Jewish Youth: Agency and Resistance

The lesson plan aims to identify, interpret, and explain how young Jewish victims of the Holocaust demonstrated agency and resistance in their actions, thoughts, and feelings.

Guiding Question

• What are some of the ways that Jewish youth resisted during the Holocaust?

Context for the Lesson

This lesson builds on the conceptual foundations established in the lesson on Graphic and Literary Techniques, and adds one more important conceptual focus: human rights education. This intermediary lesson will encourage students to identify how, even under extreme conditions of persecution, European Jews still exercised their humanity by developing methods of survival that demonstrated creativity and resilience. This lesson forms a bridge to Preparing a Visual Representation, when students will prepare create their own graphic narrative of the agency of a victim in hiding.

Preparation

Teachers may want to review the backgrounder, “Holocaust and Human Rights Education,” which provides important context about how to teach about the Holocaust with a focus on human rights education.

Introduction

Recap the previous lesson, and explain to the class that even oppressed individuals in the Holocaust were sometimes able to resist their oppressors. Refer to several of the examples provided by students at the end of the last lesson, when they identified significant aspects of David Schaffer’s experience, highlighting how he demonstrated agency and was able to make decisions and fight back against his oppressors. Provide context as needed about how oppression and resistance often coexisted during the Holocaust.

Lesson Activities

Introducing the Dossier of Sources

Building on interest in the David Schaffer graphic narrative, provide sets of diary excerpts written by Jewish youth who sought to survive during the Holocaust, exhibiting their own forms of resistance. Provide some context on the three types of Holocaust diaries written by Jewish youth—those written by youth who went into hiding; youth who fled Europe; and youth who were sent to live in ghettos. Not very many diaries of Jewish youth in ghettos exist, and they show the perspective of youth whose experiences were similar to those of David Schaffer.

Two curated sets of diary entries teachers can use are excerpted from Peter Langer and Otto Frank’s diaries, which are adapted from Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust. A third excerpt is text and art from Petr Ginz’s diary, adapted from a lesson on Facinghistory.org. Each source highlights the experience of a youth that was forced to flee, hide, or live in a ghetto. The sources also highlight the distinctive forms of resistance these youth displayed in their daily lives. (See Support Materials, for examples of curated entries.) More challenging diary examples could include those of Anne Frank, in particular entries from June 12 and 14, 1942; April 5, 1944; or July 15, 1944. Teachers hoping to further explore the experience of survivors who went into hiding might prefer to use video testimony. The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre has multiple testimonies (see Support Materials, below).

You may want to create a gallery walk, in which students rotate from station to station, taking notes on taking notes on examples of agency and resistance, either subtle or outright, as seen through the actions, thoughts, and feelings of persecuted individuals. Encourage them to do this in partners or groups, and to share their reflections with each other as they go. When complete, ask students to record three things that they learned; two things that they are curious to learn more about; and one thing that surprised them. Share out loud as a class.

Closure

Choosing Sources and Introducing the Short Project

Students will use their questions and insights from these activities to begin researching an individual they want to focus on in their narrative or visual representation.

Let students know that they can choose from among the individual examples in today’s lesson, or, if you prefer, another individual (youth or adult) that they choose to research.

More complete diaries from Otto Wolf or Peter Langer, for example, can be found in the full text of Salvaged Pages. Review the requirements of the short project as needed.

Support Materials

Diary Entry Excerpts by Peter Langer and Otto Frank from Salvaged Pages

Text and Art by Petr Ginz

The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre contains multiple testimonies of survivors who went into hiding. Each includes a summary index of the topics discussed: