Explain to students that after Kristallnacht, the violent outbreak against Jews, it was becoming increasingly difficult for Jewish people to leave Germany. Seeing this threat, Great Britain led a series of rescue efforts allowing thousands of refugee Jewish children temporary visas so they could leave Nazi Germany.

Pull up the resource, Kindertransport, by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and read through it as a class. Watch the videos and look at the historical artifacts included on the website.

Then play this short clip by Gerard Friedenfeld, local Wisconsin Holocaust survivor.

Open up into a class discussion with the questions below.

• How does Gerard explain his treatment by the SS?
• How did Gerard end up on the Kindertransport?

Share Jack Hellman’s teddy bear from the reading. Explain that many children brought very few personal items from home.

• Memory Box Activity: Have students journal about what memories or stories from their childhood they’d want to make sure they preserved and why.
• Consider having students sketch a drawing of their memory or write down their memory and anonymously display them on the classroom wall.

3-2-1 Exit Ticket

On a half sheet of paper, have students respond to the following based on today’s lessons:

• List three specific things you learned about the Kindertransport.
• Write two questions that are still on your mind.
• Write one personal reaction or reflection from today’s lesson.

Explain to the students that they will listen to a podcast hosted by the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. The host, Rachel, tells bits of her grandmother’s story in each episode. This episode is about Rachel’s trip to Sobibor- visiting the extermination camp her family was sent to in 1942.

Warn students that the content can be unsettling.

Play the podcast episode Chapter IV: The End of The World by We Share the Same Sky. Explain to students that this podcast is hosted by the grandaughter of a Holocaust survivor. The host, Rachel, researches and retraces her family history in order to tell their story.

While they listen, ask students to write down something they found powerful.

Divide students into small groups of two or three to discuss the questions below. Come back together as a class and ask the students to share what their groups discussed.

1. Rachel describes her trip to Sobibor as a journey “to the end of the world” and she wonders what the trees would say if they could talk. In your own mind’s eye, what would the trees tell us?
2. Hana describes life during the Holocaust to “slowly being peeled off like an onion.” She says, “You are being conditioned to worse and worse situations…and to live a subhuman life…And when you are looked at like subhumans, no one has trouble killing you.” How were layers of humanity slowly peeled away from Jews and other victims during this time?
3. What is dehumanization and why is it dangerous?
4. The Nazis believed Jews and others- homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the mentally ill, Roma- were subhuman. How did this portrayal of these groups of people impact the victims, soldiers, and ordinary citizens?
5. Rachel describes the podcast as a ‘story of memory.’ In this episode, the details of her family’s deaths are only known from stories passed on from one person to another and may not be historically accurate. However, this is how many families, during and after the Holocaust, learned what happened to their loved ones. In what ways does this affect how we listen and understand survivor testimony? What do you take a “story of memory” to mean, as compared to what you might expect to find in a historic record?

Collect the answers to the major questions to be used in later discussions about the Holocaust and historical testimonies.

Tell students that the letters that they will look through in this exhibit were sent from the Czech lands, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, and the Ukraine and that they were written by victims of the Holocaust.

Not all authors of these letters understood their fate. Some letters may depict uncertainty, some optimism, and others may show that the author knew exactly what awaited them. There were also cases when people were coerced to write letters saying all was well, when the reality was far more grim.

Direct students to the handout “Creating a Found Poem” by Facing History and Ourselves. Read over the instructions as a class before directing students to the Yad Vashem exhibit, “Last Letters From the Holocaust:1944”.

Each letter is accompanied by some background information on the sender and receiver; students should read these as well.

Create a poem together as a class in order to give students an idea of what to do. Use the short letter, “Dear Papa” as an example. Ask students to brainstorm ideas on how to write the poem. Remember, you can reuse words to help make the poem longer than the postcard. Be creative!

Have students look through the Yad Vashem exhibit and choose a letter to write their poem from. Allow your students some time to complete their poems. When it appears that everyone is done, get the conversation flowing by asking the following questions:

1. How did it feel reading these letters?
2. Did you feel a connection to the person whose story you wrote about?

Let students have the opportunity to take their poems home to keep working on them for the next day or two. Collect the poems at the end of the class (or week if you decide to give more time). Keep them as a class project that you can use as an example in doing this lesson with other classes. Ask for volunteers to read their poems aloud to the class.

Write the term “dehumanization” on the board. As a class, compose a definition. Present and review the definition of dehumanization with students. Students should have a basic understanding of the process of dehumanization.

Dehumanization: As a political or social measure, dehumanization is intended to change the manner in which a person or group of people are perceived, reducing the target group to objects or beings not worthy of human rights.

Direct students to the resource, Identity in the Camps by Facing History and Ourselves. Read the passage by Primo Levi as a class. Explain that Primo Levi is a Holocaust survivor that spent time as a prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp and has written works about his time there.

According to Primo Levi, what happened to the identities of the prisoners in the camps?

Divide the class into groups of two or three and assign the group a single year, between the years 1933-1945.

Ask students to examine their assigned year using the Timeline of the Holocaust by Echoes & Reflections and find what they believe to be the three most influential events and stories for that year that contributed to the dehumanization of the Jewish people. Identify and be prepared to justify choices.

Have students share the events they identified from their research of the Timeline, and then as a class respond to the following questions:

1. What are some examples of how Jews were dehumanized socially? How was their political power taken away?
2. Identify three opportunities in the year you were assigned that show how an individual was able to make their own choices or have “agency” -to act independently.
3. How might a neighbor, friend, or citizen have helped?
4. What choices were Jews forced to make?
5. Whose opportunity for human agency is most resonant with you? In your opinion, why is this story meaningful? What does this show you about dehumanization?