Introduction Introduction

Lesson 1

CONTENTS

Lesson Overview ...... 87

Document 1 “The Universe of Obligation” exercise ...... 89

Document 2 Reading: “38 Witnesses” ...... 90

Document 3 Quadrant Chart ...... 92 Homework Readings “The Ball” ...... 93 A Frost in the Night...... 96

References...... 99

The HHREC gratefully acknowledges the funders who supported our curriculum project: • Office of State Senator Vincent Leibell/New York State Department of Education • Fuji Photo Film USA

86 Introduction KEY VOCABULARY LESSON OVERVIEW anti-Semitism In this lesson students will be introduced to the concept of the bystander “Universe of Obligation.” They will examine their obligation to collaborator others and how their behavior is a reflection of their sense of discrimination responsibility to others. Holocaust ideology INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN AND ACTIVITIES Nazism perpetrator Activity 1: The Universe of Obligation prejudice Explain to the students that this lesson will ask them to consider rescuer the following questions: stereotype • What are your values? victim • Where do you see yourself in relation to others in your family, school, neighborhood, community, and world? OBJECTIVES • What kind of person are you? • Students will raise and recognize • What kind of person do you want to be? key questions regarding the Holocaust. Explain that this activity will help students understand the nature • Students will recognize that a of their relationships with others and the world in which they live. bystander makes an active choice. It will also help them understand the behavior of individuals, nations, and institutions in the past and during the Holocaust. ESSENTIAL QUESTION Distribute the graphic organizer “Your Universe of How is the concept of the “Universe Obligation.” of Obligation” related to the Ask students to examine the center circle and think about the Holocaust? concept of self in relation to those to whom they feel a sense of obligation. (You may wish to elicit definitions of the term “obligation,” such as “feeling responsibility to or for others.”) Ask students to think of each concentric circle as an extension of their “universe of obligation.” Guide students to label the concentric circles in the graphic organizer with the names of those to whom they feel a sense of obligation (individuals, institutions, organizations, etc.). If necessary, model the activity for students. NOTE: Some of the material written on the graphic organizer may be personal and private. It is important to respect a student’s need for privacy. Ask for volunteers when sharing information. Have students place this graphic organizer in their folders. You will refer to this assignment when you conclude the study of the Holocaust curriculum.

Activity 2: “38 Witnesses” Distribute and read The New York Times article “38 Witnesses,” an account of the murder of Kitty Genovese in a quiet residential

Introduction 87 RESOURCES neighborhood of New York City in 1964. Ask students to consider 1 “The Universe of Obligation” the following questions: 2 Reading: “38 Witnesses” • How did the citizens of Kew Gardens, Queens, react to the attack 3 Quadrant Chart on Kitty Genovese? 4 Reading: “The Ball” • Why did they react that way? 5 Reading: A Frost in the Night • Could the victim have been saved? If so, how? • Were the witnesses obligated to respond to the attack?

Activity 3: Quadrant Chart In the study of the Holocaust, scholars have identified four key roles that defined human behavior at this time: victim, perpetrator, bystander, and rescuer. This activity asks students to reflect on how their own experiences or those of others may fall into one of the four categories. Distribute the Quadrant Chart. Ask students to fill out the quadrants based on their own life experience or based on the people in the article “38 Witnesses.” It may be helpful to model this activity before asking students to complete the worksheet. In the final discussion, be sure to connect the quadrant activity with “38 Witnesses.”

Assessment Students may keep a journal that allows them to look back on their reflections, responses, and questions composed during the course of this study. On some occasions it may be helpful to share responses. Ask students to address the following question: How is the concept of a person’s obligation to others pivotal to the Holocaust? Have students make a list of three to five questions they would like answered during the Holocaust Unit.

