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Pages of Testimony
Lesson Plan
Ages: Junior and Senior 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 “Unto Every Person There is a Name” project, we use Pages of Testimony to commemorate individuals who perished in the Holocaust. Pages of Testimony 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. They include biographical details of Jews who died in the Holocaust, and they serve as symbolic tombstones. 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.
Goals:
- To demonstrate to students the challenges involved in
perpetuating the memory of Holocaust victims as individual
people, rather than as numbers.
- To present Pages of Testimony as a unique tool that
perpetuates the memories of individuals, through careful
reading of Pages that tell the stories of individuals and
teach about Jewish life before the Holocaust.
- To give students a sense of responsibility by
encouraging them to take an active role 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:
- Opening: The need to perpetuate Holocaust remembrance, and the challenges involved in perpetuating the memories of individuals.
- Pages of Testimony
1. What are Pages of Testimony?
2. Reading Pages of Testimony: How Pages of Testimony tell both an individual and a collective story, simultaneously.
- Discussion: On the significance of Pages of Testimony.
- 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 activities for the class or the school.
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?”
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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 murderers 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. Published in Yesterdays and Then Tomorrows, p. 93.)
"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."
- What is the writer mourning? Do you think she was correct in her prediction?
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 had been murdered 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 did 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) The following five Pages of Testimony concern Jewish children who were killed in the Holocaust. Try to study them and see what you can learn about the children. [Teacher: more information about the children can be found at the end of this lesson.]
- Alice Kozower, 10 years old. Berlin, Germany.
- Alex Westerman, 4 years old, Riga, Latvia.
- Bronia Baum, 10-12 years old. Czestochowa, Poland.
- Josef Balsam, 12 years old. Gorlice, Poland.
- Sarah Lidia Klein, 7 years old. Hajounanas, Hungary.
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.)
- Q: Who is the Page of Testimony about?
A: Yehuda Kagan.
- Q: How old was Yehuda when he was killed?
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? What were the circumstances of his murder?
A: After living a few months in the Vilna ghetto, Yehuda and his wife were killed by Nazis & Lithuanians at Ponar (a site of mass extermination located a few miles from Vilna) during the Roze-Sheinen Aktion, on Dec. 20-25, 1941.
- Q: Who filled out 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. There is a photograph of Yehuda with his wife Henia Kagan (Glasser).
- Q: Do you think there are photographs attached to many 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. Out of approximately two million Pages of Testimony, only about 100,000 (5%) have pictures attached to them.
- Q: Where do you think Florence obtained the photograph?
- 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?
(Using this same style 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 interesting. Describe the child who you chose to commemorate and explain why you picked this particular Page.
Discussion
- Q: What do you think is the significance of the Pages of Testimony project?
- Q: How does working with the Pages of Testimony affect your understanding of the story of the Holocaust?
- Q: How many Pages of Testimony do you think have been collected by Yad Vashem, out of the six million which need to be collected?
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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. |
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.
- Entire communities were wiped out in the Holocaust. Often people were killed together with everyone they knew. Thus, no one survived to give testimony of the crimes committed. 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.
- It is particularly traumatic for someone who has lost many family members and friends to fill out many Pages of Testimony. 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.
- Often the details of death of those who perished is unknown, and therefore some hope remains that they actually survived. Many Holocaust survivors prefer to avoid filling out Pages of Testimony, so they don’t have to come to terms with the deaths of their loved ones.
- 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.
- 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 becomes the responsibility of all Jews, 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 tremendously 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 in this goal of commemoration.
Below 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. These are the same children whose Pages of Testimony were discussed earlier in the lesson (with links to an individual's Page of Testimony, as earlier).
Alice Kozower was born on July 13, 1934 in Berlin, Germany. She was deported to Theresienstadt and was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. She was around 10 years old when murdered. This page was filled out by Klaus Zwilsky, a cousin of Alice's.
Alex Westerman was born in Riga, Latvia in 1937, and was murdered by the Nazis in Riga in 1941. He was 4 years old when murdered. This page was filled out by Leon Gamsa, a cousin of Alex’s mother.
Bronia Braum was born in Czestochowa around 1930. She was murdered in Treblinka when the Czestochowa Ghetto was liquidated in October of 1942. She was between 10 and 12 years old when murdered. This page was filled out by Lucy Sternberg, a cousin of Bronia’s.
Josef Balsam was born in 1930 in Gorlice, Poland. He was murdered in Belzec in 1942. Josef was 12 years old when murdered. This page was filled out by Daniel Balsam, Josef’s brother.
Sarah Lidia Klein was born in 1937 in Hajounanas, Hungary. She was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. She was 7 years old when murdered. This page was filled out by Aron Klein, Sara Lidia’s father.
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