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The Lives of Jewish
Children During the Holocaust As Reflected in Their Diaries
Lesson Plan
To print this lesson plan
click here.
Ages: Junior
and senior High-School students
Duration: 1.5
hours
Didactic Objectives
-
Students will learn about the life of children and teenagers during
the Holocaust.
-
Students will examine primary sources from the period of the
Holocaust.
-
Students will learn about some of the central stages of Nazi anti-Jewish
persecution as reflected in the children’s diaries.
-
Students will discuss the roles of writing and imagination in
dealing with the everyday realities during Holocaust.
-
Students will be encouraged to become active learners.
Introduction
This lesson plan
highlights selected excerpts from the diaries of five Jewish
children who lived and perished during the Holocaust. Through these
diary entries, we will focus on the pre-war lives of the children
and their encounters with Nazi occupation. In addition, their
responses to anti-Jewish policies, including the “badge of shame”,
aryanization and ghettoization. This lesson plan includes discussion
questions as well as primary source materials, and is suitable for
social studies and language arts.
Children and Their Diaries During the Holocaust
Between 1939 and
1945, six million Jews, including one-and-a-half-million children and teenagers, were murdered by the Nazis and their
collaborators. According to Nazi racial ideology, all Jews
regardless of age were deemed unworthy of life.
The Holocaust
was a period in which Jews were robbed of all liberties. They were
starved, beaten, forced into hard labor, packed into closed ghettos,
and murdered. Those still alive faced a daily struggle for survival.
Despite and perhaps because of these hardships, we see a phenomenon
of widespread diary writing, as well as personal and organized
documentation efforts. The children, like all Jews, faced similar
hardships, and many of them kept diaries as well. Due to the nature
of war, only a very few of these personal accounts survived.
Overall, these children enjoyed a
relatively normal, worry-free childhood before the Second World War.
Whether from Poland, Germany, The Netherlands, Hungary or Lithuania,
They were born into Jewish communities that had existed in Europe
for thousands of years.
One these children
was Moshe Flinker. Moshe Ze’ev Flinker was born in The Hague, The
Netherlands, on October 9, 1926, and was eventually murdered in the
Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. In 1942, after the Germans
and the Dutch police began rounding up Jews for deportation, he fled
along with his family to Brussels, Belgium, where the 16-year-old
Moshe kept his diary. He writes:
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November 24,
1942
"For
some time now I have wanted to note down every evening what I have
been doing during the day. But, for various reasons, I have not
got round to it until tonight. First, let me explain why I am
doing this – and I must start by describing why I came here to
Brussels.
I was born in The Hague, the Dutch Queen’s city,
where I passed my early years peacefully. I went to elementary
school and then to commercial school, where I studied for only two
years
.”
[1]
|
Discussion
Questions
We can
estimate Moshe’s motives for writing the diary:-
Why does someone keep a diary?
- Do you think Moshe’s motives for keeping
a diary were similar to those of children today?
|
Eva Heyman was born
in 1931 in Nagyvárad, Hungary. She was murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau
extermination camp in 1944. Early in her diary she describes her
thirteenth birthday, and lists the presents she received:
February 13, 1944
“I’ve turned
thirteen, I was born on Friday the thirteenth. [..] From Grandpa,
[I received] phonograph records of the kind I like. My grandfather
bought them so that I should learn French lyrics, which will make
Ági [mother] happy, because she isn’t happy about my school record
cards except when I get a good mark in French [..] I do a lot of
athletics, swimming, skating, bicycle riding and exercise. [..]
I’ve written enough today. You’re probably tired, dear diary.”
[2]
|
Discussion
Questions
- What
can we learn about Eva’s life and family from this excerpt? How
would you describe her?
- How
do you think Eva perceives herself?
To the teacher:
This excerpt portrays Eva’s rich cultural and personal background –
a thirteen-year-old girl with varied interests and hobbies. She has
a supporting family, which encourages Eva in her activities. |
The Onslaught of Nazi Occupation
The children’s
daily routine was disrupted with the Nazi occupation. Although the
Germans began to target Jews for persecution, the situation differed
from country to country and region to region.
March 19, 1944
“Dear diary,
you’re the luckiest one in the world, because you cannot feel, you
cannot know what a terrible thing has happened to us. The Germans
have come!”
[3]
|
Dawid Sierakowiak
was born in Lodz, Poland in 1934. He perished in the Lodz ghetto, a
victim of starvation and illness. In his diary, he describes hearing
the Germans have entered Lodz:
September 8, 1939
“Lodz is
occupied! The beginning of the day was calm, too calm. In the
afternoon I sat in the park and draw a sketch of a girlfriend.