Homework Students will read the following literary selections and answer questions in preparation for the next lesson on stereotyping and prejudice. • “The Ball,” an excerpt from Friedrich by Hans Peter Richter • Chapter 9 of A Frost in the Night by Edith Baer

Standards Connection English Language Arts: 1, 2, 3, 4 Social Studies: 1, 2, 3, 4

88 Introduction DOCUMENT 1

The Universe of Obligation

SELF

Introduction 89 DOCUMENT 2

Reading: “38 Witnesses”

This account of a murder that took place in 1964, in a quiet residential neighborhood of New York City, appears to have no bearing on the Holocaust. As you work with the material in the Holocaust curriculum, compare the behavior of the thirty-eight witnesses to that of millions of ordinary citizens in Germany in the 1930s. They, too, were witnesses. The selection is from the New York Times, March 27, 1964 .

38 WITNESSES

For more than half an hour slaying baffles him—not facing Mowbray Place. Like 38 respectable, law-abiding cit- because it is a murder, but many residents of the neigh- izens in Queens watched a because the “good people” borhood, she had parked there killer stalk and stab a woman failed to call the police. day after day since her arrival in three separate attacks in Kew “As we have reconstructed from Connecticut a year ago, Gardens. the crime,” he said, “the although the railroad frowned Twice the sound of their assailant had three chances to on the practice. voices and the sudden glow of kill this woman during the 35- She turned off the lights of their bedroom lights interrupt- minute period. He returned her car, locked the door, and ed him and frightened him off. twice to complete the job. If we started to walk the 100 feet to Each time he returned, sought had been called when he first the entrance of her apartment her out and stabbed her again. attacked, the woman might not at 82-70 Austin Street, which is Not one person telephoned the be dead now.” in a Tudor building with stores police during the assault; one This is what the police say on the first floor and apart- witness called after the woman happened beginning at 3:20 ments on the second. was dead. a.m. in the staid, middle-class, The entrance to the apart- That was two weeks ago tree-lined Austin Street area: ment is in the rear of the today. But Assistant Chief Twenty-eight-year-old building because the front is Inspector Frederick M. Lussen, Catherine Genovese, who was rented to retail stores. At night in charge of the borough’s called Kitty by almost everyone the quiet neighborhood is detective force and a veteran of in the neighborhood, was shrouded in the slumbering 25 years of homicide investiga- returning home from her job darkness that marks most resi- tions, is still shocked. as a manager of a bar in Hollis. dential areas. He can give a matter-of- She parked her red Fiat in a lot Miss Genovese noticed a fact recitation of many mur- adjacent to the Kew Gardens, man at the far end of the lot, ders. But the Kew Gardens Long Island, railroad station, near a seven-story apartment

90 Introduction house at 82-40 Austin Street. Lights went out. The killer door, 82-62 Austin Street, he She halted; then nervously, she returned to Miss Genovese, saw her slumped on the floor at headed up Austin Street toward now trying to make her way the foot of the stairs and Lefferts Boulevard, where there around the side of the building stabbed her a third time, fatally. is a call box to the 102nd Police by the parking lot to get to her It was 3:50 a.m. by the time Precinct in nearby Richmond apartment. The assailant the police received the first call Hill. She got as far as a street stabbed her again. from a man who was a neighbor light in front of a bookstore “I’m dying!” she shrieked. of Miss Genovese. In two min- before the man grabbed her. “I’m dying!” utes they were at the scene. The She screamed. Lights went on in Windows were opened neighbor, a 70-year-old woman, the 10-story apartment house at again and lights went on in and another woman were the 82-67 Austin Street, which faces many apartments. The only persons on the street. the bookstore. Windows slid assailant got into his car and Nobody else came forward. open and voices punctured the drove away. Miss Genovese The man explained that he early morning stillness. staggered to her feet. A city had called the police after Miss Genovese screamed: bus, Q-10, the Lefferts much deliberation. He had “Oh, my God, he stabbed me! Boulevard line to Kennedy phoned a friend in Nassau Please help me!” From one of International Airport, passed County for advice, and then the upper windows in the by. It was 3:35 a.m. had crossed the roof of the apartment house a man called The assailant returned. By building to the apartment of down: “Let that girl alone! then, Miss Genovese had the elderly woman to get her to The assailant looked at crawled to the back of the make the call. him, shrugged, walked down building where freshly painted “I didn’t want to get Austin Street toward a white brown doors to the apartment involved,” he sheepishly told sedan parked a short distance house held out hope of safety. the police… away. Miss Genovese struggled The killer tried the first door; to her feet. she wasn’t there. At the second

