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and Human Behavior Six-Week Unit Outline for Educators in Jewish Settings

Introduction

This outline guides you through a unit using readings, videos, and other resources from Holocaust and Human Behavior. The unit is organized to follow the Facing History Scope and Sequence, and it is designed to be taught in a Jewish setting.

As you prepare for and teach this unit, it is important to refer to the book Holocaust and Human Behavior for context necessary to help guide students from lesson to lesson and to answer their questions. We also recommend that you read the Get Started section in the book as you prepare to teach this unit for important suggestions about how to foster a reflective classroom commu- nity and how to support students as they encounter the emotionally challenging history of .

Each row in the charts below corresponds roughly to one day of instruction time. Since schedules, class period length, and the needs of individual classes and students vary, teachers will likely need to make adjustments to this plan to best suit their needs and circumstances. The teaching notes accompanying each lesson often provide suggestions for making adjustments to the lesson in order to abbreviate it or go deeper.

www.facinghistory.org/outline/hhb-six-week Section A: Individual and Society [~3 days]

In this first series of lessons, students begin the unit by examining the societal factors that shape how we think about our own identities and how we define others. After a broad introduction to the concept of identity, these lessons look closely at how one factor, religion, influences the way many people see themselves and others, and the lessons go on to explore the way that stereo- types can distort our perceptions of others.

Essential Questions • What factors shape our identities? Which parts do we choose for ourselves, and which are de- termined by others, society, or chance? • In what ways are our identities shaped by the fact that we are ? • What dilemmas may arise when others view us differently than we view ourselves?

Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes

1. Reading: Exodus Chapter 3 Students create identity charts for Moshe and See page 5 of Sacred Texts, Modern Questions for .themselves after reading the two readings. notes on analyzing a biblical text ְׁש מ ֹֹות Charting Identity Reading: Jonathan Sacks on Students respond to the following question in Moses’ Identity their journals: How does Moshe’s chart and/or your chart reflect a dual identity? Section A: Individual and Society [~3 Days] Continued

Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes

2. Reading: How It Feels to Be Students read How It Feels to be Colored Me and Identity and Colored Me have a class discussion based on the following questions: Contrasts Image: Glenn Ligon’s Untitled: Four Etchings • Why does Zora Neale Hurston say she was no longer Zora when she disembarked at Jacksonville? What does she mean by that? • Look through the full text and highlight what qualities Hurston relates to being black. What adjectives does she use? What does being black mean for her? Write on the board adjectives (or adjectival phras- es) that students find. Discuss the list. Students then analyze Glenn Ligon’s etchings using the Analyzing Images teaching strategy. Finally, students respond to the following prompt: I feel most Jewish when... Students write their sentences on Post-it Notes (without names) and paste them on a communal chart. Tell students to look for similarities/differences in the answers. Ask students: Do you notice any similarities to Zora Neale Hurston’s thinking?

3. Reading: The Danger of a Students read The Danger of a Single Story, create Excerpt the reading as necessary to make it Stereotypes and Single Story an identity chart for Chimamanda Adichie, and accessible for your class, or show the video from “Single Stories” discuss the “single stories” they have encountered TED.com. in their own lives. Connect the idea of “single stories” to Jewish identity. Ask students: Have you ever experienced your identity as a Jew narrated through a single story? What story is that? Section A: Individual and Society [~3 Days] Continued

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4. Reading: One Identity, Students read two readings about identity and Multiple Identities Multiple Belongings then apply the Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to- World teaching strategy to make connections Reading: Kimchee on the Seder Plate with the experiences the texts describe. Focus the discussion on the question: Video: A Jew is Not One Thing What happens when we have to choose one part of our identity over another? Conclude by leading a class discussion in response to the following question: What do the readings from Angela Warnick, Zora Neale Hurston, and Chimamanda Adichie have in common? Watch the video. Ask students: Which voice resonated with you? Why did it resonate? Section B: We & They [~2 days]

Students now turn their attention from individual to group identity. These lessons introduce the human tendency to create “in” groups and “out” groups, and they look at the way humans have created such groups throughout history on the basis of race and religion, among other factors.