Then all of a sudden the terrifying news: Lodz has been
surrendered! German patrols on Piotrkowska street. Fear, surprise
[..] Meanwhile, all conversation stops; the streets grow deserted;
faces and hearts are covered with gloom, cold severity and
hostility.”
[4]
|
Yitskhok
Rudashevski was born in Vilna (now Lithuania) in 1927. He eventually
perished in Ponary.
In 1941,
the Nazi’s captured Vilna. Fourteen-year-old Yitskhok writes:
June 1941
“Monday was also an uneasy day. Red Army soldiers crowded
into autos are continually riding to Lipovke. The residents are
also running away. People say with despair that the Red Army is
abandoning us. The Germans are marching on Vilna. The evening of
that desperate day approaches. The autos with Red Army soldiers
are fleeting. I understand that they are leaving us. I am certain,
however, that resistance will come. I look at the fleeting army
and I am certain that it will return victoriously.”
[5]
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Discussion
Questions
Read the
following descriptions:-
How would you characterize the different reactions to the invasion?
-
What do these reactions tell us about the children’s view of the
situation?
With the
outbreak of the war, many Jews hoped and believed it would end
quickly. |
First Decrees
Throughout
Europe, persecution of the local Jewish population began swiftly
after the entry of the Nazis. Jews were often stripped of their
citizenship and barred from public institutions. Severe limitations
were placed on their economic activity, and many became unemployed
and destitute. For the children, school was disrupted and often
halted altogether, and many Jewish pupils were forced to support
their families by working or smuggling.
Eva Heyman,
13, Nagyvarad, Hungary:
April 7, 1944
“Today they came
for my bicycle. I almost caused a big drama. You know, dear diary,
I was awfully afraid just by the fact that the policemen came into
the house. I know that policemen bring only trouble with them,
wherever they go. [..] So, dear diary, I threw myself on the
ground, held on to the back wheel of my bicycle, and shouted all
sorts of things at the policemen: “Shame on you for taking away a
bicycle from a girl! That’s robbery!” [..] One of the policemen
was very annoyed and said: “All we need is for a Jewgirl to put on
such a comedy when her bicycle is being taken away. No Jewkid is
entitled to keep a bicycle anymore. The Jews aren’t entitled to
bread, either; they shouldn’t guzzle everything, but leave the
food for the soldiers.”
[6]
|
Moshe Flinker,
16, Belgium:
November 24, 1942
“During the year I attended, the
number of restrictions on us rose greatly. [..] we had to turn in
our bicycles to the police. From that time on, I rode to school by
street-car, but a day or two before the vacations started, Jews
were forbidden to ride on street-cars.”
[7]
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Discussion Questions
Eva and Moshe are describing a process in which their daily
life is becoming more constricted.
- What
messages are these children receiving from their neighbors? How did
the children experience the changes occurring in their environment?
To the teacher: In the students’ answers, direct them to
Eva’s instinctive reaction towards policemen, her protest when they
take away her bicycle, and the response of the policemen to her
resistance. Also allude to Flinker’s entry on the growing travel
restrictions for Jews. |
Flinker, November 24, 1942
(continued)
“I then had to walk to school, which took about an hour and a half. [..]
At that time I still thought that I would be able to return to
school after the vacations; but I was wrong.” |
Hannah
Hershkowitz was born in 1935 in Biala Ravska, Poland. She survived
the war. In her memoir, Hannah recalls:
“I was six
years old. It was the first day of school in September, 1941. [..]
Marisha, my best friend, invited me to come with her to school. We
met in the morning and walked together with a lot of other
children. We reached the big high gates. The watchman of the
school was standing by the gate. [..] Marisha went through the
gate, and I followed her, as the watchmen greeted her.
“Where are you
going?” he asked me.
“To school, to
the first grade,” I said proudly, and continued walking. The
watchman blocked my way. “No, not you.”
“But I am six
already – I really am!”
“You are a
Jew,” he said, “Jews have no right to learn. No Jews in our
school. Go home!” [..] Marisha, with the other children, ran into
the building.
[..] I did not
cry. I thought: I’m Jewish. There is no place for me. I stood
there until no one stood in front of the school. Only me. The new
school year had begun. But not for me.”
[8]
|
Dawid
Sierakowiak, 15, Lodz, Poland:
November 29, 1939
“School is
falling apart like an old slipper. Yesterday two men from the
Gestapo came to the school at four o’clock.
November 30
“The school has
been taken away. The students help the hired porters. They give us
until tomorrow evening to clear everything out. A deadly feeling;
mass looting of the library.”
