Ask the students if any of them have ever read Diary of Anne Frank or Diary of a Wimpy Kid. What sort of things do people write in diaries?

Watch the 16 minute video, The Ghettos by Yad Vashem. Take about 5 minutes having students go around and give examples of what sort of challenges people faced. Then ask, how did people try to maintain a sense of dignity or humanity?

Ask students to reflect on what they just watched and discussed. How did hearing the testimonies and diary entries help paint a picture of what life was like in the ghettos? Provide 10 minutes for students to write and reflect.

If time permits, have students share their reflections.

Ask the students what kinds of problems they thought survivors might have faced when they were finally liberated. Lead a short discussion, based on previous knowledge of the war and the Holocaust, about the difficulties in rebuilding people’s lives.

Read the resource, Survivors and the Displaced Persons era by ‘The Holocaust Explained,’ The Wiener Holocaust Library with the class, including the accompanying images. You can stop reading at the section titled, ‘German-Jewish Communities Outside the Camps.’ Take time to answer questions to the best of your ability and clarify if necessary. Ask students to take notes on key facts that stood out to them about why survivors felt they could not return to their home countries, or the antisemitism they continued to encounter.

As a class, discuss the reasons why many people may have chosen not to move back to countries such as Poland or Hungary at the end of the war.

Lead a discussion with students about what the word “home,” “country,” or “citizenship” means to them, and how difficult it would be to have lost these things. Make sure to discuss how difficult it was to feel as if you could not go back to where you were before because you might be injured or worse, but how other countries did not want you, either.

Explain to the students that the aftermath of WWII and the liberation of people from concentration and death camps was the beginning of a difficult period of recovery for around 6 million refugees and displaced persons. Jewish refugees in particular faced much discrimination by authorities, and had a difficult time re-building their lives.

Split the class into 4 groups, assigning a section of Nate Leipciger’s post-liberation story to each group. Allow each group 15 minutes to read through their assigned text and list out events detailed, as well as specific things that stood out to them in the story, to be presented to the rest of the class.

Allow 5 minutes for each group to present each section of the story in chronological order, beginning with group 1 and ending with group 4.

Use the remaining 10 minutes to discuss with the class the reasons why Nate Leipciger and his father chose to rebuild their lives outside of Poland, as well as what aspects of the story stood out to them. If there is any time remaining, ask the students whether or not knowing the whole story made it difficult to understand what happened. Explain that often families were separated from each other at different points of the war, so that they may know one part of the story but be unaware of others. This made it very difficult to reunite with other members of the family who survived, or to figure out what happened to those who did not.

Explain to the students that after WWII ended and liberation from the camps a very difficult period of recovery began for around 6 million refugees and displaced persons. Jewish refugees in particular faced much discrimination from authorities, and had a difficult time re-building their lives. Discuss how complex the process was for emigrating, but even though it took years, many Jewish survivors were determined to do it.

Watch the source video with the class (suggested start time at 23:30). Tell students that the woman is named Raye David, a Holocaust survivor that ended up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin after the war.

As a class, lead a discussion based around the following questions:

1. Why did Mrs David insist that they could not return to Vilnius?
2. Why do you think Mrs David’s family thought getting married and starting a family was one of the most important things that she should do once they arrived in their new home in America?
3. Besides starting a family, what were some other important things that she focused on as she settled into her new life, such as the education of her husband David?
4. What is the reason that Mrs David says she does not hate the Germans/Nazis, and what does she say about the difference between forgiveness and hatred?
5. How did Mrs David cope with her experiences, and how has it shaped her outlook on how she wants to/has lived her life?

Provide students with a blank A5 piece of paper (postcard sized) and a pencil. Give students just 2-3 minutes to sketch what they think a Nazi concentration camp looked like. Assure them that their artistic skills are not the main focus, rather this exercise seeks to visualize their prior knowledge and understanding of concentration camps.

In groups of four, ask students to create a gallery with the images they created. Ask them to talk about the similarities and differences between the sketches.

Direct students to the resource, Concentration Camps, 1939-42 by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Read through the first two sections, “Expansion of the Camp System” and “Establishment of New Camps” as a class.

Direct student attention to the list of camps: Gusen, Neuengamme, Gross-Rosen, Auschwitz, Natzweiler, Stuffhof, and Majdanek. Click on one of the camps on the list to show students what type of information can be found for each one. Scroll to the bottom of the page to show where the discussion questions will be.

In the same groups that they are already working with, assign each group one of the camps from the list. Have students prepare a brief presentation about their assigned camp answering the questions below.

Provide students with the following instructions:

1. When was the camp established?
2. How many prisoners were held there?
3. What type of people did they imprison there?
4. What work were the prisoners doing there?
5. Name one thing you found that surprised you about this particular camp.
6. Answer one of the discussion questions found at the bottom of the page.
7. Compare the sketches you made at the beginning of the lesson to what you now know about the camps.

Reconvene as a class. Ask students some new things they learned about concentration camps. Compared to their sketches and what they know now, what would they have changed in their drawing?

Tell students that (as they may now realize) that all camps were different. There is no such thing as a “typical” concentration camp. Different camps had different functions and they changed over time.

Ask students what they know about concentration camps. Do they know when they started? What kind of people were imprisoned in them?

Read through the resource, Early Camps by the BBC with the class. Then go back and demonstrate how to get to the primary sources by clicking on the red lettering in the text and then clicking on “Read Document” that comes up.