Essential Questions • How have societies distinguished between who can be a member and who must remain an outsider, and why have those distinctions mattered?

Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes

5. Reading: What Do We Do with Students read and discuss (using the connection See the lesson Understanding Universe of Obligation for Differences in a Difference? questions) the two readings, and then they more detailed suggestions. use the handout to illustrate the universe of Belonging Reading: Universe of Background Information: Chapter 2 Introduction Obligation obligation for themselves and a group to which they belong. Handout: Universe of Obligation

6. Reading: Defining Race Students read aloud Defining Race and discuss As students respond to the video, listen to their discus- The Concept Video: Race: The Power of an the connection questions. Then they watch a clip sions and look over their notes to check for understanding of Race Illusion (The Story We Tell) of the video (0:43–9:46) and record something of two important points about race: (1) identifying a they found surprising, something they found person as being of a particular race does not tell us any- interesting, and something they found troubling thing about their physical or intellectual capacities or their to discuss with a partner afterward. character, and (2) definitions of race are not fixed and have changed from place to place and time to time.

7. Reading: Anti-Judaism before Students learn from the reading and video about The video The Ancient Roots of can be Defining the Enlightenment the history of anti-Judaism and how it evolved substituted for the reading Anti-Judaism before the into antisemitism. Then they discuss the con- Enlightenment if desired. If you use the video, you can still Antisemitism Video: Antisemitism from the Enlightenment to nection questions following the reading using follow it up with the reading’s connection questions. the Think, Pair, Share teaching strategy. The connection questions for the reading From Religious Prejudice to Antisemitism can be used to discuss the vid- eo Antisemitism from the Enlightenment to World War I. Background Information: Chapter 2 readings: Religion, Loyalty, and Belonging, Creating the German Nation, Anti- Judaism before the Enlightenment, From Religious Prejudice to Antisemitism. Section C: Life before the War [~2 days]

This section offers a glimpse into Jewish life before World War II. It is important for students to understand that before the Holocaust, Jews led rich and varied lives in , struggling with many of the same issues that we struggle with today. This is to ensure that the Holocaust and the Nazi atrocities do not define Jewish identity in Europe in students’ understanding. This unit gives students a broader perspective on the long and rich history of European Jews. It also offers points for reflection on Jewish life in the diaspora before the war and Jewish life today.

Essential Questions • How does modernity affect tradition? How is Jewish identity shaped in a changing world?

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8. Reading: Choices in a Read Choices in a Modern World. Ask students the For background information and more teaching The Dilemma of Modern World following question: resources on the history of Jews in Eastern Europe, see the Modern World Pauline Wengeroff and her husband saw themselves as Chapter 2 in The Jews of Poland, “Outsiders in Eastern for Jews “modern.” Do you agree? What does the word mean to Europe.” you? Students may need help understanding the use of the Then have students explore the reading using word modern in this lesson’s readings. Here, moder- the Reader’s Theater teaching strategy. Break up the class nity refers to the society that emerged as a result into four or five groups. Each group will act out for the of the new beliefs, paradigms, and attitudes of the class one of the following scenes from the readings: Enlightenment. Conclude with a discussion of the following quotation from Pauline Wengeroff: “A Jew could renounce everything that had become indispensable to him, or he could choose freedom with its offers of education and career...” Ask students to think about whether Jews today still need to make choices that sacrifice their identity as Jews in order to succeed in the contemporary world. • Hanan decides to see the rabbi and has a conversation with the rabbi • Hanan decides to shave his beard and open a business • The struggle between Pauline and Hanan • Jews are allowed into universities and then, after the events of 1881, forced back into the ghettos • The children leave the tradition Section C: Life before the War [~2 days] Continued

