The nature of prejudice and racism resulting in the human disaster of the Holocaust.

CONNECTIONS TO MANDATE/MISSION:

An investigation of human behavior and an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping, and what it means to be a responsible, respectful person.

CORE CONCEPTS:

• Change: how the lives of people can be changed by prejudice and discrimination.
• Conflict: ethical and unethical uses of power. 
• Culture: resistance to, and failure to accommodate, diverse cultural ideas and values. 
• Interdependence: how indifference in the community can affect people's lives.
• Perspective: how people accept and reject the stereotyping of others.
• Responsibility: how political and social decisions affect the quality of life of all within the community.
• Scarcity: the impact of limited resources on political and social decisions.

During this unit, lesson, or activity, students, individually or in groups:

• Research the term Holocaust and place it on an appropriate time line.
• Locate Eastern Europe on a map, describe the physical features, climate regions, and ethnic groups. 
• Research the history of anti-Semitism, how it materialized in Germany, and compare it to other forms of prejudice.
• Investigate the domestic and worldwide conditions that influenced Germany after World War I that contributed to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party.
• Research why Jews were singled out by Hitler and the Nazis and understand the impact of the Nuremberg Laws, isolation, ghettos, concentration camps, Final Solution, separation of families and slave labor.
• Read journals and diaries of Jews escaping, passing, or in hiding in Eastern and Western Europe.
• Research the Nazis' treatment of the handicapped, Gypsies, Poles, Communists, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses and anti-Nazis.
• Create a map and a time line of the Nazis' campaigns as they spread through Europe.
• Read diaries by, and stories about, the children of the Holocaust.
• Write an editorial taking a position on the genocidal policies of the Nazis.
• Create a class quilt using squares of paper, or fabric squares (9"x9") showing how adolescents responded to the excesses of prejudice. 

Edie Loebenberg talks about anti-Semitism

Marietta Drucker talks about anti-Semitism

WEB RESOURCES:

• Yad Vashem
• Jewish Foundation for the Righteous
• Ghetto Fighters House
• Anti-Defamation League
• Student Press Law Center

In this classroom the teacher has chosen to use an interactive slide lecture to introduce the Holocaust as an extreme example of how differences divide us and, without vigilance, can lead to prejudice, discrimination and inhumane acts.  A selection of slides show evidence of the military build up of Germany prior to WWII, the German youth organizations, the destruction during Kristallnacht, arrests of trade unionists, ghetto life, boxcars transporting people to work and death camps.  Students view, touch, interpret, and act out historic images that are projected onto a large screen in front of the classroom.  As the discussion unfolds, the teacher writes notes on an overhead transparency that is projected from a second, smaller screen in a front corner of the room.  Students simultaneously see an image and notes, helping them to learn and remember salient ideas.  Each student has chosen from a selection of books provided by the teacher and have formed reading and discussion groups with other students.  Their choices are Letters From Rifka, by Karen Hesse, Silverdays,by Sonia Levitan, Zlata's Diary, by Zlata Filipovic, The Upstairs Room, by Johanna Reiss, Friedrichby Hans Richter, Upon the Head of the Goat, by Aranka Siegal and Daniel's Storyby Carol Matas.   Each group will select a facilitator and recorder and complete a lesson written specifically for the work they have chosen.  The culminating event for this unit is a student produced quilt, which reveals understanding of how adolescents responded to the excesses of prejudice.

Other students are studying the experiences of those people who did not accept Nazi propaganda (Raoul Wallenberg, Chiune Sugihara).  They will report on the importance of one person's response and actions.  Students are searching through research materials to find appropriate passages to support opinions they have formed.

LEARNING ASSESSMENTS:

At the conclusion of units, lessons, or activities students might

• write journal entries.
• create Venn diagrams and companion charts.
• present on student research. 
• create time lines showing historical dates and dates of events in literature.
• develop a quilt, and presentation on the quilt.
• write expository form aligned with FCAT format.