Using a think-pair-share discussion, students reflect on the following two questions:

• How are individuals with disabilities viewed and treated by society?
• How does a society’s treatment of people with disabilities reflect the society’s culture, values, and ideology?

Share the following information with students:

Franz Karl Bühler, who was a well-known German artist at the turn of the twentieth century was diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized by the 1920s. He continued to produce art, which was criticized by the Nazis and included in the degenerate art exhibition, as the Nazis tried to show supposed links between modern art and mental illness.

The Nazi T4 program was the systematic murder of institutionalized patients with disabilities in Germany. It started in 1939. The program was one of many radical eugenic measures that aimed to restore the racial “integrity” of the German nation. It aimed to eliminate what eugenicists and their supporters considered “life unworthy of life”: those individuals who—they believed—because of severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical disabilities represented both a genetic and a financial burden on German society and the state. Among those murdered under the T4 Program was Franz Karl Bühler.

Display Self-Portrait by Franz Karl Bühler (pronounced Bueller) from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Display the art piece while your students read through the text individually or in small groups. Encourage students to click through the hyperlinked text to learn more about the “Degenerate Art” exhibition and the T4 program.

As students look through the articles, have them respond to the following questions:

1. What was the Degenerate Art exhibition? What purpose did it serve?
2. What was the T4 Program? How did it feed into Nazi ideology?
3. What happened to Franz Karl Bühler? What is the significance of having his self portrait for review?

In a whole class discussion, students discuss the relationship between culture and ideology, returning to the opening questions:

1. How did Nazi ideology influence policies and practices around the idea of dis/ability in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s?
2. How are individuals with disabilities viewed and treated by society?
3. How does a society’s treatment of people with disabilities reflect the society’s culture, values, and ideology?

Give the students a brief overview of the lead-up to the Wannsee Conference, including a short history of the development of internment camps and ghettos. Explain that the Holocaust was a gradual process of violence and oppression; the end result of a series of events throughout the 1930s and WWII, and implemented by various groups throughout the Nazi sphere. There was no direct order signed by Adolf Hitler from the beginning. Many different people were in charge of its organization. The Wannsee Conference served to iron out details of mass extermination of the Jewish people. Despite everyone knowing what was happening, there was never a direct order for murder.

Watch the first 30 minutes of the 1984 German film Die Wannseekonferenz, available with subtitles. (Suggested stop time 31:22). Ask students to take note of details that may have surprised them, as well as key words or phrases, such as “final solution” and “Jewish question.” Stop the video at the following intervals and talk about the topics underneath, or take this time to answer any questions your students may have.

Pause movie at 10:06

• Attitude in the way people discuss these very serious topics.
• Confusion over racial versus religious definition of Jew.
• What problem did they have with the train in Riga? What was the concern?

Pause movie at 19:15

• Discuss this quote: “Shared knowledge means shared responsibility. Shared responsibility means shared liability” 13:16
• What are your thoughts about the conversation had about feeling sick at the sight of the executions and him saying, “It proves we Germans are human.”?
• What does he mean when he says, “If X, then Y”?

Lead the class in a discussion about what details may have surprised or stood out to them about the depiction of the Wannsee Conference – for example, how people casually discussed mass murder interspersed with laughter and socializing; the scene where we see one SS official paying fetch with a dog while his colleague complains that his “top secret” documents about Jewish mass killings are being circulated amongst everyone.

Start by defining resistance for the class: “The refusal to accept or comply with something; the attempt to prevent something by action or argument.”

Next, ask students to work in groups of three to create a working definition for resistance. A working definition is one that builds in meaning as they receive information and gain clarity on the topic.

In these same groups, have students read through the poem “Resistance Is…” from Facing History and Ourselves. Ask the class if they would want to alter or add to their definitions of resistance after reading it. Give them a few minutes (no more than 5) to add to their working definitions.

Divide the class into groups of three to read through the Pronouncement by Abba Kovner from Echoes & Reflections. Let students know that Abba Kovner wrote this manifesto while at the Vilna ghetto in an attempt to stage an uprising.

Have one student from each group read through the text out loud as the others follow in silence. Then have each group discuss the questions below. Have one student in each group take notes that include the significant points of their discussion.

1. What was the objective of the manifesto? How do you think Kovner wanted people to respond?
2. What is he asking the ghetto’s inhabitants to believe, and what is he asking them not to believe?

Ask the groups to read through the passage once more. This time, having them focus on the language and answer the following questions:

1. What metaphors, words, or phrases does Kovner use to convince people that Ponary is not a labor camp?
2. Which words or phrases have the most impact?

Have each group review the first definition of resistance that they wrote at the beginning of the lesson. Still in their groups, encourage them to discuss whether or not they think they need to make more changes after analyzing Abba Kovner’s call to resistance. Give them a few minutes to do so.

Ask each group to share their definition of resistance and explain what revisions they made and why.

Begin by asking students, what is an anthem? What anthems do you know? Do they all encourage resistance?

Before you begin the lesson, provide some historical context about the author of the poem by reading the passage below to the class. This context, as well as other points from this lesson plan have been taken by elirab.me/study. The full version of this lesson plan can be found here.

Hirsch Glik was born in Wilno (now Vilnius) in 1922. He began to write poetry in Yiddish in his teens and was a co-founder of Yungwald (Young Forest), a group of young Jewish poets. Glik entered the Vilna ghetto after the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union. He was a participant in both the ghetto’s artistic community and the underground movement and took part in the 1942 ghetto uprising. Glik wrote the poem you will be reading right after this in early 1943. He was able to flee when the ghetto was being liquidated in October 1943 but was recaptured. He escaped once more in July 1944 and was never heard from again. It is presumed that he was captured once again and executed by the Nazis in August 1944.

Divide the class into groups of three or four. Give each member of the group a copy of the Partisan Poem. When giving them the poem, provide them the instructions below. Allow approximately 15 minutes for this initial discussion.

1. Have one member of the group read the poem aloud while the others read along.
2. Look closely at the language of the poem. What themes can you identify from it?
   *Hint* Notice the use of the present tense: “will grow” and “will come”.
3. What do you think was the author’s goal in writing this poem?

Take a few minutes for groups to share their responses.

After the students have had some time to go over the poem, tell them that the poem (albeit not the exact wording) was also used as a song, or anthem amongst the resistance. The song, Zog Nit Keynmol, translating as “Never Say” and, to this day considered the anthem of Holocaust survivors.

Listen to the song as a class. Watch the video from beginning till 2:38 (when the English ends) unless you would also like to have the class listen in its original form, Yiddish.

Have the groups discuss the questions below after listening. Allow an additional 5-10 minutes for this section.

1. What do you consider when you compare the poem to the song?
2. Can you think of any reason why the poem was translated into a song?

Come back together as a class. Open up a class discussion with the questions below:

1. This song has been adopted by others as a protest song. How relevant is this poem to the world today? Is it effective as a protest song?
2. When and how does a poem or song become an anthem? Is it considered as such at the time? What impact can an anthem have on a movement?