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9. Video: Trailer from the While students view the two short videos about Sholem You might choose to share with students additional Yiddish Tradition documentary Sholem Aleichem and shtetl life, they take notes in response to background information about Sholem Aleichem: Aleichem: Laughing in the following questions: and Jewish Life He was the first popular Yiddish writer, the Mark Twain the Darkness before the war • What do we learn about shtetl life through these of his time. Twain wrote in dialect and with humor. Video: Sholem videos? Sholem Aleichem did the same. He wrote in Yiddish to Aleichem: • What did Sholem Aleichem seek to preserve through capture the cadence of his own people in a language Understanding the Life his stories? for his own people. Refer to the movie Fiddler on the of Shtetl Jews Roof for a reference in popular culture. Next, students read The Town of the Little People by Reading: The Town of Sholem Aleichem and discuss the following question: You might also refer back to Zora Neale Hurston in the Little People How is humor used here to show both the beauty and this lesson. She was harshly criticized by the black community during her own time for writing Their Eyes Gallery: Roman the hardships of the shtetl Jews? Were Watching God in southern black dialect. Her Vishniac Gallery Walk Finally, students participate in a gallery walk created with work as a folklorist informed her writing, and she was photographs from both image galleries. Gallery: Pre-war trying to capture the colorful language of the black Jewish Life in Europe After students finish the gallery walk, lead a class discus- South. Today, she is celebrated for capturing a time DVD: A Day in Warsaw sion about the images, including the following questions: and place through the use of dialect. It is interesting to • In what ways might these photos reinforce stereo- ask why Twain was not criticized for writing in dialect types about Jewish people? but Hurston was. • In what ways might they contradict stereotypes? For more background information and additional les- To conclude, the class watches A Day in Warsaw. son plans, see Understanding the Life of Shtetl Jews. Students write down their overall impressions of life for Jews in Warsaw right before the war. They also consider these questions: • What impression does the filmmaker want us to get about Jewish life in Poland? • What similarities are there to Jewish life in a big city with a large Jewish population in America today—for instance, New York? Section D: Case Study: Nazi and the Holocaust [~13 Days]

In this series of lessons, students dive deeply into a historical case study about the Holocaust, practicing historical thinking skills while finding links to the universal themes of human behavior they examined in the first three stages of the unit. In this case study, students explore the idea of democracy and what is essential to support and sustain it. They examine how it is possible that some groups within a society could be discriminated against, dehumanized, and eventually tar- geted for mass murder. They are also challenged to think about the choices available to individ- uals in times of injustice and the factors that influence such decision making. The dramatic and sometimes painful stories told in these resources require students to respond to history with not just their intellects but also their hearts.

Essential Questions • What choices and circumstances enabled the to rise to power in Germany? • What is the Holocaust? How did the choices of individuals, groups, and entire nations help to make it possible? • What can we learn about human behavior from confronting this history? What can we learn about ourselves? What new questions does this history raise for us in the twenty-first century?

Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes

10. Video: Preconditions for the Holocaust: Students watch the video, which ends with Germany’s For more teaching resources on The End of Prejudice in 20th Century Europe loss in World War I. the effects of World War I, see the lesson Analyzing the Effects of World War and the Reading: Creating a Constitutional The class begins a concept map (or identity chart) for Beginning of Government democracy and uses it to evaluate strengths and weak- War I. Democracy nesses of the Constitution. Background Information: Reading: Rumors of Betrayal (optional) The class reads aloud Creating a Constitutional Chapter 2 readings: “Expansion Was Government, and then students work in pairs to analyze Everything”, Imperialism, Conquest, the Weimar government, comparing it to the democra- and Mass Murder cy concept map. Chapter 3 (all readings) Optional: Students read Rumors of Betrayal and reflect on Chapter 4 readings: The how rumors about the end of the war affected Germans’ November Revolution, Rumors of trust in their new government. Betrayal, Creating a Constitutional Government Section D: Case Study: and the Holocaust [~13 Days] Continued

Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes

11. Reading: Visual Essay: Free Expression Students analyze images from the visual essay using Background Information: Chapter 4 Art and Culture in the Weimar Republic the Analyzing Images and Big Paper strategies. In pairs, in the Weimar students silently write their observations, questions, and Republic conclusions as annotations around the image. Finish with a whole-group discussion, focusing on the following questions: • What do these images suggest about art and culture in Weimar society? • What reactions might individual Germans have had to these images? • What is the role of free expression in democracy?