Eventually, Winston Moseley, the killer, was caught and sentenced to the electric chair, which, because of the law on capital punishment at the time, meant in effect a life sentence. What remained puzzling to police, newspaper reporters, and psychologists was why nobody called the police earlier. The man who finally placed the first call did so with trepidation, after telephoning a friend to seek his advice. The comments from some witnesses were indicative of the instinct of noninvolvement in contempo- rary American society: “I didn’t want to get involved”; “Frankly, we were afraid”; “I didn’t want my husband to get involved”; “I don’t know”; “I was tired. I went back to bed”; “Get away or I’ll throw you down the steps.” Another response was possibly the most instructive: “The last time I complained to the police, I was sent to a concentration camp.” Kew Gardens contained a high concentration of former victims of the Nazis in Europe, and the last thing they wanted was to have anything to do with the police.

Introduction 91 DOCUMENT 3

Quadrant Chart

VICTIM PERPETRATOR Describe a time someone’s words or actions Describe a time you deliberately said hurt you and you felt like a target. or did something to hurt someone else.

BYSTANDER RESCUER Describe a time you did not Describe a time you interrupted an act interrupt an act of prejudice. of prejudice and became an ally to a potential victim.

92 Introduction HOMEWORK READING

“The Ball”

In his book Friedrich, which portrays the friendship between a Jewish boy and a Christian boy grow- ing up in Germany between 1925 and 1942, Hans Peter Richter poignantly describes the changes in their lives as the community becomes increasingly anti-Semitic in its response to state-sponsored policies. The chapter entitled “The Ball” accurately depicts the discriminatory, destructive forces at work in Germany in 1933.

We ran along the street. Doors and windows Her husband had swept the Friedrich kept close to the hous- opened. A crowd gathered. broken glass into the gutter. He es: I stayed on the curb. I threw “Thieves! Burglars!” the collected the rolls of thread, the the little rubber ball I’d been woman shouted. stars of black and white yarn, given in the shoe store. It hit the Her husband stood by the the balls of colorful embroidery center of the sidewalk and shop door, hands in his pock- yarn from the display case and bounced high. Friedrich caught ets, smoking a pipe. carried them into the shop. it and threw it back to me. “This good-for-nothing The woman’s eyes grew very “My father will be home Jewboy here broke my shop small. “How dare you interfere? any moment!” he called to me. window,” she told everyone who What are you doing here any- “I must get back soon. We’re cared to listen. “He wants to rob way? Away with you! You don’t going shopping today. Maybe me.” She turned to Friedrich. think you have to protect this someone’ll give me a ball, too!” “But you didn’t quite make it rotten Jewboy because you’re I nodded and jumped over a this time, did you. Because I’m living in the same house, do manhole. I waited until a pedes- always watching. I know you; you? Go on, beat it!” trian had gone by, then hurled you won’t get away from me. “But I threw the ball!” I the ball back to Friedrich. You pack of Jews; they should said again. Friedrich hadn’t been get rid of you. First, you ruin The woman lunged at me, watching. There was a crash. our business with your depart- without letting go of Friedrich. The ball rolled harmlessly ment stores, then you rob us on Friedrich cried. He wiped his back to me. top of it! Just you wait, Hitler tears on his sleeve, smearing Friedrich stared open- will show you yet!” And she his whole face. mouthed at the smashed shop shook Friedrich violently. Someone had called the window. I bent to pick up the “But he didn’t do it!” I police. ball, not yet believing what had yelled. “I threw the ball, I broke Out of breath and sweat- happened. your window. We didn’t want ing, a policeman arrived on a Suddenly, the woman to steal!” bicycle. He asked the woman to stood before us. She grabbed The woman looked at me, tell him what had happened. Friedrich’s arm and began eyes large and stupid. Her Again she told the story of to screech. mouth dropped open. the attempted burglary.

