Melissa Garcia

Professor Warner

English 112B

9 December 2009

Remembering the Pain: Unit about Holocaust Literature

�What matters is that all this did happen.� – Janusz Korczak

Rationale

To many students, the word �history� brings to mind memorizing constitutional amendments, years and dates of important events, treaties, the names of Kings and Queens and Presidents--essentially, facts. I certainly cannot recall a day when I jumped up and down in anticipation of going to a World History class. As a high school student I felt, as many students probably also feel, that these past events usually had no relevance in my life. Well, maybe they did, but I usually became far too bored before I could uncover that relevance. However, despite my tendency to nod off during history classes, I have to admit that certain subjects did and still do get my attention. As morbid or insensitive as it may sound, I am always wide awake and attentive when learning about persecution, extreme suffering or death. I may not be able to tell you which form of government any given country is ruled by, but I do know a few facts about slavery, segregation, and the Holocaust. The reason for this is directly related to my reason for choosing such a subject for my unit. I firmly believe that although stories about suffering, injustice, and death are tragic to read, they certainly send us a powerful message. When I read about such things, I am not merely adding a new fact to my collection of �facts I will forget in a week,� but I am learning a lesson about humanity.

Reading about a topic such as the Holocaust reminds students that our world cannot function on hate. This reminder is especially important to local schools which are so ethnically and racially diverse. In an environment like high school, where students so often form cliques and rivals, it may be tempting for a student to submit to the belief that certain groups of people are inherently better than others. However, literature on the Holocaust sends the blatant message that beliefs of group superiority can lead to a lot more than stereotypes and racial slurs. Many estimates suggest the Holocaust killed more than 11 million people, and these deaths all stemmed from the belief that certain people were inherently less human than others.

For my unit plan, I have chosen Night by Elie Wiesel as my central canonical text. I decided to focus on this novel because it is a tragic, but beautifully written example of how hate breeds hate. In this novel, Eliezer, the adolescent protagonist and narrator, records his story of surviving several concentration camps during Hitler�s rule. Not only is the cruelty of the concentration camp guards told in detail, but Eliezer also chronicles how the Jewish members of the camps turn on each other. Disillusioned by hunger and pain, one boy kills his father for a piece of bread, while another tries to run away from his father to spare himself of the responsibilities of caring for him. Though Eliezer tells himself several times that he will never succumb to such cold savagery, he eventually is overwhelmed by the sacrifices he must make to keep his father alive. On several occasions he battles with a part of him that wants to be rid of his father to increase his own chances of survival. Eliezer�s and other prisoners� behaviors will certainly shock and disgust students. However, these events also act as a sort of psychological study of human behavior: given the horrible conditions that the prisoners are put under--being starved, beaten, treated as animals--it is no wonder they behave so inhumanely. Students will no doubt benefit from reading this and other texts about the Holocaust; such texts are hard to remain unaffected by, for they awaken the deepest feelings of sympathy, reflection, and human compassion.

Launching the Unit

1. To warm students up for the discussion that will be prompted from Elie Wiesel�s Night, I will first have them write for about twenty minutes to the following prompt:

Ÿ Write about anything you know about the Holocaust. You can write about anything that relates to this event: casualty facts, people who survived it, books or movies about it, World War II, Nazi tactics, etc. Also write about any questions you have about it. Is there anything that is unclear about what happened during this time?

�After students have written their responses, they will break off into groups of four or five and discuss what they wrote with each other. This exercise is designed to familiarize students with the history of the event in a way that perhaps less boring than simply reading a textbook. They can enhance each other�s knowledge with things that they have picked up about the Holocaust. This activity is also designed to get students thinking about why such an event happened. This, of course, is an open-ended question, but hopefully students start thinking about the central beliefs that caused millions to believe that the Aryan race had the right to exterminate people. During or after discussion, students are welcome to pass around the following books to skim over the following books:

Tell Them We Remember: The Story of the Holocaust, by Susan D. Bachrach: This is a highly acclaimed book filled with information of life before, during, and after the Holocaust for Jewish people. It is filled with pictures of the concentration camps, definitions for Holocaust vocabulary terms, along with brief, but well-written descriptions about the political background involved in the Holocaust. It is a less intimidating text for students to read than a history text book.

The Holocaust: The World and the Jews, 1933-1945, by Seymour Rossel: This text is also filled with pictures of life during the Holocaust years. It also focused on life in the ghettos. It breaks down reasoning for political actions.

2. Have students listen to and read the lyrics from the song �Red Sector A,� by the band �Rush:�

All that we can do is just survive

All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive x2

Ragged lines of ragged grey

Skeletons, they shuffle away

Shouting guards and smoking guns

Will cut down the unlucky ones

I clutch the wire fence until my fingers bleed

A wound that will not heal

A heart that cannot feel

Hoping that the horror will recede

Hoping that tomorrow we'll all be freed

Sickness to insanity

Prayer to profanity

Days and weeks and months go by

Don't feel the hunger

Too weak to cry

I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate

Are the liberators here?

