Speak Up, Speak Out from Holocaust Memorial Day Trust

HMD 2012 Primary History Lesson Plan

Looking at those who spoke out during the Holocaust
This lesson is best suited for year six after they have studied a previous lesson on the Holocaust.

Aim:

  • to introduce pupils to the stories of those individuals that spoke out during the Holocaust

Outcomes:

  • pupils will learn about some of the individuals that spoke out against the Nazis and tried to stop what was happening.
  • pupils will recognise that people spoke out for different reasons
  • pupils will reflect on whether events in history can help to inform them about events or actions today.

Resources:

Stage 1
Introduce the theme of the Holocaust – do they know what it means?
Explain to the pupils that some people were willing to Speak Up, Speak Out against what was happening and were willing to challenge the Nazis.

Ask the pupils if they know how risky it was to speak up. Explain that the punishment was different in different countries, but that it was always risky. Punishments could include imprisonment, deportation to a concentration camp, and physical beatings. Read out each of the three case studies.

Stage 2
In small groups give the pupils the adapted versions of the case studies, one per group.

Ask them to answer the following questions

Who spoke out (it might be more than one person in each story)?

What exactly did the people do to speak out?

Did they have to operate in secret? Or was it a public act?

How were they stopped from speaking out further?

Does it say why they spoke out?

Stage3
Ask the pupils to report back their answers and either in the groups or as a class create a spider map of the stories of each of those who spoke out.

Ask the pupils if they think the stories are important to remember the Holocaust.

Ask the pupils if they think the stories have any importance for today.

Finish with a review of what they have learnt about different people who lived and spoke out during the Holocaust.

Steven Frank – case study for primary

Steven Frank was born in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In 1940 when he was five years old the Nazis invaded and occupied the country. His life and that of his two brothers changed very quickly because they were Jewish. His parents were not religious and thought of their identity as Dutch.

‘I was suddenly different from all my other friends. I was no longer allowed to play in the park, my father could not take public transport to work; I couldn’t go into the swimming pool or the zoo.’

Steven’s father Leonard Frank was a lawyer. He was well respected and very involved with the Amsterdam authorities. Leonard Frank sat on the board of a large hospital for the mentally ill. When the Nazis invaded, the family had offers of help to escape to Britain. Leonard Frank was worried about the patients and refused to leave them. He became involved with resistance activities. Leonard Frank wrote letters on behalf of Jews arrested by the Nazis, asking for better treatment and for them not to be deported to concentration camps.

The whole Frank family suffered under the restrictions. People they knew were arrested and others went into hiding. Sometimes people were hidden at the Frank’s house, a very risky thing for a Jewish family to do.

In December 1942 Leonard Frank set off for work as usual (by bike as Jews were not allowed to use other forms of transport). He was arrested by the Nazis and sent to a prison where he was interrogated for his resistance activities.

Some brave non-Jewish friends of Leonard wrote a letter asking for him to be free. All of them risked punishment. One of the men was Arnold D’Ailly who after the war became the mayor of Amsterdam.

Shortly after his father’s arrest Steven, his mother and his brothers received notice that they were to be sent away. Nothing could be done to help them.

Westerbork camp was a transit camp, where Dutch Jews were held until they were deported to camps in Eastern Europe. People held in these camps often ended up in Auschwitz.

The Frank family spent a number of months living in Westerbork transit camp. During this time, a lot of their friends in the camp were loaded onto trains and sent away. The Frank family were also deported to Theresienstadt ghetto camp in occupied Czechoslovakia in September 1944.

Theresienstadt was very over crowded – disease was everywhere and thousands of people were dying. Steven and his brothers and mother managed to survive. He and his brothers are three of only 93 children who survived Theresienstadt out of the 15,000 children who were sent there. His father did not survive the Holocaust.

After the war Steven his brothers and mother moved to England to try and rebuild their lives.