Introduction 93 HOMEWORK READING (continued)

“The Ball”

I tugged at his sleeve. The policeman frowned. Herr Schneider listened “Officer,” I said, “he didn’t do it. “You wouldn’t try to call this patiently. When she had fin- I broke the pane with my ball.” woman a liar.” I wanted to ished, he took Friedrich’s chin The woman looked at me explain, but he didn’t let me. in his hand and lifted his head threateningly. “Don’t you He took Friedrich’s wrist so he could look into his eyes. believe him, Officer!” she said. from the woman and led him “Friedrich,” he asked seri- “He only wants to protect the toward our house, followed by ously, “did you break the shop Jewboy here. Don’t you believe the woman and a long line of window intentionally?” him. He thinks the Jew’s his curious onlookers. Friedrich shook his head, friend just because they live in I joined the line. still sobbing. the same house. Halfway there we ran into “I did it, Herr Schneider. I The policeman bent down Herr Schneider. threw the ball, but I didn’t do it to me. “You don’t understand Sobbing, Friedrich shouted, on purpose!” and I showed this yet, you’re too young still,” “Father!” him my small rubber ball. he explained. “You may think Astonished, Herr Schneider Friedrich nodded. you’re doing him a favor by surveyed the procession. He Herr Schneider took a deep standing up for him. But you came closer, said hello, and breath. “If you can swear on know he’s a Jew. Believe me, we looked from one person to oath that what you just told me grownups have had plenty of another, obviously puzzled. is the truth,” he told the woman, experiences with Jews. You “Your son—” said the “go ahead and register a formal can’t trust them; they’re sneaky policeman. complaint. You know me, and and they cheat. This woman But the woman didn’t give you know where I live!” was the only one who saw what him a chance to go on. In one The woman did not reply. happened, so . . . ” burst she repeated her tales. Herr Schneider pulled out his “But she didn’t see it!” I The only part she left out this purse. “Kindly release my son, interrupted him. “Only I was time was her insinuation Officer!” he said sharply. “I will there, and I did it!” about Jews. pay for the damage at once.”

Hans Peter Richter. Friedrich (New York: Puffin Books, 1987), 38–42. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux LLC.

QUESTIONS 1. What does the woman call the boys? 2. According to the woman, how are the Jews ruining her business? 3. The policeman arrives to find out the truth. How does he use his authority? 4. Do you think the narrator and Friedrich will remain friends?

94 Introduction HOMEWORK READING (continued)

“The Ball”

Think about how the story presents evidence of each of the following, and then answer Question 5 below. • stereotyping • the use of intimidation by both the shopkeeper and the policeman, a civil servant, to suppress the truth. • Herr Schneider’s role and whether or not he is a victim 5. How does this story illustrate the presence of anti-Semitism at a grassroots level?

Introduction 95 HOMEWORK READING

A Frost in the Night

Chapter 9 of Edith Baer’s A Frost in the Night clearly and painfully illustrates the anti-Semitic atti- tudes and discriminatory practices prevalent in Germany in the 1930’s. Every occasion, including recreational activities, was unfortunately used as an opportunity to spread the hate-filled ideology of Nazism. Children were not exempt from being targets of virulent prejudice, as is seen in this descrip- tion of a seemingly innocent afternoon of skating.

