Speak Up, Speak Out from Holocaust Memorial Day Trust

ARCHIVE for HMD2010: The Legacy of Hope

The case studies and related education resources for HMD2010, The Legacy of Hope, have been archived. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is currently focusing on the theme for this year, Speak Up, Speak Out.

HMD 2010 English and Drama Lesson (Secondary)

This lesson is based on the Oneg Shabbat case study.

Aim: To explore the use imagery within poetry as a response to the Holocaust and to create new poetry as a Legacy of Hope.

Starter: Explain that you are going to think about words as images. Suggest that students work in groups of 4 and ask them to find a space in which to work together. Give each group ten word cards in an envelope. One person selects a card and reads the word aloud. The other 3, working together, create a tableau or still image to show what the word means to them. This should be based on first reactions rather than a long discussion. Change readers after two words have been illustrated. Try to build an image for at least 4 of the words.

Give groups time to talk together, AFTER the task, about the images and what they wanted them to show. Ask which image provided the best illustration of a word?

Sharing concepts

Each group should now demonstrate their two chosen images (without the words) to another group. Can the group identify the original words? See the next page for a list of words.

Group discussion

Ask the students whether it was easy to match the images to the words? Were some words harder to express? Were some types of words more difficult to show than others e.g. nouns (Monument) or verbs (Remembering)? Which words could have more than one meaning and therefore need more than one image? (e.g. “help”)

Is it easier to represent an image of something physical (Monument) or a concept (freedom)? Think of reasons for the answer.

Whole class work

Bring all the groups together and talk about the use of words to create images. Ask whether some groups created similar images for the same words? What were the common features or gestures?

Explain that all the words on the cards have been taken from the writings of people imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto. Use the Oneg Shabbat case study and outline what happened there. Tell the students that whilst some people chose to write factual historical accounts others wrote poems about the events they were witnessing, expressing the emotions they were feeling at the time.

Ask the students to use evidence from the case study to explain why members of Oneg Shabbat made time to write poetry. Who did they intend to read it? Why did they bury their writing? Does a poem have less, as much or more impact on the reader than a purely factual report? The Oneg Shabbat archive contains examples of both. Will a reader today gain more understanding of events if s/he examines both types of writing?

Studying an archive poem

Explain that many of the writers sent a message to the future. They asked readers they would never meet, people like us, to remember them. They left us a legacy – a gift from the past. They intended their writing to be a memorial. They knew they did not have long to live but they wanted the next generation to remember their lives and see them as individuals. We can become part of their Legacy of Hope when we read their words and explore their message: (See next page for examples)

Give everyone these extracts from a poem by Wladyslaw Szlengel. Explain he was a member of Oneg Shabbat and one of the people imprisoned in the Ghetto.

Ask someone to read part one to the rest of the class. Please note the punctuation marks are as written in the original.