[9]
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Discussion
Questions
-
What was the meaning of the first day of school for you? Were you
escorted?
-
In light of these excerpts, how do you think the Jewish children
felt being barred from school?
|
Dawid
Sierakowiak, 15, Lodz, Poland:
October 3, 1939
“My father
doesn’t have a job and simply suffocates at home. We have no
money. It’s all shot! Disaster!”
[10]
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Discussion
Questions
-
Try to describe how Dawid felt after his father became unemployed.
How do you think this affected day-to-day life in his family?
To the teacher:
A family naturally provides a certain degree of security to a child.
Dawid seemed to know full well the immediate consequences of his
father’s dire financial situation. No doubt having the traditional
provider “simply suffocate” at home added great stress to an already
stressful situation. |
The Yellow Badge
Jews were
forced to wear an identifying badge in order to identify them. This
humiliating racial mark segregated them from society, and it made
them easy targets for brutality. In the streets, Jews would often be
harassed, beaten and humiliated in public.
Yitskhok Rudashevski, 14, Vilna:
July 8, 1941
“The decree was issued that the Vilna Jewish population must put on
badges front and back - a yellow circle and inside it the letter
J. It is daybreak. I am looking through the window and see before
me the first Vilna Jews with badges. It was painful to see how
people were staring at them. The large piece of yellow material on
their shoulders seemed to be burning me and for a long time I
could not put on the badge. I felt a hump, as though I had two
frogs on me. I was ashamed of our helplessness. […] It hurt me
that I saw absolutely no way out.”
[11]
|
Eva Heyman, 13,
Nagyvarad, Hungary:
March 31, 1944
“Today an order
was issued that from now on Jews have to wear a yellow star-shaped
patch. The order tells exactly how big the star patch must be, and
that it must be sewn on every outer garment, jacket or coat.
[12]
April 5, 1944
“[..] On my way
to Grandma Lujza, I met some yellow-starred people. They were so
gloomy, walking with their heads lowered. [..] I noticed Pista
Vadas [a friend]. He didn’t see me, so I said hello to him. I know
it isn’t proper for a girl to be the first one to greet a boy, but
it doesn’t matter whether a yellow-starred girl is proper or not. Pa, Eva, he said, don’t be angry, but I didn’t even see
you. The star patch is bigger than you, he said without laughing,
just looking so gloomy.”
[13]
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Discussion
Questions
Yitskhok and Eva
portray a sense of helplessness in the Jews who are forced to wear
the badge.- What
do you think the badge meant to those who were forced to wear it?
|
Entry
into the Ghettos and Hiding
The next stage of
anti-Jewish persecution was closure into ghettos. Most of the Jews
of Eastern Europe were forced out of their homes, leaving most of
their belongings behind, and into ghettos - areas within cities and
towns specifically allocated for Jewish residence. They where
essentially held there as prisoners. Entire families would be packed
together in extremely cramped, inhuman conditions.
Eva Heyman, 13,
Nagyvarad, Hungary:
May 1, 1944
“In the morning
Mariska [the family’s maid] burst into the house and said: ‘Have
you seen the notices?’ No, we hadn’t, we are not allowed to go
outside, except between nine and ten! [..] because we’re being
taken to the ghetto. Mariska started packing [..] Mariska read in
the notice that we are allowed to take along one change of
underwear, the clothes on our bodies and the shoes on our feet
[..]
Dear diary, from
now on I’m imagining everything as if it really is a dream. [..] I
know it isn’t a dream, but I can’t believe a thing. [..] Nobody
says a word. Dear diary, I’ve never been so afraid”
[14]
|
Yitskhok Rudashevski, 14, Vilna, describes
the expulsion to the new closed ghetto:
”It is the 6th
of September (1941)
A beautiful,
sunny day has risen. The streets are closed off by Lithuanians.
[..] A ghetto is being created for Vilna Jews.
People are
packing in the house. [..] I look at the house in disarray, at the
bundles, at the perplexed, desperate people. I see things
scattered which were dear to me, which I was accustomed to use.
[..] The small number of Jews of our courtyard begin to drag the
bundles to the gate. Gentiles are standing and taking part in our
sorrow. [..] Suddenly everything around me begins to weep.
Everything weeps. [..] The street streamed with Jews carrying
bundles. The first great tragedy. [..] Before me a woman bends
under her bundle. From the bundle a thin string of rice keeps
pouring over the street. I walk burdened and irritated. [..] I
think of nothing: not what I am losing, not what I have just lost,
not what is in store for me. [..] I only feel that I am terribly
weary, I feel that an insult, a hurt is burning inside me. Here is
the ghetto gate. I feel that I have been robbed, my freedom is
being robbed from be, my home and the familiar Vilna streets I
love so much. I have been cut off from all that is dear and
precious to me.“
[15]
|
Discussion
Questions
- How does Eva try to cope with the new reality?