December turned into January. small red pouch, wedged scalding sip, Ella hastily In the park the frozen pond between the hard cover of her snatched back her hand. glittered within the circling nature study book and the soft, “Hold it, Eva! You’d better hedge of its barren shrubs; and dog-eared one of her Uhland think this over! I mean with where in summer the swans ballads, hovered vexingly in the Uschi having the measles, I would glide silently across the noise-filled air. She felt in her wouldn’t want you to catch any water, now the swish of skates ski-pants pockets for a stray germs from my cup.” and the skaters’ voices filled the ten-pfennig piece, but there Eva could have wept with clear air. Strains of the “Skaters’ was none. disappointment. With measles Waltz” blared from the wooden Ella, it turned out quickly, at the Upstairs, her mother had shed where hot cocoa and had used up her allowance on been reluctant to let her go sugar wafers were sold. Ella and modeling clay; she was cur- skating with Ella, let alone hav- Eva jointed the line inside, rently on an elephant binge, ing her drink from an Upstairs’ wobbling stiffly on their skates and Uncle Ludwig would show cup! There was nothing left to over the mud-streaked planks. off her droopy-eared creatures do but watch her cousin drink “Hurry, slowpoke!” Ella with a deprecating shrug that up and toss the drained and called back, having shouldered fooled no one. After a visible crumpled paper cup on an her way to the counter with her struggle, Ella held her cocoa overflowing trash can. customary efficiency. She bal- cup under Eva’s nose. “Not that “Well, are you coming, anced her steaming cup in her you deserve it, Eva—always Eva?” Ella asked and stalked mittened hand and tore the misplacing and forgetting toward the door. Shivering cellophane wrapper off her things. If your head wasn’t fas- with cold and self-pity, Eva wafer with her front teeth. tened on to your neck . . . ” leaned her elbow against the “Come on, Eva, if you want to Eva glared at her cousin, counter and shifted her feet to skate some more before dark!” torn between her dignity and ease the pressure of the skates But when Eva finally had the chocolaty vapors rising against her soles. her turn at the counter, she irresistibly from Ella’s cup. Just “Hey, Eva Bentheim, don’t found that she had left her as she had shamelessly settled take up space at the counter if change purse with her school for the latter and bent her you’re not buying cocoa!” a things at home. Visions of the head toward that first, tongue- high-pitched boy’s voice sang

96 Introduction HOMEWORK READING (continued)

A Frost in the Night

out behind her. It was Anton “You’ve no money, Eva. That’s you get from me. It’s her kind Huber, carefully filling rows of it, isn’t it?” that put your father on the paper cups from a round-bel- “I left my change purse at breadlines and ruined the land lied pitcher that seemed too home,” Eva mumbled. with their usury and greed!” heavy for his skinny arms. Anton tucked the towel Somewhere, just on the “I’m helping Frau Hauff,” under his arm and fished a other side of the counter and he explained, and hastily wiped ten-pfennig piece from his yet miles away in a drift of up a trickle of spilled liquid pocket. “Take it, Eva. I’ll get my chocolate-flavored mist, Anton with a large towel already none day’s pay when I’m through stood staring at Eva, his hand, too clean. “Sundays and after tonight, and you can pay me with the coin between his fin- school. Mother can use the back in school tomorrow.” gers, suspended in the air as if extra money, and”—he “First thing in the morn- it were no longer a part of him. grinned the wry smile that ing!” She suddenly realized that A freckled-faced boy in the line crinkled his eyes now and she was not only tired and cold laughed overly loud and whis- then—“I can have all the hot but also hungry; her stomach pered something to a girl in a cocoa I want.”“But your felt queasy and her head swam. white felt skirt. The other chil- homework, Anton. When do “Could you possibly spare dren looked away, their faces you find time for that?” another tenner, Anton?” she closed-off, blank. Eva wanted It seemed wrong for Anton heard herself ask to her own to run; but her feet felt to spend his free hours work- great surprise, tearing her eyes strangely weighted, as if her ing when Eva knew very well from the tray full of wafers skates had dug deep grooves how worried he was about Frau Hauff was bringing from into the wooden plank, pulling keeping up his grades. the other end of the counter. her down and down. Anton shrugged and “Just till tomorrow, I promise.” “Go on, you, don’t hold up pushed back a strand of his “It’s in their blood, it’s those having an honest piece of sandy hair with the crook of always been in their blood!” A change!” Frau Hauff shouted, his arm. “Oh, I manage. My tight voice spoke up at her her eyes moist with loathing father is still out of work, and back. Frau Hauff had come up behind her thick, fogged lenses. he’s very good at arithmetic. behind her, the tray with the Her hand clamped over I’m sorry, Eva, you’ll really wafers pressed against her Anton’s like a vise. A spasm of have to move on. Frau Hauff cocoa-spattered apron. pain rent his thin face, and the gives me a scolding when I “Borrowing and lending, coin dropped from his stiff- hold up the line talking to kids charging interest and getting ened fingers and clattered from school.” But just as she rich on our hard work. Don’t along the counter. turned to leave, Anton caught you go around loaning your Eva turned and hobbled the fringe of her scarf. He tenners to the likes of her, awkwardly through the reced- scanned her face shrewdly. boy—not as long as it’s tenners ing crowd of staring faces. For a

