The material used in this lesson plan is excerpted from the book Faces of Courage:  Young Heroes of World War II by Sally M. Rogow.

 

OBJECTIVE:  Students will be able to list the risks involved and the resources needed for rescue, including rescue of and by children, to have taken place during the Holocaust.

 

MOTIVATIONAL ACTIVITY:  Write the following on the chalkboard or on an overhead transparency –

 

A rescuer is someone who endangered him- or herself to save a Jewish life before or during WWII without expectation of reward (either monetary compensation or the expectation that the Jew would convert to some form of Christianity).

 

Ask the following questions – you may desire to let the discussion take a natural course, as some comments or thoughts might lead to other ideas.

 

1.      What is your first impression of this statement?

2.      Is it a definition?  If so, is it definitive?

3.      What constitutes rescue?

4.      What are some possible gray areas you can see in this statement (teacher – for example:  what if the rescued party was killed in the rescue attempt?  What if the attempt failed?  What if the person who was going to be rescued turned out to not want to be saved?  What if plans were being laid for a raid or some other daring rescue, and the plan never saw fruition?)?

5.      What types of things (tangible and/or intangible) would a rescuer need to be successful?

 

ENGAGING ACTIVITY:  Students should read Chapter 4, the story of Kirsten, a Danish girl who rescued Jewish children (found on pages 43-58 of Faces of Courage:  Young Heroes of World War II by Sally M. Rogow).  Note – this selection is historical fiction.  The author bases her writing on information gleaned from two book resources:  Leo Goldberger’s The Rescue of the Danish Jews:  Moral Courage Under Stress and Ellen Levine’s Darkness Over Denmark:  The Danish Resistance and the Rescue of Jews.

 

Assignments to go with this reading:

 

1.      Draw a picture or make a collage depicting Kirsten’s time with the Jewish orphans – having the Viking puppet show, making their own puppets or having the clown parade.

2.      Write a poem that describes Kirsten’s fear when she was accosted by the German soldiers while in the street with the children.

3.      Research and write a short paper on the fate of the Jews of Denmark and/or the Danish Resistance movement/fighters.

4.      Make an illustrated timeline of the Holocaust specific to Denmark.

5.      Make a shadowbox of the church basement where the children were sheltered; make a 3D image of the children sailing to safety in Sweden.  Attach captions to your work.

6.      Write a one-act play that describes a scene that might have taken place in the church basement before, during, and after a visit to the property by the Gestapo.

 

 

ASSESSMENT:  Students should present to the class and the instructor their work from the above projects.  Each presentation should be at least five minutes in length, and should demonstrate the following competencies:

 

1.      The presentation should be relevant to a specific part of the story.

2.      Those who have read the story should be able to easily identify the project’s focus, and state why they chose not only the topic they are presenting, but also be able to tell about it specifically.

3.      The project should show knowledge of not only the story’s events, but of their importance to the Holocaust in Denmark.

4.      The project should demonstrate some predetermined degree of research outside the story reading on the part of the presenter.

 

 

RESOURCE:

 

Rogow, Sally M.  Faces of Courage:  Young Heroes of World War II.  Vancouver:  Granville Island Publishing, 2003.  155 Pages.  ISBN #1894694201.