12. Video: Hitler’s Rise to Power: 1918-1933 Students watch the video to provide/deepen historical For more teaching resources on context. politics in the Weimar Republic, see Politics and Reading: Hard Times Return Elections in Students then discuss in pairs or small groups which the lesson Choices in Weimar Republic Handout: Which Political Party? the Weimar party platforms (listed in the reading Hard Times Return) Elections. Republic would be most appealing to one or more of the individu- Background Information: Chapter 4 als profiled in the handout.

13. Video: Hitler’s Rise to Power: 1933-1934 The class reviews the characteristics of democracy from While it is important to illustrate the the concept map they created in earlier lessons. variety of ways in which the Nazis From Reading: “The Battle for Work” Democracy to Students view the video for background information. attacked democracy in Germany, the Dictatorship Reading: Outlawing the Opposition size of your class and the needs of your Then, small groups of students each work with one Reading: Storm Troopers, Elite Guards, students may dictate that you choose and Secret Police reading and analyze how the reading adds to their under- not to use every suggested reading in standing of how democracy was destroyed in Germany. this lesson. Reading: Shaping Public Opinion Small groups each report out to the whole class. Background Information: Chapter 5 Reading: Targeting Jews Finally, the class begins a concept map for Nazi dictator- Reading: “Restoring” Germany’s Civil ship. Service Reading: Isolating Homosexuals Reading: A Wave of Reading: Breeding the New German “Race” Reading: Where They Burn Books... Section D: Case Study: Nazi Germany and the Holocaust [~13 Days] Continued

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14. Reading: Working Toward the Führer Students read and discuss the three readings and then Background Information: Chapter 5 hold a fishbowl discussion on the interplay between Choosing Reading: Pledging Allegiance between Hitler and individual Germans in creating and sustain- Conformity Reading: Do You Take the Oath? ing the new dictatorship. The discussion focuses on the and Dissent following questions: • To what extent did Germans choose to conform or consent to the dictatorship, and to what extent were they coerced? • What kinds of pledges and oaths do people take today? For what reasons? How do they affect people’s choices? How should they? Add to the concept map for Nazi dictatorship.

15. Visual Essay: Visual Essay: The Impact Using the visual essay introduction, the class records Throughout these activities, help stu- Analyzing Nazi of Propaganda a definition for propaganda. As a whole class, they dents connect what they are learning analyze The Eternal Jew poster using the Analyzing about propaganda to the influence Propaganda Image: The Eternal Jew Images strategy and the accompanying handout. of media today. Ask students if they Handout: Image Analysis Procedure Then students work in small groups to use the same can think of examples of propaganda strategy to analyze additional images from the visual in society today. How do they think essay. propaganda influences the attitudes and actions of people today? The class ends with a whole-group discussion about what students observed, what makes propaganda effective Background Information: or ineffective, and how it adds to their understanding of Chapter 3 reading: Building Support on conformity and consent in Nazi Germany. the Home Front Chapter 5 reading: Shaping Public Opinion Chapter 6 reaings: Introduction, Propaganda at the Movies Section D: Case Study: Nazi Germany and the Holocaust [~13 Days] Continued

Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes

16. Youth in Reading: Joining the Students work in pairs to read and discuss one or more Background Information: Chapter 6 readings about youth in Nazi Germany. Their discussion Introduction Nazi Germany Reading: The Birthday Party should focus on what evidence the readings provide to Reading: Models of Obedience answer the following questions: Reading: Disillusionment in the Hitler • What role did youth play in the Nazis’ attempt to build Youth a “racially pure and harmonious national communi- Reading: Rejecting ty”? • What difficult choices were young people faced Reading: “Heil Hitler!”: Lessons of Daily Life with—at home, in school, and in their communities— during this period? Reading: Youth on the Margins • How did these choices challenge the way young peo- Reading: Schooling for the National ple saw themselves and understood their identities? Community Pairs share summaries of their readings and their conclu- sions in a whole-group discussion.

