To Honor All Children from Prejudice, to Discrimination, to Hatred… to Holocaust
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TO HONOR ALL CHILDREN FROM PREJUDICE, TO DISCRIMINATION, TO HATRED… TO HOLOCAUST Photo courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 5-8TH GRADE HOLOCAUST/GENOCIDE CURRICULUM STATE OF NEW JERSEY COMMISSION ON HOLOCAUST EDUCATION To Honor All Children From Prejudice to discrimination to Hatred….to holocaust New Jersey State Holocaust curriculum guide For grades 5-8 Prepared by curriculum committee members Barbara Hadzima, Ed.D Karen H. Levine Molly Maffei Peppy Margolis Cheryl Riley Cecile Seiden Colleen Tambuscio Regina Townsend Helen M. Simpkins, Chair New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education Table of Contents Title Page Message to Our Colleagues 1 About the Curriculum 3 Prejudice and Discrimination Unit 4 Unit Outline 5 Prejudice and Discrimination Unit Introduction 10 Nory Ryan's Song 11 The Slave Dancer 20 The Diving Bell 28 Call Me Ruth 34 The Star Fisher 39 Amistad Rising 45 On the Long Trail Home 48 Pink and Say 51 Dragonwings 55 The Circlemaker 63 Esperanza Rising 65 The Gold Cadillac 74 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry 76 The Watsons Go To Birmingham 83 Children of the Wolf 85 The Cure 86 Poetry by Diane Stelling 99 The World Changes: Rise of Nazism Unit 105 Unit Outline 106 The World Changes: Rise of Nazism Unit Introduction 111 Memories of My Life in a Polish Village 115 Smoke and Ashes: "Nazis and Jews of Germany" 118 Flowers on the Wall 123 One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping 125 Play to the Angel 132 Friedrich: "The Ball" 137 Friedrich: "I Was There" 139 Kindertransport 143 Flying Against the Wind (2 lessons) 146 Behind the Bedroom Wall 149 Upon the Head of a Goat 155 Parallel Journeys 159 How Beautiful We Once Were 161 The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia 166 Propaganda and Children During the Hitler Years 176 Life in the Ghettos and Camps Unit 179 Unit Outline 180 Life in the Ghettos and Camps Unit Introduction 187 Smoke and Ashes: "The Ghettos" 191 Upon the Head of a Goat 196 Four Perfect Pebbles 200 Daniel's Story 208 "Janusz Korczak: The Father of Nobody's Children" 216 "And These Are There Names" 221 Child of the Warsaw Ghetto 222 My Secret Camera 224 I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust 226 Warsaw Ghetto: A Diary 229 The Cage (two lessons) 235 The Devil's Arithmetic 243 Fireflies in the Dark 246 We Are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine of The Boys of Terezin 251 I Never Saw Another Butterfly 258 Surviving Hitler 263 Kinderlager (three lessons) 270 Smoke and Ashes: "Other Victims" 280 "Bubuli: A Young Gypsy's Fight for Survival" 284 Jehovah's Witnesses: Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault (three lessons) 290 Music of the Holocaust 297 The Art of the Holocaust 303 Felix Nussbaum, Artist 307 Jan Komski, Artist 313 Hiding, Escape, and Rescue Unit 320 Unit Outline 321 Hiding, Escape, and Rescue Introduction 326 Jacob's Rescue 328 The Island on Bird Street 332 Twenty and Ten 339 Behind the Secret Window: A Memoir of a Hidden Childhood During World War II 341 Place to Hide: True Stories of Holocaust Rescue 351 The Hidden Children of the Holocaust: Teens Who Hid From the Nazis 360 Escape to Shanghai, 1939-1949 366 Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary 375 Jews of Greece and the Holocaust 378 Gandino Blooms in Israel 385 In Honor of My Righteous Rescuers 392 Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust 401 Darkness Over Denmark 403 Forging Freedom: A True Story of Heroism During the Holocaust 405 Passage to Freedom 411 ii "Aristides de Sousa Mendes: Unsung Hero of the Holocaust" 414 Raoul Wallenberg 418 Assignment: Rescue 425 Resistance Unit 435 Unit Outline 436 The Resistance Unit Introduction 440 The Secret Ship 442 "Lisa Calls" 451 Number the Stars 456 The Little Riders 471 Rose Blanche 477 The Butterfly 479 Mottele: A Partisan Odyssey 481 "Children - Couriers in the Ghetto of Minsk" 486 "Rosa Robota: Heroine of the Auschwitz Underground" 491 Sky: A True Story of Courage During World War II 496 In Kindling Flame 498 The Resistance 500 To Live and Fight Another Day 508 Zog Nit Keyn Mol - Never Say 527 Survival, Liberation, and Legacy Unit 528 Unit Outline 529 Survival, Liberation, and Legacy Unit Introduction 534 Armageddon Revisited (two lessons) 536 "Liberation: Teens in the Concentration Camps and the Teen Soldiers Who Liberated Them" 547 After the War 549 Anna Is Still Here 551 Grace in the Wilderness 553 To Life (two lessons) 555 My Hundred Children 562 "The One Hundred Children and the Jewish 'Righteous Gentile'" 574 Lydia, Queen of Palestine 579 The Boy From Over There 581 The Shadow Children 582 The Holocaust: Quotes Reflecting Complex Ethical Choices 587 Nuremberg War Trials 590 Shin's Tricycle 600 The Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate 601 So Far From the Sea 603 Peacebound Trains 605 Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography 606 One Boy From Kosovo 609 I Dream of Peace: The Words of Children in Former Yugoslavia 616 iii What Lessons Are To Be Learned from the Holocaust? 