Do I hope or do I fear?

For my father and my brother, it's too late

But I must help my mother stand up straight

Are we the last ones left alive?

Are we the only human beings to survive?�

�Have students discuss the following questions:

a. What are the emotions expressed in this song?

b. Is there any irony in this song?

c. Would you have known that this song is about the Holocaust if you had not been informed? What other events could this song be relevant to?

3.. Have students read a poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller called �First they came��:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

�I will inform students on who Pastor Martin Niemoller was: a longtime Lutheran Pastor and, initially, a Hitler supporter. This changed when Hitler�s government tried to take over Niemoller�s church. Niemoller was then sent to prison and concentration camps for eight years for resistance against the Nazis. After his freedom, he deeply regretted not standing up against the Nazis until it directly affected him. This poem is about the silence of the Germans in challenging Nazi politics during the Holocaust. However, more generally, it introduces the theme of �every man for himself� that will come about in Elie Wiesel�s Night. Students should discuss the poem and discuss the following questions:

a. Why do you think so many German citizens did not challenge Hitler? To what extent do you think German citizens truly supported Hitler?

b. Do you think you would speak up for another group, if it meant endangering your own safety?

Centerpiece/Canonical Text

1. As we get through the book, these will be the in-class discussion questions we have for respective chapters. Students will answer these questions individually during a Sustained Silent Reading session, and then break up into groups of three of four to share ideas.

Chapter 1:

a. How do the Jews contribute to their own deportation?

b. Why do you think they consider Moche a lunatic?

Chapter 2:

a. Explain ways in which people act as animals in this section.

b. What do you think is the significance of Madame Schachter�s screaming?

Chapter 3:

a. Why do you think the Nazis decided to spare Elie and his father from the crematory at the last minute? Is this perhaps a strategy for something?

b. Discuss how Eliezer�s�s faith in God has changed since the first chapter.

Chapter 4:

a. What are some examples of extreme desperation in this chapter?

b. What do you notice about Eliezer�s feelings for his dad? Why do you think he acts like he does?

Chapter 5:

a. Do you think Eliezer and his father have stopped believing in God?

b. In what ways are the Nazis like a God to the prisoners?

Chapter 6:

a. What is Eliezer�s running symbolic for?

b. What do you think is the significance of the violin playing?

c. In what ways in Eliezer similar to the Rabbi�s son who abandons his father? Do you think Eliezer is capable of doing what this boy did?

Chapter 7:

a. What is the significance of the corpses being so tangled up with live bodies within the train?

b. Do you think Eliezer�s father is better off dying at this point?

Chapter 8:

a. What is your reaction to Eliezer saying, �I might perhaps have found something like--free at last!�? Do you think he is cruel, heartless, or justified in his feelings?

b. In what ways has Eliezer grown? In which ways has he regressed? Answer the same questions about Eliezer�s father.

Chapter 9:

a. Do you find it odd that this chapter is so short, and that the novel ends so abruptly? Why or why not?

2. Possible Essay Topics:

Ÿ What is the �night� a metaphor for throughout the novel? How does it function or relate to the plot or emotions of the novel?

Ÿ Does Eliezer ultimately succumb to the behaviors of an animal? Consider ways in which he is emotionally numb, and ways in which he still displays human compassion.

Ÿ Janusz Korczak, a poet of Holocaust poetry is quoted as saying, �What matters is that all this did happen.� Why do you think that literature about the Holocaust �matters�?

3. Possible Project Idea:

Research a bit of your cultural, religious, or ethnic background. Write a 3-4 page essay about a way in which a group that you belong to has suffered under another supposedly �superior� group. Briefly summarize your findings and what value you have found in learning this history in a presentation to the class. Feel free to pass out or show any visuals that may help.

Extending the Unit

1. Young Adult Literature selections: The following titles would be great in conjunction with Elie Wiesel�s Night. Probably no more than one novel could be read in class. If students are interested in the Holocaust, the following titles should satisfy their curiosity. For extra credit, students could maybe read one of these novels (with the exception of The Accident) and compare and contrast the experiences of Eliezer with the protagonist of the other novel. All novel summaries and summaries are taken from Amazon.com.

Cormier, Robert. Tunes for Bears to Dance to. New York: Delacort Press, 1992.

A masterful portrayal of hatred, prejudice and manipulation that challenges readers to examine how they would behave in the face of evil. Henry meets and befriends Mr. Levine, an elderly Holocaust survivor, who is carving a replica of the village where he lived and which was destroyed in the war. Henry's friendship with Mr. Levine is put to the test when his prejudiced boss, Mr. Hairston, asks Henry to destroy Mr. Levine's village.

Lowry, Lois. Number the Stars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989.