17. Video: “Kristallnacht”: The November The class watches the video for an overview of Emphasize that perpetrator, victim, Understanding 1938 Kristallnacht and its significance. bystander, and upstander are roles, not identities. A single individual can slip in Kristallnacht Reading: The of the Introduce terms to describe the roles people can play in times of crisis: perpetrator, victim, bystander, upstander. and out of each of these roles, depend- Reading: Opportunism during ing on circumstances and choices. Kristallnacht Students then work in groups to analyze readings that describe different responses to Kristallnacht, identifying Teachers will need to provide context Reading: A Family Responds to for this lesson about the rearma- Kristallnacht evidence they find of perpetrator, bystander, and upstand- er behavior. ment of Germany, the , and Reading: Thoroughly Reprehensible the annexation of the . Behavior Consider creating a mini-lecture about events in the following Reading: A Visitor’s Perspective on Chapter 7 readings: Rearming Kristallnacht Germany, Taking , Crisis in Reading: World Responses to Czechoslovakia, Beyond Any Nation’s Kristallnacht Universe of Obligation Background Information: Chapter 7 Section D: Case Study: Nazi Germany and the Holocaust [~13 Days] Continued

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18. Video: Hitler’s Ideology: Race, Land, and Students watch the video for an introduction to the Nazi Teachers will need to provide context A War For Race Conquest “race and space” ideology. for this lesson about the Nazi-Soviet alliance and the invasion of Poland. and Space Reading: Taking Austria Then they analyze four excerpts from readings, using the Big Paper strategy. In groups, students silently discuss Consider creating a mini-lecture about Reading: Colonizing Poland how one of the excerpts relates to the “race and space” events in the following Chapter 8 read- Reading: “Cultural Missionaries” ideology. Then they rotate to other groups’ “big papers” ings: The War against Poland: Speed to read the other silent conversations and contribute their and Brutality, Dividing Poland and Its Reading: The Invasion of the Soviet People Union thoughts. Background Information: Chapter 8 Introduction

19. Reading: The Jewish Ghettos: Separated Students learn about the confinement of Jews in ghettos See the lesson Confronting the Ghettos: from the World in Poland by reading The Jewish Ghettos: Separated from Suffering Caused by the Nazis for more the World. detailed suggestions. Confronting Reading: Voices from the Warsaw the Suffering Ghetto Then they read the diary of a teenager imprisoned in a Background Information: Chapter 8 Caused by the ghetto (also in the reading) and reflect on the emotional Nazis challenges of this history. Students respond privately to the following prompt in their journals or notebooks: Accounts like this one are disturbing and painful to read. They prompt us to ask many questions, some of which may be unanswerable. What questions do these events raise for you about history and human behavior? Finally, students read about the Oyneg Shabes archive in Voices from the , and reflect on the struggle to maintain a sense of identity, dignity, faith, and culture as a form of defiance and resistance. Section D: Case Study: Nazi Germany and the Holocaust [~13 Days] Continued

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20. Video: Step By Step: Phases of the Students watch the video, which provides an overview of See the lesson Responding to the Mass Murder: Holocaust the phases of the Holocaust, and they then examine the Stories of for more map illustrating the locations and the variety of methods detailed suggestions. The Stories of Map: Main Nazi Camps and Killing Sites the Nazis used to perpetrate mass murder. Survivors Consider ending this lesson by having Reading: Identity in the Camps Students then read and learn about a variety of ex- students complete exit cards to give Reading: Survival in Hiding periences of those targeted by the Nazis during the you a sense of how they are respond- Reading: A Basic Feeling of Human Holocaust. They create a found poem based on one ing to this emotionally challenging Dignity account and using the accompanying handout. content. Reading: A Transport to Bergen-Belsen Finally, students respond privately to the following Background Information: prompt in their journals or notebooks: Video: Testimony from Survivors and Chapter 8: The Invasion of the Soviet Witnesses Collection How did working so closely with the words of a survivor Union affect you? What did these words make you think and Handout: Creating a Found Poem Chapter 9: Mobile Killing Units, The feel? , Establishing the Killing Centers