Introduction 97 HOMEWORK READING (continued)

A Frost in the Night

moment she thought she heard She said nothing to Ella, ordered her to tell the girl she Anton call her name, and in the who was in a benevolent mood was juedisch—and that she was instant before she glanced back, on the way home (a boy she never to forget it again. And she imagined him calmly pock- knew had pitched a snowball at when she wondered why Ella eting his coin and throwing the her and she, declining the was so angry, and why the girl soiled towel into Frau Hauff’s compliment, had sent him in the daisy hat looked at them astonished face. But the coin skidding to the ground with a curiously and suddenly turned was still on the counter, glisten- well-aimed fusillade of her on her black patent-leather ing innocently in the light over- own). They walked home slow- heels and skipped across the head, and Anton, bent over the ly under the bare-branched lawn as if she had shrugged round-bellied pitcher, was fill- trees, across the lawn where some burdensome weight off ing two paper cups for the once, long ago, Ella had her shoulders, Ella had unac- freckled-faced boy and the girl explained to her the facts of countably bent down to her, in the white felt skirt. life. It happened on an Easter straightened the bow of her Outside, bright scarves flew Sunday morning, Eva recalled. middy blouse, and explained in the gathering dusk; skates A girl wearing a straw hat with that Catholic and Lutheran skimmed the glittering mirror yellow daisies and a velvet children went to church on of ice under the floodlights. The streamer down her back had their holidays and Jews went to strains of the “Skaters’ Waltz” asked Eva “what she was,” synagogue on theirs; and that filled the air, and at the edge of katholisch or evangelisch? While there was nothing to be the park, the white pillars of the Eva stood in confusion, trying ashamed about being different Staatstheater gleamed through to decide between the two —only about not wanting to the evergreens. unfamiliar words, Ella had tell it.

QUESTIONS 1. How does Eva’s dilemma, forgetting her change purse, become a means to introduce a serious situation? 2. What is suggested by Frau Hauff’s comments about Eva on page 97? 3. Explain the phrase “…—only about not wanting to tell it.” in the context of the excerpt. 4. Consider the concepts of stereotyping, intimidation, and victimization as seen in this story. Compare your findings about these three concepts in A Frost in the Night to similar evidence in “The Ball.” Note both similarities and differences in how these concepts are presented. 5. How does this story illustrate the presence of anti-Semitism at a grassroots level?

98 Introduction REFERENCES Baer, Edith. A Frost in the Night. New York: Sunburst, 1998. First published 1980. Gansberg, Martin. “38 Witnesses.” New York Times, March 27, 1964. Richter, Hans Peter. Friedrich. New York: Puffin, 1987.

Acknowledgments Every effort has been made to secure complete rights and permis- sions for each selection presented herein. Updated acknowledge- ments, if needed, will appear in subsequent printings.

Introduction 99