In Summer 2012, Luisa Deriu from Sardinia, Italy, participated in a seminar for Italian educators at Yad Vashem in conjunction with the Italian Ministry of Education. In the framework of this professional development seminar, Luisa and other Italian educators from throughout Italy gained pedagogical tools and techniques on how to teach about the Holocaust.
After her studies at Yad Vashem, Luisa undertook a Holocaust-related project with her class focusing on 70 years since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
As part of the educational process with her students, Luisa collected a series of books, music and films on Jewish history, culture and the Holocaust. The students, whose average age was 16, split into small groups and studied various texts, later presenting to each other what they had learned. Students read from works such as Primo Levi's If This Is a Man, Isaac Bashevis Singer's Scum, A.B. Yehoshua's Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism: A Discussion, and even sampled and studied klezmer music. The class studied Jewish history and religion for an entire school year, laying a foundation of knowledge to support their project.
Luisa's class presented their project within the framework of a contest organized by the Union of Italian Jewish Communities for Holocaust-related educational projects.
The Union of Italian Jewish Communities holds the contest every year and was deeply impressed with the project, denoting a deep educational process. Luisa's students created a collection of colorful postcards about the insurmountable conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto. The youngsters were inspired to write these texts after reading diaries of different Jewish writers who lived in the ghetto, some of whom took part in the armed uprising as well as in the daily battle for existence and spiritual resistance.
Luisa's project, which won first prize in the Union's competition, was composed of postcards and a model of the Warsaw Ghetto. A DVD, including songs in Hebrew and in Yiddish, was also created by Luisa.
Luisa Derui's project strongly underscores the positive influence of Yad Vashem seminars on promoting Holocaust education in Italy as well as its cooperation with the Italian Ministry of Education and the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.
Students' Bibliography
- Auerbacher, Inge. I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust
- Bassani, Giorgio. The Gold-Rimmed Glasses
- Collotti, Enzo. La soluzione finale. Lo sterminio degli ebrei
- Deaglio, Enrico. La banalità del bene
- Levi, Lia. Una bambina e basta
- Levi, Primo. If This Is a Man
- Levi, Primo. The Drowned and the Saved
- Levi, Primo. If Not Now, When?
- Maier, Ruth. Ruth Maier's Diary
- Nozza, Marco. Hotel Meina. La prima strage di ebrei in Italia
- Ovadia, Moni. L'ebreo che ride
- Ovadia, Moni. Oylem Goylem
- Ovadia, Moni. Il conto dell'Ultima cena
- Picciotto, Liliana. L’alba ci colse come un tradimento. Gli ebrei nel campo di Fossoli 1943-1944
- Ringelblum, Emmanuel. The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum: Notes from Warsaw Ghetto
- Rubinowicz, David. The Diary of David Rubinowicz
- Singer, Isaac Bashevis. Scum
- Tedeschi, Giuliana. There is a Place on Earth: A Woman in Birkenau
- Weil, Jiří. Life with a Star
- Yehoshua, A.B. "Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. A Discussion"
