Dealing with everyday life during the Holocaust does not mean that the student is not aware of or has no reference to the daily death toll. The world of the Holocaust was a world in which death was present at all times. However, our educational emphasis here is on the daily life and the struggle for survival.

• For a historical outline of the "Final Solution", click here.

The entry builds up gradually. At each stage, when the boy thinks that the worst has already happened and he has found a way to cope with the difficulties, he is forced to deal with a new decree. This stresses the attempts at coping on the one hand, and the dead end in which the Jews found themselves on the other. The last part of the diary implies continuation. Moshe thinks that he can continue going to school, and he makes every effort to do so. However, already at the beginning of the year, Jewish children had in fact been forbidden to attend non-Jewish schools. In other places and at other stages, the Jews were also forbidden to run schools for Jews only.


Educational Discussion

• How does a child feel when he has been abruptly and arbitrarily forbidden to: go to school / meet his friends at school / continue studying and developing at school?

• What is your opinion of Moshe's ways of coping with the prohibitions on Jews?

• In your opinion, how did Moshe feel when he traveled by tram or went on foot?

What is implied by the words: "At that time I still thought that I would be able to return to school after the vacations."


• For a historical outline of the Netherlands, click here.
• For a historical outline of Belgium, click here.
• For photographs from the Netherlands, click here.
• For photographs from Belgium, click here.

Design Suggestions

Scenes from the diaries or memoirs are acted out in pantomime (or in silhouettes behind a white curtain) during the reading of the testimony.