Rationale
There can be an understandable reticence in approaching the subject of the Holocaust with younger children. The events of the Holocaust are difficult, often impossible to grasp, and can bring up traumas and fears even in adults, not to mention in children. On the other hand, children do encounter the Holocaust - in public discourse, the media, special events etc. Children are thus not always exposed to the topic in a way suitable to their cognitive and emotional needs. Wrong exposure can lead to trauma, emotional distancing and judgmental attitudes, as well as to basic misunderstanding of the subject. On the other hand, postponing Holocaust education to later ages isn't recommended either, as it can lead to an inability to digest the facts and ethical challenges nested in this event.
In order to confront and address these challenges, the International School for Holocaust Studies has developed a teaching method for covering the topic of the Holocaust for younger ages. The method matches Holocaust education to the emotional and cognitive levels of children at elementary school ages, and is based on several guiding principles:
We don't expose the children to all the events of the Holocaust, but rather focus on viewpoints that reflect positive coping and intergroup relationships during a difficult time.
We focus on the spheres of family and of community. These allow us to deal with a human framework already familiar to children, towards which they can develop some empathy. Discussion of the subject matter raises basic dilemmas that families faced during the Holocaust, in a time of crisis.
The younger years are some of the most important for grounding basic concepts and knowledge on the subject, especially as these are the ages during which we begin to develop personal and social identities, and basic human values. At these ages we can discuss topics such as how children functioned in the ghetto, parent-child role reversal, and more.
The learning environment presented, "Children in the Ghetto", deals with children's lives in the ghettos during the Holocaust period, and is intended for children in grades 4-6. The environment is based on guiding principles of our age-appropriate Educational Philosophy, and describes life during the Holocaust from the perspective of children living in the ghettos. This environment presents this complex experience in an interactive format, with the goal of exposing younger children to the Holocaust in a way that is suited to them and that can create a sense of empathy and awareness to the hardships and human problems of the period.
The environment presents various topics through which the children can learn about the lives of children in the ghettos and the difficulties they were forced to cope with - such as hunger and overcrowding - as well as learn about their relationships with their parents and siblings, instances of bravery, and the desire to keep creating and learning despite the difficulties. Each subject is presented through an icon visible on the illustrated street, and the child may choose to enter each subject at random or serially, topic by topic. In each topic, children will find a variety of relevant interdisciplinary materials - concise historical descriptions, word meanings, written testimonies, video, photographs from the period, poetry, drawings, and more. The materials were chosen so as to suit later elementary school ages, allowing for genuine but safe engagement with the topic, in accordance with the International School for Holocaust Education's Education Philosophy.
In addition to incorporating interdisciplinary methods, over the course of study students will encounter poetry, artwork, drawings and reading sections. This variety of materials allows for a more layered, deeper understanding of the subject matter.
Challenges in constructing the site
The Nazis established upwards of one thousand ghettos, some of which were very different from each other. The lives of Jews in one ghetto were never the same as those in another, and so one can't speak of "a" ghetto experience during the Holocaust. In addition, the ghetto was a chaotic environment in which hunger, disease, deportations and death were ever-present. How is it possible to represent such an environment? This question accompanied the process of designing and constructing this site.
The decision reached was not to attempt a precise historical reconstruction of a specific ghetto, but rather to create a ghetto street that would act as a symbolic representation of the ghetto environment, and incorporate motifs from several different ghettos. The result, therefore, is an illustrated street based on historical photographs, containing representative elements from various ghettos.
Introduction - Background for the Teacher
In Autumn 1939, the Nazis began imprisoning Jews in ghettos in Poland and in Eastern Europe. WIth these ghettos, the Nazis intended to isolate the Jews from the rest of society, and to control their lives. The ghettos were usually established in the poorest and most crowded parts of cities. Jews of the cities were transferred to these areas and were usually barred from leaving. Some of the ghettos were even sealed with walls. Jews were forced to part from all that had been familiar to them, and moved to a new, poorer and more crowded environment. As a result of the move to the ghettos, children's lives changed entirely: the homes they have lived in, the friends they had played with, the school where the learned - nothing remained as it had been. In addition, in some cases children were forced to work doing things that prior to the war were the exclusive domain of adults: getting food, leaving for work, taking responsibility for the families, and more.
