Resistance & Rescue During the HolocaustJulie Scott – East Valley School District, Spokane,

WAEmail: scottj@evsd.org

Members of the Bielski partisan family camp in the Nalibocki Forest.

(Jewishpartisans.org)

United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumGuidelines for Teaching Resistance and Rescue

Do not romanticize history!

People who risked to rescue, provide us with important and compelling role models for students.

An inaccurate and unbalanced account of history can result from an overemphasis of heroic tales in a Holocaust unit (½ of 1 % or one person in 200 took the risk ).

Students should not just be exposed to the worst aspects of human nature, running the risk of fostering cynicism in students.

Accuracy of fact along with a balanced perspective on history must be a priority.

Students need to comprehend the circumstances that encouraged or discouraged particular actions or events (resistance-when and where immediate consequences to self and family, degree of control the Nazis had, attitudes of the local population etc…)

Teach about all types of resistance, not just armed resistance.

Teach about those who were in a situation to save many, but also those who took enormous risk to save even one or two.

Why Teach About Resistance and Rescue in a Holocaust Unit?

Results from an empathy study from the University of Michigan 2010

College students today possess about 40% less empathy than college students 20 to 30 years ago.

Previous studies have documented an increasing narcissism among college students since 1980

Possible causes Exposure to media (three times more non-work related) Grew up with video games (more exposure to violent media

numbs people to the pain of others). Reality TV Recent rise in social media – Ease of having "friends” on-line. Hyper-competition: College students so busy worrying about

themselves and their issues to think about others - Generation M (me).

Teach students the difference between sympathy and empathy.“From Students, Less Kindness for Strangers? The New York Times, June 25, 2010

Characteristics of Rescuers

1. They don’t blend into their communities. This makes them less controlled by their environments and more inclined to act on their own principles.

2. They are independent people and know it. They do what they feel they must do, what is right, and the right thing is to help others.

3. They have a long history of doing good deeds.

According to Nechama Tec, Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Connecticut and expert on the rescue of Jews during World War II, there is “A set of interdependent characteristics and conditions that Holocaust rescuers share:”

**Taken From Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust by Gay Block and Malka Drucker, Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1992.

Characteristics of RescuersContinued

4. Because they have done the right thing for a long time, it doesn’t seem

extraordinary to them. If you consider something your duty, you do it automatically.

5. They choose to help without rational consideration.

6. They have universalistic perceptions that transcend race and ethnicity.

They can respond to the needy and helpless because they identify with victims and injustice.

**Taken From Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust by Gay Block and Malka Drucker, Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1992.

Stories of Courage

Bielski Partisans

Knud Christansen

Irena Sendler

The Bielski partisan group accepted all Jews regardless of their age, sex or any other characteristic and lived in family camps.

They sent special guides into the ghettos to rescue Jews and bring them to their unit and collected Jews who roamed the forest.

Were the largest armed rescuers of Jew by Jews.

When liberated, they numbered more than 1,200, most of whom were older people, women and children.

Members of the Bielski partisan family camp in the Nalibocki Forest.(Jewishpartisans.org)

Bielski Partisans

Knud Christiansen was a member of the Danish Olympic rowing team and competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Knud and his wife, Karen, joined the Danish resistance, and worked to rescue Jews.

During October, November, and December of 1943, Knud ferried one Jew at a time across the water from Denmark to Sweden using his Olympic racing boat.

Knud Christiansen

-jfr.org

Knud Christiansen

• In July, 1942, mass deportations from the Warsaw ghetto (mostly to Treblinka) began.

• Polish citizens formed an underground organization called the Council for the Aid to Jews, or Zegota, in September, 1942.

• The head of Zegota’s Children’s Bureau was Irena Sendler.

• Irena smuggled children out of the ghetto and found places to hide them.

• The Gestapo arrested Irena on October 20, 1943 • She was brutally tortured but refused to give up

information on Zegota and where the children were hidden. She was sentenced to death.

• Members of Zegota bribed one of the Gestapo agents, and on the day Irena was to be executed, she was permitted to escape.

• Irena went into hiding for the rest of the war, but continued to coordinated her rescue work.

• Zagota helped more than 2,500 children.

Irena Sendler-jfr.org

Irena Sendler

It is sad that our students know so well the names of Hitler, Himmler, Eichmann and Mengele but not the names and courage of people like, Tuvia and Zus Bielski, Knud Christiansen, Irena Sendler. Sugihara, Miep Gies, etc…

Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial, has recognized 18,000 as "Righteous Among the Nations of the World“

“More than sixty years ago the world went dark and for European Jewry a nightmare began. Yet in every darkness there are particles of light. During the Holocaust, those lights were the Hasadi Ha'umot Olam -- "The Righteous Among the Nations" - non-Jews - men and women, who had the courage to care -- these were the lone lights in the darkness. A darkness many thought would never end.” (Stanlee Stahl JFR 2001)

If only a handful of non-Jewish Europeans had the moral courage to rescue, what did the rest do?

”Indifference can kill. We must teach our children and our children's children and ourselves that we must take a stand, that one person can make a difference. For at some point in our lives we may be called upon to make a decision. We have so many lessons to learn from Christian rescuers.” (Stanlee Stahl JFR 2001)

Leave Your Students With Stories of Heroes!

“Whoever saves a single human life is as if one saves the entire world”

Talmud

2006-2013. Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. 19 February 2013 <http://www.jewishpartisans.org>.

Axelfod, Toby. Hans and Sophie Scholl: German Resisters of the White Rose. Irvine: Saddleback Publishing, Inc, 2000.Education - "Guidelines For Teaching About the Holocaust." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 21 February 2013. www.ushmm.org education/foreducators/guideline."Ghetto Fighters House Archives." n.d. 15 February 2013 <http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh/notebook_ext.asp?book=111323&l

ang=eng."Holocaust Encyclopedia "Denmark"." 11 May 2012. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 20 February 2013 <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005209>."Holocaust Encyclopedia "Kindertransport 1938-1940"." 11 May 2012.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 20 February 2013 <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?

ModuleId=10005260>."Holocaust Encyclopedia "Rescue"." 12 May 2012. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 19 February 2102 <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005185>."Holocaust Encyclopedia "Sobibor"." 11 May 2012. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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"Holocaust Encyclopedia "The Bielski Partisans"." 11 May 2012. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 19 February 2013 <http://

www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007563>."Holocaust Encyclopedia "The White Rose"." 11 May 2012. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 19 February 2013 <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007188>."JEWISH RESISTANCE." 11 May 2012. United States Holocaust Memorial

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www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005416>.Stahl, Stanlee I. "Christian Rescuers." 18 April 2001. Spring Hill College. 20 February 2013 <http://www.shc.edu/theolibrary/resources/holcaust/ Stahl.htm>."Stories of Local Holocaust Survivors: Peter M." 2010. Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center. 20 February 2013 <http://www.HolocaustCenterSeattle.org/ center/survivorstories/PeterM.aspx>."Stories of Rescue "Denmark - Knud Christiansen"." 2012. The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. 20 February 2013 <http://www.jfr.org/pages/rescuer-support/stories/denmark-/- knud-christiansen?>.

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