Vermont-NEA / Holocaust Curriculum

Holocaust and Resistance

Phase Three

I. Journal writing and reflection.

II. Discussion around readings

III. Discussion around last film seen.

IV. Examine "The German Policy and Steps Taken... which led to the destruction of the Jews." Use handout. Read and discuss each step carefully.

A. At step #4, study the illustration of stars, triangles and other markings which were used to identify Jews and prisoners in the camps.

B. Questions:

How do the triangles and other markings have an effect on a person's view of herself/himself, or on a group's identity? How would it affect you?
What are some of the ways in which a person becomes labeled in our society? Can you think of some of the ways in your school, in your town, among your friends that people have been labeled?
The Germans in their own land and in the lands they occupied required markings to identify the population they wanted to isolate and the prisoners they held. What do you think conditions were in those countries, especially in Germany, in order for people to be forced to do this? (See the time-line and the years 1933, 1935, 1938, December 19, 1939.)
What do you think would have to happen in this country for people to be forced to wear markings to identify them? Do you think any of these conditions are possible? When have there been times in this country when people have had to wear markings? (Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter; the witchcraft trials at Salem, Massachusetts, and the letter W; slaves who were branded to show the ownership by their masters).
What effect do you think these markings -- of forcing people to wear these markings -- had on the rest of society, those who didn't have to wear the markings? How would you come to react to people who were so marked, so easily identified? Would it make you feel any differently about them?
How did these markings help the German government to reach its goal of murdering the Jews and other victims of the Holocaust in Europe?

C. At step # 6, reexamine the humiliating forced labor described by Harry Bialor in the book Night People. Discuss other examples, such as the stone quarries at Mauthausen in upper Austria.

D. At step # 7, discuss the absolute determination of the Germans to kill all the Jews, even at the expense of their own war effort. Train schedules, entire railroads, personnel in Germany and in the allied countries, supplies to the death camps and the officers and guards there, etc. etc., were all devoted entirely to the extermination of the Jews, when German troops, civilian populations, the whole war effort as the Germans were being beaten back by the Soviet troops, were in dire need of rail lines, support, and supplies. A madness, a frenzy took hold.

Suggested books: Reexamine Night People, Night, Atlas of the Holocaust, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, In Kindling Flame, Fragments of Isabella, When Time Ran Out

Videos: Holocaust in segments, Genocide, Hanna's War, Schindler's List in segments