Imprisonment in the ghetto brought not only severed the Jews almost completely from their surroundings, but brought about an extremely harsh life. Hundreds of thousands died over the course of the existence of the ghettos of overcrowding, hunger, disease, and forced labor. And yet, despite it all, in many cases Jews tried to maintain a semblance of normality as much as reality allowed. In some places they set up educational frameworks for the children, often in secret, and in others theaters were established, staging plays for the ghetto inhabitants. Despite the terrible conditions in which they lived, children continued playing in the ghettos, writing poems, drawing, and dreaming of better days.
Development Team
Project Management: Liraz Lachmanovich
Writing: Liraz Lachmanovich, Yael Richler, Limor Bar-Ilan
Development, Production and Design: Lilach Orpeli Ke'eliyahu, Raizy Cohen,
English Version Development: LNET Learning Technologies
English Proofreading and Translation: Jonathan Clapsaddle
Illustrations: Liz Elsby
References
Schools
Opening photo:
A class in the Lodz Ghetto, Poland
Photo:
Children studying at a secret school in the Kovno Ghetto, Lithuania (Yad Vashem Photo Archive)
Written testimony:
Yitskhok Rudashevski, The Diary of the Vilna Ghetto (Tel Aviv: Ghetto Fighters’ House and Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 1971).
Sarah Zelwer-Orbach, in Through Our Eyes: Children’s Experience of the Holocaust, edited by Yitzhak B. Teitelbaum (Jerusalem: International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem, 2004), p. 89 [Hebrew].
Drawing:
Story Hour, Pavel Fantl, 1942-1943 (Yad Vashem Art Collection)
Religious Life
Opening Photo:
Prayer in the Ghetto (From the Yad Vashem Photo Archives)
Photo:
Hannukah party in the Lodz Ghetto
Written Testimony:
Interview with Moshe Porat, Yad Vashem Archives
Object:
Abraham Hellman's Book of Esther (Yad Vashem's Artifacts Collection)
Abraham Hellman's shofar (Yad Vashem's Artifacts Collection)
Abraham Hellman and his family (Yad Vashem Photo Archive)
Marking the Jews
Opening photo:
Children in the Kovno Ghetto (Yad Vashem Photo Archive)
Written testimony:
Ruth Minsky-Sender, age 13, Lodz, Poland, in Through Our Eyes: Children’s Experience of the Holocaust, edited by Yitzhak B. Teitelbaum (Jerusalem: International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem, 2004), p. 76 [Hebrew].
Moshe Zandberg from Hungary, in Through Our Eyes: Children’s Experience of the Holocaust, edited by Yitzhak B. Teitelbaum (Jerusalem: International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem, 2004) [Hebrew].
Bilha Shefer, Germany, Yad Vashem Testimonies Archive
Drawing:
Holocaust Children and the Yellow Star, Paul Fux
The Armband Seller in the Ghetto, Halina Olomucki
Grown-Up Children
Opening photo:
Two children, Warsaw Ghetto, Poland
Written testimony:
Halina Birenbaum, Yad Vashem Testimonies Archive
Testimony of Israel Ernest, from Connections – Study Units for Heritage Lessons, Subject: Bar/Bat Mitzvah (Jerusalem: International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem, 2001-2002), p. 3. From the Yad Vashem Testimonies Archive [Hebrew]
Photo:
A boy feeding his sister, Lodz Ghetto, Poland
(Yad Vashem Photo Archives)
A boy feeding his sister, Lodz Ghetto, Poland
(Yad Vashem Photo Archives)
Painting:
Samuel Bak, Children Alone, 1946, gouache on paper
(Yad Vashem Art Collection)
Children as Smugglers
Opening photo:
Boys smuggling, Warsaw Ghetto, Poland
Photo:
Children helping a boy climb out of a hidden passage, Warsaw, Poland
Drawing:
drawing by the artist Halina Olomucki, a Holocaust survivor
Poem:
Voices from the Warsaw Ghetto: Writing Our History, edited by David G. Roskies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), trans. Jolanta Scicinska.
