Resources Included in the WebQuest
"A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Federal support guarantees the Museum’s permanent place on the National Mall, and its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by generous donors" (USHMM).
Beyond the museum, USHMM has created a valuable resource of information through their website. One of the most impressive features of the site is a Holocaust Encyclopedia that students and teachers can use to further research topics related to the Holocaust.
Beyond the museum, USHMM has created a valuable resource of information through their website. One of the most impressive features of the site is a Holocaust Encyclopedia that students and teachers can use to further research topics related to the Holocaust.
What this foundation has done is truly astounding. The first person accounts of the survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust seen on this website are invaluable. The archive is easily searched by topic which makes it a great tool for teens when looking for first person accounts of the experiences they read about when reading Holocaust fiction or non-fiction.
"Initially, Spielberg aimed for narratives from 50,000 Holocaust survivors and rescue-worker witnesses. However, once that goal was reached and exceeded, the foundation used these testimonies in their production of documentaries. More recently, this foundation, which grew out of a desire to ensure that the Holocaust will never happen again, expanded into collecting accounts from the Armenian, Rwandan and Cambodian genocides. With the connection to USC, these eyewitness stories serve as educational tools that will elicit the strong emotive response necessary for the prevention of future attempts at genocide" (Kirkus Reviews)
"The Legacy Of Schindler's List And The USC Shoah Foundation." Kirkus Reviews 82.6 (2014): 248.
"Initially, Spielberg aimed for narratives from 50,000 Holocaust survivors and rescue-worker witnesses. However, once that goal was reached and exceeded, the foundation used these testimonies in their production of documentaries. More recently, this foundation, which grew out of a desire to ensure that the Holocaust will never happen again, expanded into collecting accounts from the Armenian, Rwandan and Cambodian genocides. With the connection to USC, these eyewitness stories serve as educational tools that will elicit the strong emotive response necessary for the prevention of future attempts at genocide" (Kirkus Reviews)
"The Legacy Of Schindler's List And The USC Shoah Foundation." Kirkus Reviews 82.6 (2014): 248.
Literature Resources
The following books would be helpful companions to this project:
Yolen, Jane. The Devil's Arithmetic. New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Viking Kestrel, 1988.
"...Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic, the story of a young Jewish girl inside a Nazi concentration camp, and the rarest type of Holocaust literature for younger readers. It is interesting to note how Yolen handles the subject to bring it within the grasp of the teenage audience. The Devil's Arithmetic is a time-shift fantasy, employing a story within a story. The protagonist, Hannah, a character based on Yolen herself (249), is transported from the present back in time to 1942 (how is neither explained nor important to the story), experiences life in Poland as Chaya, an orphaned girl who ends up in a concentration camp, and then, as mysteriously, is transported back to the present, where no perceptible time has elapsed. (Lloyd Alexander uses a similar technique in The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha.) But aside from the time-shift, the story is closer to historical realism than to fantasy, with its shattering portrayal of the Nazi treatment of the Jews" (Russell, 272).
Russell, David L. "Reading the Shards and Fragments: Holocaust Literature for Young Readers." Lion and the Unicorn 21.2 (Apr. 1997): 267-280.
Zullo, Allan, and Mara Bovsun. Survivors: True Stories of Children in the Holocaust. New York: Scholastic, 2004.
"This gripping account of nine survivors of the Holocaust deserves a wide audience. The Jewish children featured here ranged in age from 4 to 17 when they began to experience the horrors of the Nazi regime. Young Luncia and Sarah were wedged into precarious hiding places in Poland. Herbert was on a crowded refugee ship that could find no safe haven, even in France. Starving Markus and Walter found the strength to endure years of forced labor. George and his little sister Ursula were part of Kindertransport, unfortunately to Holland. Mathei became a young partisan in the Polish underground, while Jack survived a death march to Germany. A must for all libraries" (Griffin, 28).
Griffin, Maureen. "Zullo, Allan & Bovsun, Mara. Survivors: True Stories of Children in the Holocaust." Kliatt Nov. 2005: 28
Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. New York: Bantam Books, 1993.
"By the end of the 1980s, 16 million copies of The Diary of Anne Frank had been sold worldwide; in 1992, forty years after its first publication in English, it was the twelfth most borrowed book in public libraries in the U.K. Besides being an extraordinary record of events which are rendered more immediate by the diary format and more dramatic by the unities of place and time imposed by the extraordinary circumstances, it reveals the uninhibited inner thoughts and feelings of an intelligent, articulate, self-critical young adult, and methodically and faithfully charts the development of her personality through various changes until she can say to her alter ego: 'I know what I want, I have a goal, an opinion. I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I'm a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage' (11 April 1944). She has in the course of her unique exposition, as the poet and critic John Berryman pointed out, described 'the conversion of a child into a person.'" (Kamm).
Kamm, Antony. "Anne Frank: Overview." Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers. Ed. Laura Standley Berger. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. Twentieth-Century Writers Series.
Kor, Eva M, and Lisa Rojany-Buccieri. Surviving the Angel of Death: The Story of a Mengele Twin in Auschwitz. Terre Haute, IN: Tanglewood, 2009.
"A Holocaust survivor describes her experiences as one of the sets of twins forced at Auschwitz to submit to Dr. Josef Mengele's sadistic medical experiments. The writing is clear and straightforward, adding an authentic and relevant first-person voice to the literature on the subject for young adults. Some black-and-white photographs are included. An epilogue and author's note are appended" (Cohn, 179).
Cohn, Amy L. "Kor, Eva: Mozes, and Lisa Rojany Buccieri." The Horn Book Guide Spring 2010: 179.
Be Interactive
In Terre Haute, Indiana, we are fortunate enough to have access to the CANDLES Museum. CANDLES is an acronym for Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors. CANDLES was founded in 1995 by Eva Mozes Kor who, as a twin, survived the genetic experiments of Dr. Josef Mengele in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Eva Kor is still living and does Skype sessions with students around the country.
The CANDLES Museum offers a special price for a classroom set of Eva's book, Surviving the Angel of Death: A Mengele Twin in Auschwitz, along with a one-hour presentation and Q&A with Eva herself.
For more information on Skyping with Eva, email or call Nicole Sconce, the Operations Director: [email protected], 812-234-7881.
More information about the CANDLES Museum can be found at: http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org/
The CANDLES Museum offers a special price for a classroom set of Eva's book, Surviving the Angel of Death: A Mengele Twin in Auschwitz, along with a one-hour presentation and Q&A with Eva herself.
For more information on Skyping with Eva, email or call Nicole Sconce, the Operations Director: [email protected], 812-234-7881.
More information about the CANDLES Museum can be found at: http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org/