Dissect the first resource, “mass arrests” as a class. Use the following guidelines to help go through it:

1. First, identify where the source is coming from.
2. Summarize the resource.
3. What assumptions can be drawn from it?
4. Lastly, come up with a question that comes out of your reflections. The question should attempt to generate conversation between you and your classmates.

Divide the class into groups of three or five and assign each group one of the eight other primary sources. Some sources are longer than others, so you may decide you want to have larger groups analyze those. The longer resources are the ones labeled: ‘no mercy’, ‘murders’, ‘left-wing prisoners’, and ‘German Jews’.

Have them repeat what you did as a class in their groups with their assigned resource. Ask each group to present their resource to the class verbally. If possible, project each resource for the class as the group goes over it.

Ask students how they define the term citizenship.
Then, ask them how they would define the term refugee. What is the difference between someone who is a citizen, and someone who is a refugee? Is the distinction meaningful in terms of their status as a human being? If not, why are they treated so differently?

Read through the resource, The Expulsion of Polish Jews From Germany by holocaust.cz as a class. Ask students to write down any questions they have about the text.

Divide the class into groups of three and provide them with the following instructions:

1. Go through all members’ questions about the text and help one another understand the document.
2. Address the discussion questions below. Have group members take notes on their responses.
3. Lastly, come up with an additional question that comes out of your reflections. This question should attempt to generate conversation between you and your classmates.

Discussion Questions:

1. What was the significance of what Herschel did?
2. Germany first tried to expel the Jews from Germany. A devastating amount of countries closed their borders to Jewish refugees, forcing them to fall victim to Nazi Germany’s next move: The Final Solution. Do you think the Holocaust could have been avoided if countries opened their borders to allow for Jewish refuge?
3. Should nations have an obligation to take in refugees fleeing violence?
4. What message did closing their borders send to the Jews?
5. Does the refugee crisis the Jews faced make you think of connections that resonate in today’s world?

Prepare students what they will be reading the work of a victim.

Elie Wiesel famously speaks of the importance of memory and writing down one’s story. Offer the following quote from Wiesel to your students:

“History is a bridge. We are naturally afraid of our memories. We try to forget, and in truth, some things we must forget a little bit, simply in order to function. And yet…if we truly allow ourselves to forget, history may well return to us.”

Give students a few minutes to consider the quote before asking them what it means to them. Specifically pursue the question of how history is a bridge?

Read through the poem The Memoirs of Cantor Joseph Cysner edited and published by Key Documents of German-Jewish History.

Before moving on to the Output section, ask students what they think is happening during the poem, what is the context?

Have students pick a line or two from this poem that resonates the most with them. Tell students to write down the answers to the questions below on a piece of paper as they focus on their selection.

1. Why did you choose the line that you did?
2. Describe the image you see when you read through it.
3. What do you think is going through the author’s mind during this time?

Give students 1o minutes to create their answers; then ask for volunteers to share what they wrote down.

Finally, return to the quote by Elie Wiesel about memory.

How does the existence of this poem bridge the reader to history?

Ask your students if anyone ever heard that the Holocaust was a crime that happened in secret–that ‘no one knew’? How were people killed? Did other citizens have an idea about the horrors of the Holocaust as it was happening? Were they in favor of it?

This lesson works best when complimented by the reading, What is the Holocaust by Bullets? by Yahud-in Unum. If you haven’t read it, please take the time to begin with the lesson plan ‘Operation Barbarossa’. If it is possible for your class to read this text prior to watching the video, ready your class by introducing them to its contents.

Then show this video interview with Father Patrick Desbois who researches sites of massacre.

After the video, ask your students to consider the following questions by writing responses independently:

1. Did you notice anything peculiar about the killing sites? If so, what did you see?
2. What do you think about the people who are being interviewed by Father Patrick Debois?
3. How does your perception of the Holocaust change, knowing neighbors were complicit and even interested in watching their fellow citizens be shot to death?

After this task is complete, ask your students to gather in groups of 3 or 4 to share their responses. Each group should also pick a person to serve as a representative for the group. Provide 10 minutes to let the groups discuss amongst themselves.

Then, initiate a conversation about these questions within the larger group, asking each representative to address the three questions that were previously provided. Moving question by question rather than group by group creates more space for generative conversation.

Finally, return to the perception that the Holocaust happened in secret. What do they make of this perception in light of this information?

Begin by asking your students how many Jews were murdered during the Holocaust?
Then, ask them where those people died? Was death isolated to specific areas like camps?
Finally, ask them if they can imagine why killing civilians would have been considered strategically important?

Prompt students to read the article, Einsatzgruppen: An Overview, from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia.

Use the 3Ps method to dig into the reading in a critical manner. Ask students to take notes on what they find a) Powerful b) Puzzling and c) Propelling. Give approximately 10 minutes for this exercise.

In order to familiarize yourself, and your class with this model, please look over this guide: 3Ps: A Critical Reading Guide.

Then, split the class into groups of four students.

Distribute the two maps from this reading, death camps and mass shooting sites.

Ask the students to compare and contrast the two maps. Note that the number of people killed at the sites identified in each map are approximately equal. Ask each group to respond to the following prompts.

1. What are the major differences between these two forms of violence?
2. What do you suppose the impact would be on the communities in these areas?
3. What are the main differences between these two geographies of violence?
4. What was your Puzzling question? Does this answer the question you had?

After 15 minutes ask for group responses and broaden into a large class discussion.

Finally, return to the 3Ps that they recorded at the beginning of the lesson and share their Profound or Propelling comments, adding additional context to their comments.