Written testimony:
Grownup Children (Jerusalem: International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem), p. 39 [Hebrew]
Children's Games
Opening photo:
Written testimony:
Shalom Eilati, Crossing the River (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem), pp. 84-85
Objects:
A Monopoly game from Theresienstadt Ghetto (Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection)
“Zuzia” - the doll, who kept Yael Rosner company while she was in hiding in the Warsaw Ghetto (Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection)
Separation and Isolation
Opening photo:
Jews moving to the Kovno Ghetto
(Yad Vashem's Photo Archive)
Photo:
Building the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto
(Yad Vashem's Photo Archive)
Written testimony
Extract from Yitskhok Rudashevski, The Diary of the Vilna Ghetto, Ghetto Fighters' House and Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House 1973, pp. 22-23.
Children at Work
Opening photo:
A boy selling newspapers and armbands in the Warsaw Ghetto (Yad Vashem Photo Archive)
Photo:
A Boy Selling Newspapers in the Ghetto
A Boy Selling Pots in the Lublin Ghetto
Children Working in a Shoemaking Workshop, Lodz Ghetto, Poland
A Child Selling Armbands in the Warsaw Ghetto
Children Selling Pretzels in the Warsaw Ghetto
Written testimony:
Sara Plager-Zyskind, Stolen Years in the Lodz Ghetto and the Camps (Tel Aviv: Ghetto Fighters’ House and Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1978), pp. 56-57 [Hebrew]
Menachem, in Grownup Children, p. 42
Drawing:
The Legend of the Lodz Ghetto Children
On the Wings of Imagination
Opening photo:
The Butterfly, Eva (Hava) Lubova, Theresienstadt Ghetto, Czechoslovakia
(From There Are No Butterflies Here [Hebrew], (Moreshet & Sifriyat Hapoalim, third ed. 1996))
Written Testimony:
Like a Bird in a Cage / Anonymous, Lodz Ghetto
(from Walls Surround Us: Learning Unit on the Ghettos, Booklet 2 – Isolation, International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, undated.)
Photo:
Petr Ginz, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1949
(Yad Vashem Photo Archives, YAD 6352/1)
Peom:
(from Abraham Kopolovitz, Of My Own – Songs of a Boy from the Lodz Ghetto [Hebrew], Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1995, pp. 45-46.)
Overcrowding in the Ghetto
Opening photo:
A street in the Warsaw Ghetto (Yad Vashem Photo Archives)
Photo:
Photo of a doctor visiting a room in the ghetto (Yad Vashem Photo Archives)
Photo of a market in the Warsaw Ghetto (Yad Vashem Photo Archives)
Written testimony:
Benjamin, Vilna Ghetto, in Grownup Children: A Program of Study on Life in the Ghetto (workbook for grades 7-8), prepared by Naomi Morgenstern and Carmit Sagi (Jerusalem: International School for Holocaust Studies, 1996), p. 44 [Hebrew].
Michael, Czestochowa Ghetto, in Grownup Children: A Program of Study on Life in the Ghetto (workbook for grades 7-8), prepared by Naomi Morgenstern and Carmit Sagi (Jerusalem: International School for Holocaust Studies, 1996), p. 40 [Hebrew].
Hunger
Opening photo:
Girls in a public kitchen, Warsaw Ghetto, Poland (Yad Vashem Photo Archive)
Photo:
Children in the public kitchen of the Warsaw Ghetto, Poland
Children in the public kitchen of the Lodz Ghetto, Poland
Soup line at the Lodz Ghetto
Soup line at a children’s home in the Warsaw Ghetto
Written testimony:
Sara Plager-Zyskind, Stolen Years (USA: Lerner Publication Company, 1981), pp. 45-46.
Objects:
Food voucher from the Lodz Ghetto
Theater in the Ghetto
Opening photo:
Two girls performing in the Lodz Ghetto (Yad Vashem Photo Archives)
Photo:
Children’s Play, Lodz Ghetto
Children Performing in the Lodz Ghetto
Children Performing in a Ghetto Play
Theater Set, Lodz Ghetto
Written testimony:
Testimony of H. P., a 12-year-old girl, Theresienstadt Ghetto, in In Their Footsteps – A Guide for the Visitor to Terezin Terezin (Beit Terezin: Society and Youth Administration, 1999), p. 28 [Hebrew].
Drawing:
Invitation to a children’s play at the Vilna Ghetto
