Auerbach Central Agency for Jewish Education

Holocaust Resources

Articles

SUGGESTED HOLOCAUST EDUCATION INTERNET STRATEGIES
USING www.yadvashem.org
Spring 2005
Suggested Classroom Use for Grades 7 and Above

Compiled by Josey G. Fisher, Consultant for Holocaust Education,
Auerbach Central Agency for Jewish Education

NEW! Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names
http://www.yadvashem.org

This new interactive website, contains records of over 3 million individuals who perished in the Holocaust. The power of the individual names and their stories personalize the history and provide us with the opportunity to honor the victims' memory as well as deepen our learning through the use of primary documents.

These names and supplementary information have been provided by family members and witnesses who filled out Pages of Testimony for each victim, a project started by Yad Vashem in 1955.

SUGGESTED LESSON PLANS:

These lesson plans can be used as preparation for Yom HaShoah programming or used in a Holocaust unit of study.

* The Stories Behind the Names: A Journey of Discovery
http://www1.yadvashem.org/stories/index.htm

Explore three individual narratives drawn from the Pages of Testimony. Students can explore the primary document through links that provide additional details.

* Pages of Testimony: Lesson Plan for Middle and High School Students http://www1.yadvashem.org/ed u cation/daf_ed/daf_ed.htm

Explore the background and significance of the Pages of Testimony project and find strategies for using them in the classroom. Students can examine narratives of several children who perished.

• Map the story of one of the individuals listed in the Pages of Testimony using the Yad Vashem Holocaust Resource Center:  http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/index_before_change_table.asp.  Find supplementary photographs, maps, documents, artwork, artifacts, letter, diary entries or poetry.
• Choose a name from the Yad Vashem website listed under “Remembrance”, "Commemorating the Names - Names Download,“ "Names for Name Reading Ceremonies ” and enter it in the Database search engine to bring up the original Page of Testimony. Use model presented in “The Stories Behind the Names” to do further research.

MITZVAH PROJECT:

Download additional Pages of Testimony or Survivor Registration forms:

http://www1.yadvashem.org/remembrance/index_remembrance.html

• Students with personal connections to the Shoah can encourage family members to fill out information about relatives who perished if they have not already done so. If the family member is a survivor who has not been interviewed for an oral history archive, the student may encourage them to do so. Students may also choose to do the interview themselves in audio or video format, adding personal photographs and documents.
• Students can initiate an outreach project in their synagogues, youth groups, community centers or schools to find others who have not yet registered their information.

COMMEMORATION:

• Personalize any commemoration of the Shoah through the reading of victims' names, under “Remembrance,”“Names for Name Reading Ceremonies”) http://www1.yadvashem.org/remembrance/index_remembrance.html or the retelling of their stories. See the poem “Everyone Has a Name ” or “Unto Every Person There is a Name” by Zelda, the Hebrew poetess, on the Yad Vashem website.
• Use the Yad Vashem database and its extended educational opportunities to create a spring lesson plan leading up to a Yom HaShoah commemoration in the spring. Projects which use visuals or documents to illustrate the person's experience can be displayed as part of a school assembly or class commemoration program.

For further information, please contact Josey G. Fisher, Auerbach CAJE Holocaust Education Consultant, (215) 635-8940, ext. 1230 or jfisher@acaje.org.

 

Artwork: "Arrival in Theresienstadt" 1942
Drawing by child artist Helga Weissova, 1929 -