The Jewish Museum TheJewishMuseum.org 1109 Fifth Avenue [email protected] AN EDUCATOR’S RESOURCE New York, NY 10128 212.423.5200 Under the auspices of The Jewish Theological Seminary history, art,history, and literacy. This resource was developed for middle-school and high-school teachers. teachers. high-school and middle-school for developed was resource This in studies ongoing enhance and supplement to used be can materials These through Works of Art Works through Teaching the Holocaust Teaching Acknowledgments This educator resource was written by Josh Feinberg, edited by Michaelyn Mitchell, and designed by Olya Domoradova. At The Jewish Museum, Nelly Silagy Benedek, Director of Education, Michelle Sammons, Educational Resources Coordinator, and Hannah Krafcik, Marketing Assistant, facilitated the project’s production. Special thanks to Dara Cohen-Vasquez, Senior Manager of School Programs and Outreach, and Roger Kamholz, Marketing Editorial Manager, for providing valuable input. This resource is made possible by a generous grant from the Kekst Family. TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST THROUGH WORKS OF ART ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 2 Holocaust: An Educator’s Guide Historical Background Despite the violence that dominated this era, some individuals and groups, both Jews and non-Jews, demonstrated To understand the significance of works of art and artifacts, considerable resourcefulness, compassion, and bravery. it is important to understand their political, historical, and Some Jews were able to stay alive through a combination social context. of luck, inventiveness, the help of friends, and, sometimes, the assistance of strangers who lent a hand despite the The Holocaust (1933-1945) was a time of fear, brutality, and considerable danger. tremendous bloodshed. The National Socialist German Work- ers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in Jewish Life in Europe Before World War II German), commonly known as the Nazi Party, came to power in During the Middle Ages, Jews resided in tightly knit communities Germany in 1933. Its ideology of racial superiority targeted the throughout Eastern and Western Europe, generally living Jews of Europe not only as inferior but also as “the enemy.” By separately from their non-Jewish neighbors. Although many the end of World War II in 1945, the Nazis and their collabora- Jews had lived in their towns and villages for generations, they tors had murdered approximately six million Jews, along with were frequently subjected to anti-Jewish measures and even millions of others, including Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), disabled periodic expulsions. Because they were generally banned from individuals, political prisoners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexu- craft guilds and other desirable professions, many Jews earned als, and Slavs (such as Poles, Ukrainians, and Byelorussians). their living as merchants and moneylenders. Over the course of twelve years, the Nazis gradually implemented In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Jews increasingly their systematic, government-sponsored persecution of moved out of their insulated communities in an effort to European Jewry. Shortly after coming to power in 1933, Adolf become more integrated into the broader European culture. Hitler began a book-burning campaign, destroying books that While many Jews guarded their traditional customs and were written by Jews or that contained ideas opposed to Nazi lifestyles closely, others looked for ways to blend their Jewish ideology. Two years later, the Nuremberg Laws stripped German and secular identities. Jews of their citizenship and outlawed marriages between Jews and non-Jews. On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi mobs attacked and Although Jews in many parts of Central and Western Europe had burned Jewish homes, shops, and synagogues in an event that been granted emancipation (full civil rights) by the end of the has come to be known as Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken nineteenth century, age-old anti-Jewish attitudes remained. The Glass.” With the invasion of Poland and the beginning of World increasingly active participation of Jews in secular society made War II in September 1939, the Nazis extended their persecution them even more vulnerable to attack. Economically and racially of Jews to the countries they occupied. based antisemitism replaced traditional, religious anti-Judaism. Jews came to be viewed as a distinct race —one that could not During the war, the Nazis seized Jewish businesses and property be absorbed into European society. In parts of Russia and Poland, and started rounding up Jews and sending them “to the East.” anti-Jewish riots, or pogroms, raged during the late nineteenth The Nazis deliberately kept their intentions secret. Most and early twentieth centuries. Jews were not aware that they were being sent to ghettos, concentration camps, or even death camps. Many European Jews searched for political solutions to the challenges they faced. Zionism was a political movement that The