Lesson Plan

Rosenstrasse Protest

This lesson focuses on the Rosenstrasse Protest, a woman-led public demonstration in Berlin in 1943 against the deportation of Jewish men and boys and “mixed-race” men and boys.

30-60 Min Grades 5-8
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Domain
Responsibility
Subject
Individual Roles
Topic
Upstanders

Enduring Understanding

The Rosenstrasse Protest was a public demonstration of non-Jewish women in Berlin against the arrest of their male Jewish relatives being detained by the Gestapo to be deported to forced labor camps.

Essential Questions

  • 1What forms of resistance were taken by non-Jews during the Nazi reign?
  • 2What does this protest tell us about the effectiveness of timely and active resistance?

Readiness

10 Min

Ask the class to think of different ways someone could resist a dictatorship. Write all of the answers people come up with on the board or a shared work space.

Input

20 Min

Provide a brief overview of the Rosenstrasse Protest with the students. Use the resource, Rosenstrasse Protest by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum as a resource for this. Please have the students read through it individually and have them take notes. Take time to answer any questions students have as best you can.

Output

15 Min

Divide the class into groups to discuss the following questions:

  1. What do you think could have happened if Germans had protested the mistreatment of German Jews during and right after Kristallnacht?
  2. How do you think the German public would have responded had the protesters been met with violence?
Teacher Primer

Know Before You Go

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ResponsibilityIndividual RolesUpstanders