LESSON PLANS 1 AND 2

"One"

Lesson Plan 1: Holocaust - IntroductionMiddle and High school, history and EnglishHistory SOL: USII 7a, 7b, 11a, 11b, 12a, 12b as well as several other histories.

1

Review the teaching information found on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:http://www.ushmm.org/educators/teaching-about-the-holocaust/new-to-teaching-the-holocaust

Prior to delivering lessons on the Holocaust, collect soda can pop tops or bottle caps, ask that students contribute to this collection but do not tell students why you need them. Display the collection in front of the classroom so students can see the tops accumulate. You will notice that a small number of these pop tops are red or some other color. The goal is to have many pop tops so begin collecting early in the school year. Before the lesson, and without students seeing, remove all of the pop tops that are not silver. Keep one colored pop top to use with the following lesson, don't let the students see it.

Have students count all the pop tops accumulated. Help the class do the mathematics:

If we have 1,500 pop tops and 6 million were murdered in the Holocaust how many does each pop top represent?

Return pop tops to container and discuss findings with students.

Take one colored pop top and show it to the class telling that this pop top represents one person, this person’s name was Max Windmueller whose picture is at the top of this document. Put the colored pop top on top of the others so that students can see it, then push the pop top into the container so that it cannot be seen.

Discussion:If you cannot see the pop top that represents Max Windmueller among the others in the container what do you understand about one individual among the many? What do you understand about the concept of one? Max was a German Jew during a time when Jews were targeted by their government for elimination, this time period was the Holocaust, the Shoah which means catastrophe.

During the study of the Holocaust you will understand how the time period between 1938-1945 was a catastrophe for Jews, Roma, Sinti, the physically and mentally disabled, homosexuals and political dissidents. You will also understand how each person touched by the Holocaust, each one, has a different story. This lesson uses Max Windmueller as one.

Basic information about Max can be found at

http://www.geni.com/people/Max-Windmüller-123-321-63/6000000002678626095http://www.geni.com/people/Max-Windm ü ller-123-321-63/6000000002678626095 or his name can be searched on Google.

Have the class make the following lists on chart paper and post around the room so that as the Holocaust is taught students will learn, understand, and correct what they think they know and what they want to know. Have students add and amend and add to lists as they learn.1. What I think I know about the Holocaust2. What I would like to know about the Holocaust

Schedule a trip to the Virginia Holocaust Museum, www.va-holocaust.com and Emek Sholom Holocaust Cemetery.

2

Lesson Plan 2: Emek Sholom, A Memorial for Generations

This lesson can be used independently or in conjunction with lesson I, "One"Middle, high schoolHistory SOL: USII 7a, 7b, 11a, 11b, 12a, 12b as well as several other historiesEnglish

Prior knowledge: General knowledge of the Holocaust

3

Objective: Students will examine the Holocaust through the concept time and distance.

Guiding Question: What is the effect of time and distance on history?

Intro: The teacher will use the following to introduce a Holocaust lesson toward the end of the Holocaust unit.

Emek Sholom Holocaust Memorial Cemetery (www.emeksholomcemeteryrichmond.org) has, at its heart, a memorial with 460 names inscribed on it, see list below. The memorial was erected by Richmond families who do not know where their mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents and other people close to them were buried. The Richmonders who built the memorial are, or were, survivors or refugees of the Holocaust. They built the memorial so that they would have someplace to say goodbye, and to remember as most were unable to learn, or confirm, how or where their people were murdered. When they visit the memorial they place small stones on the top. Placing a stone on a grave is a Jewish tradition to show that a person is remembered. (myjewishlearning.com)

One of the names on the memorial is Max “Cor” Windmueller, relative of a Holocaust refugee living in Richmond since 1937. His picture and basic information is included in lesson I. Listed below is a chart taken from Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum's database, db.yadvashem.org, Look at the information about Max Windmueller and his family and make some conclusions based on the information listed.

On the database list you can count the number of Windmuellers whose lives were erased by the Nazis; the Nazis targeted Jews for extermination and the Windmueller family was Jewish.

Write a reflection about what you have learned after reading the included database listing and learning about the memorial. Also include how you feel about what you are learning. Ask yourself why these Richmonders want/need a memorial like the one at Emek Sholom.