The evacuation of Jews from Nazi-held Denmark is one of the great untold stories of World War II. On September 29, 1943, word got out in Denmark that Jews were to be detained and then sent to the death camps. Within hours the Danish resistance, population and police arranged a small flotilla to herd 7,000 Jews to Sweden. Lois Lowry fictionalizes a true-story account to bring this courageous tale to life. She brings the experience to life through the eyes of 10-year-old Annemarie Johannesen, whose family harbors her best friend, Ellen Rosen, on the eve of the round-up and helps smuggles Ellen's family out of the country. Number the Stars won the 1990 Newbery Medal.

Spinelli, Jerry. Milkweed. Waterville, Maine: Thorndike, 2003.

Newbery Medal-winning author Jerry Spinelli (Maniac McGee, Stargirl) paints a vivid picture of the streets of the Nazi-occupied Warsaw during World War II, as seen through the eyes of a curious, kind, heartbreakingly na�ve orphan with many names. His name is Stopthief when people shout "Stop! Thief!" as he flees with stolen bread. Or it's Jew, "filthy son of Abraham," depending on who's talking to him. Or, maybe he's a Gypsy, because his eyes are black, his skin is dark, and he wears a mysterious yellow stone around his neck. His new friend and protector Uri forces him to take the name Misha Pilsudski and to memorize a made-up story about his Gypsy background so that no one will mistake him for a Jew and kill him. Misha, a very young boy, is slow to understand what's happening around him. When he sees people running, he thinks it's a race. Nazis (Jackboots, as the children call them) marching through the streets appear to him as a delightful parade of magnificent boots. He wants to be a Jackboot! (Uri smacks him for saying this.) He compares bombs to sauerkraut kettles, machine guns to praying mantises, and tanks to "colossal gray long-snouted beetles." The story of Misha and his band of orphans trying to survive on their own would have a deliciously Dickensian quality, if it weren't for the devastation around them--people hurrying to dig trenches to stop Nazi tanks, shops exploding in flames, the wailing of sirens, buzzing airplanes, bombs, and human torture. Spinelli has written a powerfully moving story of survival--readers will love Misha the dreamer and his wonderfully poetic observations of the world around him, his instinct to befriend a Jewish girl and her family, his impulse to steal food for a local orphanage and his friends in the ghetto, and his ability to delight in small things even surrounded by the horror of the Holocaust.

Wiesel, Elie. Dawn. The Night Trilogy. New York: Hill and Wang, 1961.

Elisha is a young Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor, and an Israeli freedom fighter in British-controlled Palestine; John Dawson is the captured English officer he will murder at dawn in retribution for the British execution of a fellow freedom fighter. The night-long wait for morning and death provides Dawn, Elie Wiesel�s ever more timely novel, with its harrowingly taut, hour-by-hour narrative. Caught between the manifold horrors of the past and the troubling dilemmas of the present, Elisha wrestles with guilt, ghosts, and ultimately God as he waits for the appointed hour and his act of assassination. Dawn is an eloquent meditation on the compromises, justifications, and sacrifices that human beings make when they murder other human beings.

---. The Accident. The Night Trilogy. New York: Hill and Wang, 1962.

In this modern classic, a young journalist steps off a curb and into the path of a speeding taxi. Is it an accident, or has a tormented past driven Eliezer, a German death camp survivor, to attempt suicide? Torn between choosing life and death, he must come to grips with the catastrophe that befell him, his family, his people.

Concluding the Unit

1. Have students watch Tim Blake Nelson�s The Grey Zone. As James Berardinelli puts it, �The film illustrates the darker side of the human instinct for survival – how men can be capable of things they never would have thought possible in the face of death� (Thirdreich). The director does not necessarily judge the prisoners for betraying one another in order to survive. He leaves it up to the viewer. In conclusion of the unit on the Holocaust, have students reflect on these questions:

1. What do you think about the prisoner�s comment in the film, "How can you know what you'd do to stay alive until you're asked?" Do you think you could do anything to stay alive?

2. The Grey Zone and Night are both very unforgiving portrayals of life during the Holocaust. They leave the viewer/reader with a haunting feeling, and perhaps even with some disappointment in mankind. Given the horrible images these pieces leave us with, why do they �matter?� What do they teach us about hate?

Works Cited

Bachrach, Susan D. Tell Them We Remember: The Story of the Holocaust. United States: Little, Brown Books, 1994.

Berardinelli, James. �The Grey Zone: A Film Review by James Berardinelli.� Third Reich Roundtable, 12 January 2003. Web. 7 December 2009. <http://www.thirdreich.

Net./Holocaust_Movies.html>

Rossel, Seymour. The Holocaust: The World and the Jews, 1933-1945. New Jersey: Behrman House: 1992.

Rush. Red Sector A. Mercury, 1984.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. The Night Trilogy. New York: Hill and Wang, 1960.

Nelson, Tim Blake. The Grey Zone. Perf. David Arquette. Lions Gate Entertainment, 2001.

Niemoller, Martin. �First they came�� Public Speech. Location unknown. 1946.