21. Reading: Reserve Police Battalion 101 Students examine a variety of factors that might have Teachers will need to provide the class helped make it possible for individuals to participate in with a brief overview of the way the Perpetrators: Video: Obedience: The Milgram Choosing to Experiment the mass murder of the Holocaust. Milgram experiments were set up. Use Murder First, they read aloud Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the reading A Matter of Obedience? to Reading: A Commandant’s View discuss the reading and connection questions using prepare the overview. Reading: “Proving Oneself” in the East the Fishbowl or Think, Pair, Share strategy format. Help students understand the variety Students then learn about the Milgram experiments con- and complexity of perpetrator moti- ducted in the 1960s and watch Obedience: The Milgram vations, noting that experiments like Experiment. Using the same discussion format, they Milgram’s can provide insight but not discuss what they observed in the video and the factors necessarily the whole story. Encourage that encouraged the “subject” of the experiment to students to challenge the ideas of proceed. Then they discuss what insight Milgram’s work Milgram, Browning, and Goldhagen. might provide for understanding the motivations of the Time permitting, introduce one or both members of Police Battalion 101. of the optional readings and discuss with students how those stories extend, deepen, or complicate their discussion of perpetrator behavior. Consider ending this lesson by having students complete exit cards to give you a sense of how they are respond- ing to this emotionally challenging content. Section D: Case Study: Nazi Germany and the Holocaust [~13 Days] Continued

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22. Reading: Choiceless Choices Students read Choiceless Choices as a class and discuss While it is important to illustrate the quotation by Lawrence Langer. varying levels of agency people Resisters, Reading: A Commandant’s View Rescuers, and Students then read and analyze a selection of readings experienced and the variety of choices Reading: Bystanders at Hartheim Castle Bystanders about choices by those who did have varying levels of they made during the Holocaust, the Reading: Protesting Medical Killing agency during the Holocaust. Assign individuals or small size of your class and the needs of your groups to focus their analysis on one or two readings. students may dictate that you choose Reading: Difficult Choices in Poland not to use every suggested reading in Reading: Speaking Out “In the Face of Finish with a class discussion of the following questions: this lesson. Murder” • What led each individual to make the choices he or Background Information: Chapter Reading: Protests in Germany she made? 8 and Chapter 9 • How did circumstances of time, place, and opportunity Reading: Deciding to Act play a role in the choices each person made? Reading: Le Chambon: A Village Takes a Stand Reading: Diplomats and the Choice to Rescue Reading: Denmark: A Nation Takes Action Section D: Case Study: Nazi Germany and the Holocaust [~13 Days] Continued