Nazis intimidated and isolated the Jews in order to aimed to obtain long-term security for the Jews by establishing implement their policies more easily. In early 1942, at the a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The aim of socialism was to Wannsee Conference near Berlin, Nazi officials discussed create a new European society based on social and economic details of the Final Solution, a plan to methodically kill an equality. Some Jews opted to give up Judaism altogether estimated eleven million Jews in Europe. By February 1942, the through assimilation into European society, while others Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland began murdering immigrated to America in the hopes of finding a better life. Jews in gas chambers designed to kill the maximum numbers of inmates in the most efficient manner. The peoples and governments of the world barely responded as word leaked out Map courtesy of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. that Jews and others were being systematically put to death. TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST THROUGH WORKS OF ART INTRODUCTION 3 Works of Art This section offers ideas for exploring the Holocaust through art and artifacts by highlighting ten unique objects from the Jewish Museum’s extensive collection. TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST THROUGH WORKS OF ART WORKS OF ART 4 Nancy Spero Masha Bruskina Nancy Spero (American, 1926-2009) Masha Bruskina, 1995 Acrylic on linen 122 1/4 x 146 1/2 in. (310.5 x 372.1 cm) The Jewish Museum, New York Purchase: Fine Arts Acquisitions Committee Fund, Blanche and Romie Shapiro Fund, Kristie A. Jayne Fund, Sara Schlesinger Bequest, and Miki Denhof Bequest, 2002-12a-c TEACHING THE HOLOCAUST THROUGH WORKS OF ART WORKS OF ART 5 About the Work were often weakened by disease and hunger. And they were frequently unaware of the Nazis’ true plans and motives until it Masha Bruskina was a Jewish volunteer nurse and a leader was too late. Nonetheless, many found ways to fight back, even of the resistance in Minsk, Belorussia. At age seventeen, she in the harshest of circumstances. disguised herself as a non-Jew and went to work in a local hospital where she helped wounded Soviet prisoners escape. Resistance movements existed in almost every concentration Even after she was arrested and tortured by the Nazis, Bruskina camp and ghetto. With a few smuggled weapons, home-made never revealed the names of her fellow resisters. Bruskina was bombs, and sheer courage and endurance, residents of the publicly hanged on October 26, 1941. She and two of her male Warsaw Ghetto managed to stave off the German army for a comrades were led through the streets of Minsk—with Bruskina month in April and May of 1943. Even in the death camps of wearing a large placard proclaiming that they were partisans. Sobibor and Treblinka, there were armed rebellions. Other They were hanged one at a time, and their bodies were left prisoners escaped to the countryside and joined underground hanging for several days as a grim reminder to others. partisan fighting squads. Masha Bruskina has appeared in many of Nancy Spero’s works. Resisting the Nazis to help others was extremely dangerous. Here, Spero intersperses images and texts from different One could be shot on the spot for helping a Jew elude periods and sources to tell Bruskina’s story. Spero includes an capture. Yet, many took the risk. In every land occupied by the October 26, 1941, newspaper article describing the hanging of Nazis, there were people who hid Jews in basements, attics, an anonymous girl, a 1960s article that reveals the discovery of and farmhouses; gave food to the starving; or helped an the woman’s Jewish identity, and pictures of Bruskina’s death innocent victim escape. Sadly, though, these Righteous Among march and execution. The work consists of three unstretched the Nations, as they were called, were far outnumbered by canvases affixed to the wall with pushpins. These materials give those who collaborated with the Nazis or simply stood by and the piece a feeling of immediacy and are more suggestive of a did nothing. political banner than a work of art. Throughout Europe—especially in the expansive forests of In her work, Nancy Spero has paid homage to many strong Eastern Europe—Jews and non-Jews also joined partisan female figures who have been overlooked historically. In her groups. These were covert militias that engaged in guerrilla native Belorussia, Bruskina is still unrecognized; the woman warfare against the Nazis and their collaborators. Partisans in the photo is identified as “unknown.” By publicizing sabotaged factories, derailed trains, cut communication Bruskina’s name and identity, Spero reinvests her with a lines, and blew up bridges in an attempt to undermine the measure of dignity. Axis war effort. About the Artist Resources Nancy Spero was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1926 and received Berger, Maurice, and Joan Rosenbaum. Masterworks of The her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute Jewish Museum. New York: The Jewish Museum, 2004, pp. 78-79.