- What do you think Yitskhok meant when he wrote “the first great
tragedy”?
|
Nazi
anti-Jewish in occupied areas in Western Europe differed from those
in the East. For various reasons, Jews were not closed in ghettos.
However, the Nazis did enact similar anti-Jewish legislation: their
citizenship was revoked, and they were banished from economic and
social life. The decree for wearing the Jewish badge was also
enacted in these countries.
Everyday Life in the Ghettos
The
Jewish population in the areas under Nazi control lived in constant
fear of abuse, looting and of deportation to the camps, which meant
almost certain death.
Sixteen-year-old Moshe Flinker, who was living in Brussels at the
time, writes:
January 7, 1943
“Last night my
parents and I were sitting around the table. It was almost
midnight. Suddenly we heard the bell: we all shuddered. We thought
that the moment had come for us to be deported. The fear arose
mostly because a couple of days ago the inhabitants of Brussels
were forbidden to go out after nine o'clock. The reason for this
is that on December 31 three German soldiers were killed. Had it
not been for this curfew it could have been some man who was lost
and was ringing at our door. My mother had already put her shoes
on to go to the door, but my father said to wait until the ring
once more. But the bell did not ring again. Thank heaven it all
passed quietly. Only the fear remained, and all day long my
parents have been very nervous.”
[16]
|
Eva Heyman, 13,
Nagyvarad, Hungary, describes her situation behind walls:
May 10, 1944
“Dear diary,
we’re here five days, but, word of honor, it seems like five
years. I don’t even know where to begin writing, because so many
awful things have happened since I last wrote you. [..] the fence
was finished, and nobody can go our or come in. The Aryans who
used to live in the area of the Ghetto all left during these few
days to make place for the Jews. From today on, dear diary, we’re
not in a ghetto but in a ghetto-camp, and on every house they’ve
pasted a notice which tells exactly what we’re not allowed to do
[..] Actually, everything is forbidden, but the most awful thing
of all is that the punishment for everything is death. There is no
difference between things; no standing in the corner, no
spankings, no taking away food, no writing down the declension of
irregular verbs one hundred times the way it used to be in school.
Not at all: the lightest and heaviest punishment – death. It
doesn’t actually say that this punishment also applies to
children, but I think it does apply to us, too.”
[18]
|
Food and medicine
in the ghettos were strictly controlled by the Nazis. The food
rations they allowed per person were inhuman; for example, in
Poland, less than 10% of the minimum daily requirement. Many Jews
died of disease, starvation and exhaustion, a condition that was
grimly referred to as “Ghetto Disease”.
Dawid
Sierakowiak, 17, Lodz, Poland:
May 24, 1941
“I’m damnably
hungry because there isn’t even a trace left of the small loaf of
bread that was supposed to feed me through Tuesday. I console
myself that I’m not the only one in such a dire situation. When I
receive my ration of bread, I can hardly control myself and
sometimes suffer so much from exhaustion that I have to eat
whatever food I have, and then my small loaf of bread disappears
before the next ration is issued, and my torture grows. But what
can I do? There’s no help. Our grave will apparently be here.”
[19]
|
The
sight of the dead and the dying was a daily occurrence in many
ghettos. This inevitably took its toll on the children.
Dawid Sierakowiak,
17, Lodz, Poland:
August 23, 1941
“I was staggered today when I hear about the death of our former
neighbor in the building, Mr. Kamusiewicz. I think he is the first
death in the ghetto that has let me so deeply depressed. This man,
an absolute athlete before the war, died of hunger here. His iron
body did not suffer from any disease; it just grew thinner and
thinner every day, and finally he fell asleep, not to wake again.”
[20]
|
Life in the
ghetto became a constant struggle for survival. The lack of goods
quickly meant money had little real meaning. The impossible Nazi
restrictions created a black market for all products necessary to
live – food, medicine and energy sources to keep warm.
Yitskhok
Rudashevski, Vilna:
| “Father goes
to work again in the munitions store houses. It is crowded and
smoky in the house. Like many others I go hunting for firewood. We
break doors, floors, and carry wood. One person tries to grab from
the other, they quarrel over a piece of wood, the first effect on
these conditions on the human being. People become petty, cruel to
one another. […] I often go to work with father. I continue to go
through the Vilna streets. The group goes to the munitions store
houses […] In the evening I return with the group and fall back
into the ghetto.”