Understanding the word generation:

Have students define a generation by discussing what the word meansto historiansto the studentto a family

Using a family tree of a teacher or one found online, or an invented family to illustrate what the word generation means in relation to a family. See http://www.familytreetemplates.net/category/4-generation for family tree templates so that students can visualize the concept of a generation.

Discuss the following:

Why is each person on a timeline important?What do you think the effect would be if one person is erased from the timeline? What does one person mean to the future of a family?

Cover all but the first generation of the above family tree with a piece or paper, or "disappear them" with your computer. Below is one section of a family tree belonging to a Richmond

4

Holocaust refugee, the entire family tree is larger than a dining room table. The second photograph shows a close up of one "branch" of the tree.

5

You can see the words Auschwitz and Sachenha. on the above close up of one piece of this family tree; Sachsenha. is short for Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Make some assumptions about what you see on the chart, information on Auschwitz death camp and Sachsenhausen can be found on www.ushmm.org. Both of the people named in this section of the family tree were murdered in the Holocaust.

If you look at the first picture of the family tree you can see what the effect of eliminating lives is when you see that the tree becomes one branch. What is the effect of eliminating a section of a family?

What is the effect of time on what we know about the Holocaust? The Richmond Holocaust survivors are getting old. The youngest of them is in his late seventies; it has been two generations since the Holocaust ended in April, 1945. Until recently Holocaust survivors made visits to classes to talk about their experiences, but now many are too old to do so. How will young people who are three generations away from the promise of ""Zachor," "Remember" understand what happened to the people whose names are on the memorial, or on the gravestones, or to the 6 million others who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators?

Who will remember Max Windmueller and the 6 million Jews and almost 12 million others who were killed in the Holocaust? Students sitting in classes today are the third generation since the Holocaust. How will the third generation of people born after the Holocaust understand what Max and other victims of the Holocaust experienced and who will Remember?

6

One way future generations will understand the experiences of Holocaust survivors is by watching and listening to recorded oral histories. The oral histories of several Richmond survivors can be found on the Virginia Holocaust Museum's Vimeo channel, https://vimeo.com/user6835822. Still others can be seen on the United States Holocaust Museum website, https://vimeo.com/user6835822.

People who learn about the Holocaust, people who listen to the oral histories of survivors become Upstanders, they stand up for the memories of those people whose stories they have heard and the information they have learned. And they are more likely to stand up when they see someone discriminated against or treated unjustly. How can people of the current generation help the words of the Holocaust be remembered?

As a class, find ways of translating what you have learned into some practical action such as:

Emek Sholom Cemetery has a “Never Again” essay competition and the Virginia Holocaust Museum has an art contest, information for these can be found on http://www.emeksholomcemeteryrichmond.org and http://www.va-holocaust.com/content/student-opportunities.

Create an art display for other people of your generation.

Create a video about what you have learned.

Use concepts of the Holocaust to create an age appropriate story book for younger students.

Read about current anti-Semitic actions taking place in Europe right now. Take your learning and write your opinions to a local newspaper so that others can understand that the third generation remembers.

db.yadvashem.org

Name7

Year of BirthPlace of Residence SourceFate based on this sourceWindmueller,Johanne 1885 Emden, Germany Page of Testimony Murdered Vindmiler,Adolf 1880 Emden, Germany Page of Testimony Murdered Windmueller,Max Emden, Germany Page of Testimony Murdered Windmueller,Max 1920 Emden, Germany List of murdered Jews ... Murdered Windmueller,Adolf 1880 Berlin, Germany List of deportation f ... Murdered Windmueller,Salomon 1910 Emden, Germany List of murdered Jews ...

Murdered Altmann,Riekchen 1907 Emden, Germany List of murdered Jews ... Murdered Windmueller,Jette 1892 Emden, Germany List of murdered Jews ... Murdered Windmueller,Adolf 1880 Emden, Germany Page of Testimony Murdered Windmueller,Isidor 1873 Berlin, Germany List of deportation f ... Murdered Windmueller,Ruth 1910 Emden, Germany List of persecuted pe ... Samson,Jenny Emden, Germany List of persecuted pe ... Murdered Samson,Minna 1881 Hamburg, Germany List of persecuted pe ... Murdered

Refer also to the list of 460 names engraved on the Emek Sholom Holocaust Memorialon www:emeksholomcemeteryrichmond.org link: About ESHMC

8