Pages of Testimony: Lesson Plan
For Junior High and High School Students
Commemoration of individuals occupies an important place in the efforts to perpetuate awareness of the Holocaust. At Yad Vashem, in cooperation with the “Every Person has a Name” project, we use Pages of Testimony to commemorate individuals who perished in the Holocaust. We recommend that students become a part of the important process of perpetuating the memories of individuals by downloading empty Pages of Testimony and filling them out. Students can ask their parents, grandparents, or other relatives if they know names of Holocaust victims that have not been recorded on Pages of Testimony. Students can then fill out Pages of Testimony and send them to Yad Vashem.
To download blank Pages of Testimony, click here.
Aims:
a) To demonstrate to students the challenges involved in perpetuating the memory of Holocaust victims as individual people, rather than as numbers.
b) To present Pages of Testimony as a unique tool that perpetuates the memories of individuals, through careful and informed reading of Pages that tell the stories of individuals and teach about Jewish life before the Holocaust.
c) To give students a sense of responsibility by having them take an active part in the Pages of Testimony project, and to impress upon students the urgency of recruitment for this project.
The class will focus on Pages of Testimony written
about children.
Lesson plan:
a) Opening: The need to perpetuate Holocaust
remembrance, and the
challenges involved in perpetuating the memories of individuals.
b) Pages of Testimony
1. What are Pages of Testimony?
2. Reading Pages of Testimony: How Pages of Testimony tell an individual
and a collective story at the same time.
c) Discussion: On the significance of Pages of Testimony.
d) Gathering Pages of Testimony: Why have more Pages not been obtained? – On the
difficulties and limitations involved in gathering the Pages, and the importance
of recruitment for the project. Suggestions of plans of action for the class, or
the school as a whole.
a) Opening
In order to highlight the difficulties involved in commemorating individuals,
one could begin by asking a question which will explore the ways in which the
students remember the Holocaust and its victims: “What images come to your mind
when the Holocaust is mentioned?”
For the teacher: it is possible to direct the discussion arising from the
students’ responses by focusing on the following questions: Where do individual
people figure in your memories? Should we focus on remembering the murder or
remembering those murdered? Do you visualize a place, a symbol or a person when
the Holocaust is mentioned? Why?
Discussion centering on a primary source:
We the murdered demand justice.
(Taken from a poem sent by an anonymous victim from the crematorium in
Auschwitz-Birkenau,
before her death on March 8, 1944)
You will not see splendid tombstones over our graves
There will be no flowers or pine trees.
Neither will there be wreaths as a sign of mourning
No angels will bow their heads
There is no golden line, no divine echo whispers
Neither are there any candles in the ever-burning flame.
(From Our Yesterday To Our Tomorrow, 93).
What is the writer mourning? Do you think she was correct in her prediction?
b) Pages of Testimony
1. What are Pages of Testimony? After Yad Vashem was founded in 1953, one of its first priorities was to gather the names and details of individuals who died in the Holocaust. The Pages of Testimony project was launched in order to achieve this objective. Pages of Testimony include biographical details of Jews who died in the Holocaust, and they serve as symbolic tombstones. Pages are filled out and sent to Yad Vashem by relatives or close friends of Holocaust victims, in order to perpetuate the memory of those who died.Q: Why does Yad Vashem choose this mode of gathering information? What are the advantages and disadvantages, in your opinion?
2. Reading Pages of Testimony
The class is divided into small groups, and each group receives three or four different Pages of Testimony.
To print out Pages of Testimony, click here.
a) These Pages of Testimony were filled out about Jewish children who were killed in the Holocaust. Try to study them and see what you can learn about the children. Here is an example of how to study a Page of Testimony, and suggested questions you might want to ask.To print out the sample Page of Testimony, click here. (If you have access to the internet, try to find out further details about the countries, camps or sites of massacres that are mentioned on the Page. Make use of the database “Holocaust Resource Center” on the website of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem.)
Examples of questions to ask about a Page of Testimony:
Q: How old was Yehuda when he died? A: Around 53.
Q: Where was he born and where did he spend his childhood? A: Vilna, Poland.
Q: What happened to him during the Holocaust? Under what circumstances did he die? A: Yehuda was killed by Nazis & Lithuanians at Ponar (a site of mass extermination located a few miles from Vilna) during the Roze-Sheinen Aktion, Dec. 20-25, 1941.
Q: Who wrote the Page of Testimony? A: Florence B. Schochat.
Q: What was her relationship to Yehuda? A: She was Yehuda's granddaughter.
Q: Is there a photograph attached to the Page? A: Yes. Here is a photograph of Yehuda with his wife Henia Kagan (Glasser).
Q: Do you think there are photographs attached to all Pages of Testimony? A: Many of the Pages of Testimony are not accompanied by photographs. More often than not, Holocaust survivors lost all of their belongings during the war. In addition to the terrible and painful loss of families, there was also loss of objects of sentimental value such as family photographs, etc.
Q: Where do you think Florence obtained the photograph, and how did she hold onto it?
Q: What else would you like to know about Yehuda? Can you find these things out from the Page of Testimony? Could you find them out any other way? How?
In the same way, look at two or three other Pages of
Testimony on your own.
b) Present to the class a Page of Testimony that you find particularly touching.
Describe the child who was murdered and explain why you picked this particular
Page.
c) Discussion
· What do you think is the significance of the Pages of Testimony project?
· How does engagement with the Pages of Testimony affect your understanding of
the story of the Holocaust?
