
11. As a final activity, ask students to imagine that they are being shipped off to one of the concentration camps. They are allowed to take only ONE thing. What would they take and why? Give students 5-10 minutes to write down their thoughts. Ask students to share their thoughts with the class.

Assessment

Assessment may be done in a variety of ways, depending on the students’ abilities.

In the computer portion, students should be evaluated for staying on task. An easy way to do this is to have each student write his or her name on a piece of paper and the numbers 100,75, 50,25, 0. Each time the student has to be called to get back on task, they must mark through the highest number. At the end of the period, they must turn the sheet into the teacher. (The teacher may choose to list the numbers in 20 point increments.)

The poster and presentation should be graded on a scale of 1-5 using the following criteria:

• Neatness
• Map Accuracy
• Information
• Clarity of presentation

The Journal Activity may be graded on a scale of 1-5 using the following criteria:

• Effort
• Facts/Details
• Grammar
• Creativity

Supplemental information

Attachment:
Vocabulary List for Holocaust Readings

Related websites

The primary site in this lesson is titled “Choosing to Remember: From Shoah to the Mountains”. This website was created to help document the stories of a handful of Jewish residents in the Asheville community. It is part of the NC Echo Project that is a portal to a great deal of archival information in the state.
http://toto.lib.unca.edu/projects/Shoa/Default.htm

The NC ECHO site:
http://www.ncecho.org/

Excellent maps may be printed from the following website
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/maps/

An excellent place to start your quest for information about the holocaust is the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. This has a wealth of resources.
http://www.ushmm.org/

Comments

This activity allows students a variety of ways to assimlate material related to the Holocaust. It can be used with students who have limited reading abilities if they are paired with a strong reader. The map portion sometimes is the most difficult because students may need to look on a more complete atlas to find the information. If this proves to be a problem, have students chart the migration by just displaying the countries. This is an ideal activity to use as an integration project between Social Studies and English classes. It works well, if the students are reading “Night”, “The Hiding Place”, or “The Diary of Anne Frank”. Most students find the writing activity to be very enjoyable. The writing activity may be extended to include more entries.