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23. Reading: The Manifesto Students read The Vilna Ghetto Manifesto and discuss the For an overview on resistance following questions: and more resources, see the les- Jewish Reading: The Resistance • What does Abba Kovner mean by “sheep to the son Understanding Resistance. Reading: Vitka Kempner’s Biography slaughter”? For more on , see the Reading: Resistance in the Vilna Ghetto • Why do you think this phrase resonated within the lessons Jewish Partisans in Occupied Jewish community? Poland and Jewish Partisans in the Resistance as well as the Jewish • Why do some people find this phrase to be problemat- Partisan Educational Foundation’s web- ic today? site. Then students read the The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and For the testimony of a survivor who participate in a discussion using the Think, Pair, helped to orchestrate the destruction Share strategy in response to the following question: of a crematorium in Birkenau, watch Scholar Michael Berenbaum wrote that for those who Helen K.’s Testimony of Resistance at resisted, “Death was a given.” With such terrible odds Auschwitz. against them, why did so many Jews participate in the For more help unpacking the role of Warsaw ghetto uprising? Did their resistance matter? the Jews when remembering and Students read Vitka Kempner’s Biography and Resistance memorializing the Holocaust, find im- in the Vilna Ghetto. ages of the two sculptures by Nathan Finally, students discuss the following two statements Rapoport at in , “The (write both on the board): Warsaw Ghetto Uprising” and “The Last March,” and have students to • Vitka Kempner: “But of all the underground move- compare and contrast them. ments in the ghettos, nobody did anything until the last moment. Because no one of us wanted, that because of some carelessness on our side, other Jews would get killed. We were young, and the claim against us from many people inside the ghetto was, You are irresponsible young people, because of you all the Jews will get killed. . . .” • Abba Kovner: “They shall not take us like sheep to the slaughter . . . ” Focus the discussion on the following questions: • Why did the older generations in the ghetto try to dissuade the younger generation from resistance? • How can we understand and justify both viewpoints today? • How do the need for resistance and the fear of resis- tance live side by side? Section E: Judgment, Memory, and Legacy [~4 days]

Students consider the challenges the world faced and continues to face in response to the hor- rors of the Holocaust. First they explore the meaning of justice and whether it was achievable after crimes committed on the scale of the Holocaust. Then they learn about some dilemmas we face today in judging the choices made by those who lived in the past, and they reflect on the “call to conscience” that the history of the Holocaust provides as we respond to injustice in the world today.

Essential Questions • What is justice? Can justice be achieved after mass murder on the enormous scale of the Holocaust? • What can individuals or nations do to repair, rebuild, and restore their societies after war, , and mass violence? • Why is it important to remember the past?

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24. Handout: Justice after the Students consider some of the dilemmas of justice Teachers should give a few details about the end Justice after Holocaust Anticipation Guide after the Holocaust and World War II by completing of World War II. You might refer to the reading As the anticipation guide, using the handout, and having the War Ended or the short video testimonies the Holocaust DVD: Nuremberg Remembered a debate in the format of the Four Corners teaching (Eyewitness to Buchenwald or The Red Army Enters Reading: Establishing the strategy. Majdanek) by American and Russian soldiers who Nuremberg Tribunal Then they watch Nuremberg Remembered, read the encountered camps as the war ended. Reading: The First Trial at two readings on Nuremberg, or listen to a mini-lecture Make the debate about justice the focus of the Nuremberg to learn about how the Allies addressed those dilem- lesson. Depending on available time, teachers mas after the war. might choose to share details about the using the video or suggested readings, or by creating a mini-lecture based on information from the readings. Section E: Judgment, Memory, and Legacy [~4 days] Continued

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25. Video: Monsters and Men: The Students will watch the video and read the reading, “What would I have done?” is a difficult, if not Dilemmas of Nazis at Nuremberg and then they will use the connection questions to impossible, question to answer when learning reflect on the idea of “moral luck” and the role that about horrific events such as the Holocaust. In Judgment Reading: Moral Luck and Dilemma of Judgment circumstances play in influencing our choices and order to foster deep and thoughtful contributions judgment. Students will share their thoughts in small from students in this lesson, avoid that question groups or a brief class discussion. and instead focus on the factors that influence our Students will then respond to the statement “I am choices today. myself and my circumstances” (José Ortega y Gasset). Ask students: • Do you agree? • Was it true of the Nazis? • How do our “circumstances” influence who we are and the moral choices we make today?