· How many Pages of Testimony do you think have been collected by Yad Vashem,
out of the six million which need to be collected?
To the teacher: Although Yad Vashem has been collecting names on Pages of Testimony for fifty years, over half of the six million names of Holocaust victims are still not recorded. What is the significance of this?
Note: The explanation here is extremely important! The Nazis’ aim was to wipe out the memory of the Jewish people from the world. As long as we are unable to memorialize most of the murdered in a personal way, their memory and identities are effectively erased, and this means that in some way the Nazis achieved their goal.
Almost all of the people who were murdered in the Holocaust have no grave or memorial. Yad Vashem has succeeded in perpetuating the memory of about half of those murdered, albeit with a symbolic memorial, but one which reminds us that these people lived and were members of a family and a community. However, most of the people who were murdered in the Holocaust still do not even have a symbolic individual memorial at Yad Vashem.
d) Why have more Pages of Testimony not been collected?
Note: The answer to this question is made up of several factors, all
of which are important to bring to students’ attention.
1. Entire communities were wiped out in the Holocaust. Often people were killed
together with everyone they knew. Thus, no one survived to testify. In some
cases there were very few survivors from a given community, and these survivors
did not know a lot of people. So from amongst a community of thousands who were
killed, Yad Vashem might have only a few dozen Pages of Testimony.
2. Filling out a Page of Testimony demands time, care and attention, and
survivors are not always able to carry out this work. It is particularly
difficult for someone who has lost many family members and friends to fill out
many Pages of Testimony.
3. Many survivors avoid confrontation with what happened to them in the
Holocaust and so they do not fill out Pages of Testimony about their families or
people they knew.
4. Often the fate of those who died is unknown, and then some hope remains that
they actually survived. Many Holocaust survivors prefer to avoid filling out
Pages of Testimony, and therefore not have to come to terms with the deaths of
their loved ones.
5. Often children and grandchildren of survivors are unable to write Pages of
Testimony because the survivor has died, and the second and third generations do
not know details about their family members who were murdered in the Holocaust.
6. Not all survivors are aware of the efforts being made by Yad Vashem to gather
Pages of Testimony. This is one reason that Yad Vashem would like to recruit
high school students to help with this project. It is important that the
memorial project is the responsibility of all Jews and Israelis, regardless of
country of origin.
What can be done?
At this point the teacher should discuss with the students different options for
gathering Pages of Testimony in the community, the neighborhood, or the town in
which they live. Possible places to look include day centers for the elderly, old
age homes, institutions for the perpetuation of Holocaust memory, etc. Note that
students who speak different languages can help enormously with the project. It
should be emphasized that those students who have no immediate familial
connection with the Holocaust have an important place in the task of
perpetuating the memory of those who died, and can be active in the community to
this end.
Here are the outlines of the stories of several
young people and children whose details were recorded in Pages of Testimony.
These stories may contribute to the class discussion.
Miriam Berkovits
To print out the Page of Testimony,
click here.
Miriam was from Hungary; she was seven years old when she was killed. Miriam’s
uncle, a survivor who was in a camp, filled out this Page of Testimony in memory
of Miriam. Miriam’s uncle knows all about Miriam’s family before the war (where
they lived, previous names, etc.) and knows what happened to Miriam and to her
family, up until their deportation to Auschwitz. Note how many changes Miriam
underwent during the short period of German occupation of Hungary (from 1944
on): she moved from her home to the Weiss’ farm, from there to a ghetto, and
then she was deported to Auschwitz. Miriam’s uncle writes that he does not
know the circumstances surrounding Miriam’s death, but we know that children who
were sent to Auschwitz underwent selections on arrival, and were sent
immediately to the gas chambers.
Hedi
To print out the Page of Testimony,
click here.
This Page of Testimony about Hedi from Hungary was filled out by a schoolfriend.
Hedi’s friend does not know Hedi’s last name, or Hedi’s parents’ names. She does
know that Hedi was in the ghetto in her hometown and was deported to Auschwitz
from there. Hedi’s friend writes in general terms that Hedi “died in the
Holocaust.” We know that children who were sent to Auschwitz underwent
selections on arrival, and were sent immediately to the gas chambers.
David Stupp and Erwin Stupp
To print out the Page of Testimony for David Stupp,
click here.
To print out the Page of Testimony for Erwin Stupp,
click here.
David and Erwin were brothers who lived in Romania, and were deported to
Auschwitz. David was killed when he was fourteen, and Erwin was killed when he
was thirteen. According to these Page of Testimony, David and Erwin were
immediately gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz. The Pages of Testimony were
submitted by David and Erwin’s cousin, who survived the war. Note that the
photographs that are attached to the Pages are in fact two halves of one
photograph of the two brothers, taken when they were much younger. This is
apparently the only picture of them that the family still has.
Ruth Schon
To print out the Page of Testimony,
click here.
Ruth Schon was born in Prague in April 1942, two-and-a-half years after the
outbreak of WWII. Ruth was sent to Theresienstadt, the ghetto-camp outside of
Prague, most probably together with her family. According to this Page of
Testimony, Ruth was murdered there. Note that the person who submitted this
page, himself a survivor, is a friend of Ruth’s mother and has no
personal relationship to Ruth.
Odette Allouche
To print out the Page of Testimony,
click here.
Odette was thirteen years old when her hometown of Tunis was captured in an
airborne assault. She and her sisters were killed and buried in a mass grave.
Another sister who was not in the area at the time submitted this Page of
Testimony about Odette.