619 The Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust" 623 "I Cannot Forget" 626 "The Creed of a Holocaust Survivor" 627 Teaching the Holocaust Through Stamps 628 Tales from a Child of the Enemy 635 "The Legacy of the Holocaust Survivors" 641 Teacher Information and Materials 642 Glossary 685 Appendix 690 "Six Potatoes" 691 "The Holocaust: A Teenager's Experience" 694 "A Friendship in Vienna" 695 "Four Stories of Hiding and Rescue" 697 Poetry by Barbara Wind 698 My Friend and I 704 A Lesson about the Holocaust 705 The Study of Propaganda Through Political Cartoons 708 Holocaust/Human Rights Poetry Assessment 710 Confronting the Moral Implications of the Holocaust Through Idiom/ Word Usage 713 Songs by Sooz 716 “Honor All the Children” 5th-8th Curriculum Guide Goals and Objectives 718 Internet Site List 722 Videography 734 Bibliography 745 iv v vi A Message to Our Colleagues "A teacher gives himself to his students, a little bit every day." Lena Kuchler-Silberman in My Hundred Children These words, drawn from the thoughts and emotions of a Holocaust survivor, speak for the sense of commitment and dedication that educators share in common. We recognize and appreciate the awesome trust and responsibility that has been placed in our hands - to teach a child and to play a role in the shaping of that life. The transmission of knowledge and morals from one generation to another holds both exciting and daunting responsibilities for educators. None of those responsibilities is more awesome or more important than the need to inculcate in our students a spirit of respect and appreciation for human diversity. This curriculum guide is designed to provide information and lessons about prejudice, the abuse of human rights, genocide, and the Holocaust appropriate to the maturity and educational level of young people in the middle grades. It is also designed to provide them with information and activities that will assist them in clarifying their thinking and articulating their ideas. Moral sensitivity is keenly developed during the middle school years. Middle schoolers are challenged to reflect and to make the transition from thought, to judgment, to action. They need opportunities and guidance in this time when they are so vulnerable to peer pressures and are beginning to test their wings in their search for independence. Sixth grade teacher Dr. Barbara Hadzima voices her thoughts and concerns: "As our society becomes more and more exposed to pluralism and realizes the benefits of it, young adults search for direction, reassurance, and comprehension of the whole picture." The Holocaust and genocide are not accidents in history. They were planned and implemented with the will of a government and the people who supported them. They were the products of prejudice, hate, and discrimination that had - and continue to be - carefully taught. Therefore, we must instill in our students such a strong sense of the precious nature of human dignity that prejudice and bigotry and the violence to which they lead are indefensible. We must teach them the overwhelming importance of the simple human dignity bestowed upon each of us and to practice respect for all people expressed through our thoughts, our words, and our actions. The vast numbers of victims of the Holocaust and genocide are almost beyond our ability to comprehend. Yet, somehow we must strive to comprehend and to teach our students to comprehend. With so many victims of the Holocaust and genocide denied the right to live, how can we now also deny them memory? What we - each of us - can comprehend is the single face, the single human life, behind each of these vast numbers. That is how we will teach the young people - one child at a time through one story at a time. We continue to live in a world where human inflicted pain and tragedy abound. If we want to provide our young people with the tools to build a better and safer world for themselves and all of our neighbors at home and around the world, we must teach them to assign the highest value and to guard jealously the simple dignity of each and every human life. It is an awesome responsibility that each of us carries. Yet no responsibility could have a richer reward than witnessing this lesson take root in the hearts, minds, and souls of the young people we teach. In concluding her statement about the importance of teaching her children who were survivors of the Holocaust, Lena Kuchler-Silberman concluded, "…I wanted to give - and to receive what my pupils would give to me." We would like to extend a special note of thanks to the following school districts for granting committee members the professional time to attend those meetings held on school days: Crim Primary School in the Bridgewater-Raritan School District; Bobby Run's School of the Lumberton Township School District; Chatham Middle School of the School District of the Chathams; and, Central Middle School of the Parsippany-Troy Hills School District.