[21]
|
Discussion
Questions
-
Eva, Dawid and Yitskhok describe different aspects of ghetto life.
What picture arises from these excerpts?
To the teacher:
Each of the children has a different observation on the new reality:
Eva points out the disproportionate punishments that apply even
towards children; Dawid talks of the hunger with great despair. His
neighbor’s death affected him profoundly, and he fully expects to
find his own death in the ghetto; Yitskhok notes how he’s forced to
search for fuel, as his father works in the munitions store. He also
points out the growing quarrelling and cruelty, brought on by the
struggle for survival. |
Hopes and Dreams
Despite the
severe hardships Jewish children had to endure, many still harbored
hopes and dreams for the future. These wishes were often expressed
in the children’s diaries, drawings and poems.
Avraham
Koplowicz was born in Lodz in 1930. He lived in Lodz during the war,
and was eventually deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp and
murdered. A notebook of his survived, containing drawings and poems.
A Dream
By Avraham Koplowicz
When I grow up
and reach the age of 20,
I’ll set out
to see the enchanting world.
I’ll take a
seat in a bird with a motor;
I’ll rise and
soar high into space.
I’ll fly,
sail, hover
Over the
lovely faraway world.
I’ll soar over
rivers and ocean
Skyward shall
I ascend and blossom,
A cloud my
sister, the wind my brother.[…][22]
|
Discussion Questions
Many children
expressed their hopes for the future during the war.-
Avraham wrote this poem while living in terrible conditions in the
Lodz Ghetto. Yet this text presents a completely different reality –
how do you think that can be? What is the role of imagination in
survival?
|
Moshe
Flinker, 16, Belgium:
December 8, 1942
”During the past few days when my mother raised the question of my
future, my reaction was again one of laughter, but when I was
alone, I too began to ponder this matter. What indeed is to become
of me? It is obvious that the present situation will not last
forever--perhaps another year or two--but what will happen then?
One day I will have to earn my own living. [...] After much
deliberation, I've decided to become...a statesman.”[23]
|
Discussion
Questions
-
What can we learn from this excerpt about Moshe’s attitude towards
the war?
-
What influence, if any, do you think his situation had on Moshe’s
decision to become a statesman?
|
On April 7, 1944,
after being betrayed to the Gestapo, the entire Flinker family was
arrested and eventually sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination
camp, where Moshe and his parents perished.
Eva
Heyman, 13, Nagyvarad, Hungary:
May 30, 1944:
“[..] dear diary,
I don’t want to die; I want to live even if it means that I’ll be
the only person here allowed to stay. I would wait for the end of
the war in some cellar, or on the roof, or in some secret cranny.
[..] just as long as they didn’t kill me, only that they should
let me live. [..] I can’t write anymore, dear diary, the tears run
from my eyes, I’m hurrying over to Mariska… (End of diary)” [24] |
Éva was caught by
the Nazis, along with her grandmother and grandfather, and sent to
the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she was murdered.
She was 13-years-old.
[1] Flinker, Moshe, Young Moshe’s Diary:
The Spiritual Torment of a Jewish Boy in Nazi Europe, Yad
Vashem, Jerusalem 1965, p. 19.
[2]
Heyman, Eva, The Diary of Eva Heyman, Shapolsky
Punlishers, New York 1988, p. 23, 28.
[3]
Heyman, p. 57.
[4]
Sierakowiak, p. 36.
[5]
Rudashevski Yitshok, The Diary of the Vilna Ghetto,
Ghetto Fighters House and Hakibutz Hameuchad Publishing House,
1973, p. 25.
[6] Heyman, pp. 71-73.
[7]
Flinker, p.19.
[8] Morgenstern, Naomi, I Wanted to Fly Like a Butterfly, Yad
Vashem, Jerusalem 1998, p. 12.
[9]
Sierakowiak, Dawid, The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five
Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto, New York: Oxford University
Press, 1996, p. 66.
[10] Sierakowiak, p. 46.
[11]
Rudashevski, pp. 30-31.
[12]
Heyman, Eva, The Diary of Eva Heyman, Shapolsky
Punlishers, New York 1988, p. 68.
[13]
Heyman, p. 70.
[14]
Heyman, pp. 82-83.
[15]
Rudashevski, pp. 31-32.
[16]
Flinker, pp. 58-59.
[18]
Heyman, p. 89.
[19]
Sierakowiak, p. 94.
[20]
Sierakowiak, p. 121.
[21]
Rudashevski, pp. 34-35.
[22]
Yad Vashem Archive O.48/47.B.1
[23]
Flinker, p. 36.
[24]
Heyman, p. 104.
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