26. Reading: The International Half of the class will begin by reading The The International Criminal Court is one of a number Contemporary Criminal Court International Criminal Court, and the other half will of new institutions and international laws created read Remembering the Names. After reading silently, in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust. Use Responses to Reading: Remembering the the Holocaust Names students will find one or two classmates who read the background information from Chapter 11 to pro- same reading. They will discuss the reading’s connec- vide students with a brief overview of the United tion questions and then collaborate on an answer to Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the question: and the Genocide Convention. How does the action described in this reading offer an Background Information: Chapter 11 read- important response to the history of the Holocaust? ings: The United Nations, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Raphael Lemkin and the Genocide Students then meet with new partners who read Convention, Visual Essay: Holocaust Memorials and and analyzed the other reading. In their new groups, Monuments they will share a summary of their readings and then discuss the following: How are the responses described in the readings similar and different? How do they each offer, in their own way, an important response to the history of the Holocaust? Section E: Judgment, Memory, and Legacy [~4 days] Continued

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27. Reading: Faith Despite a Broken Students view The Creation of Wartime by Samuel For background on the artist Samuel Bak, see About Post-Holocaust World Bak, following the Analyzing Images strategy. Samuel Bak. Theology Image: Samuel Bak, The Creation Students compare Bak’s piece to Michelangelo’s The For more paintings by Samuel Bak, see of Wartime III, 1999-2008 Creation of Adam, with which Bak is in dialogue. Ask the Illuminations online gallery. students the following questions: Image: Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam, 1508-1512 • How can we interpret the empty spaces in the painting? • What questions is the artist asking by recreating and reinterpreting the iconic Michelangelo paint- ing? • What is the role of God during the Holocaust, as depicted by Samuel Bak? Students work in groups of three and read the six short responses to retaining faith after the Holocaust in the reading Faith Despite a Broken World. Once these become familiar, a representative from each group interprets the Bak painting from the point of view of the author/scholar they were assigned.

28. Reading: Facing the Past in Poland Students read Facing the Past in Poland. Using Facing the Past the Fishbowl strategy, students discuss the connection in Poland questions that follow the reading, focusing especially on the connection between history, national identity, and individual identity. Section F: Choosing to Participate [1 day]

Students end the unit by considering their responsibility to participate as caring, thoughtful citizens in the world around us. They analyze examples of individuals and groups who are seeking to make a difference in order to consider the strategies that they might use to help bring about a more humane, just, and compassionate world and a more democratic society.

Essential Questions • How does learning about history educate us about our responsibilities today? • What must individuals do and value in order to bring about a more humane, just, and compassionate world and a more democratic society?

Lesson Name Materials Activity Teaching Notes

29. Reading: Not Just Awareness, But Students read aloud Not Just Awareness, But Action and respond to See the lesson Strategies for Making Choosing to Action Obama’s argument about the need for strategies in order to make a Difference for more detailed change. suggestions. Participate Handout: Analyzing Levers of Power Students will then read or watch one or more stories about people Background Information: Chapter Reading: Not in Our Town who “choose to participate” and will use the Analyzing Levers of 12 Introduction Reading: Seeking a Strategy that Power handout to analyze the strategies employed by the individuals Works described in the reading. Reading: Believing in Others End the lesson by brainstorming with the class about the character- Reading: Acknowledging the Past to istics of an upstander. Introduce the five Quotes from Ethics of the Shape the Present Fathers (Pirkei Avot). Put each quote up around the classroom on a large piece of paper or sticky note. Have students walk around, read Video: Watcher of the Sky the quotes, and stand by a quote that resonates with them and that Video: Raphael Lemkin: Watcher of the they can relate to an upstander they have heard of or know. Sky (Introduction) Reading: Rabbinical Quotations from Ethics of the Fathers Assessment

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes: “There is a profound difference between history and memory. History is his story—an event that happened sometime else to someone else. Memory is my story—something that happened to me and is part of who I am. . . . As with individuals, so with a nation: it has a continuing identity to the extent that it can remember where it came from and who its ancestors were.”1

When we study the Holocaust, history and memory, as defined by Rabbi Sacks, collide. The Holocaust is a story that has become part of Jewish memory and, as a result, part of Jewish iden- tity. But it is also a history that forever changed the world and the many nations that exist in it.

Ask students,

What has learning about the Holocaust suggested to you about your identity as a Jew? What does it suggest to you about what it means to be human?

[1] Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “History and Memory,” JewishPress.com, last modified March 25, 2015, accessed May 1, 2017.