The excerpt from Marion A. Kaplan’s book, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life In Nazi Germany was a fantastic microcosm of not only the plight of German Jews in the pre-war years, but specifically of the trauma facing the children. Early in Chapter 4, The Daily Lives of Jewish Children and Youth in the “Third Reich”, Kaplan states:

Because children spend so much time in school, unprotected by family, Jewish children continually met with the blatant repercussions of Nazism there. Well before Jewish children were expelled from German public schools, the majority lost the rights of non-Jews. They often had to sit apart from classmates. The curriculum isolated them further… Teachers often required essays on pro-Nazi themes. Jews, however, were prohibited from addressing these topics and, instead, were given arbitrary topics that had never been discussed in class. No matter how well an essay was written, a Jewish child seldom received a top grade (Kaplan 95).

If this were the only excerpt I used in class, I would have many directions with which to go. Breaking this down into component phrases or sentences, I could have students analyze life for the German Jew in the 1930’s. For example, if we look at the first sentence,

Because children spend so much time in school, unprotected by family, Jewish children continually met with the blatant repercussions of Nazism there.

we can apply what we know about our own lives and experiences in the school setting to draw a dichotomy with the material about life ~70 years ago. A line of questioning might proceed as such:

1. Tell about the first day of school that you can remember – what did you wear, who did you already know in your class, who was your teacher, what was your first impression of him/her, did you take a lunch, did your mom take you or did you walk or ride a bus, etc.
2. What is your opinion of school today? What do you like best and/or least about coming here?
3. When are times at school when you might feel insecure? Do you feel that way often? Was there a better or worse time or year that you remember?
4. What do you think “met with the blatant repercussions of Nazism” means? Can you relate anything similar in your experience?

Kaplan’s narrative moves through a step-by-step history of laws that applied to children concerning the schools. She also gives us several first-person accounts from people who lived through these constricting events. One example cites a young man who so did not want to stand out that he told his aunt that he wanted to stop being a Jew and join the Hitler Youth so he could march with the other boys (99). Despite those longings, he still received a beating that indirectly led to his death (ibid). Kaplan provides the reader with hard statistics concerning the growth of Jewish schools as families felt forced out (or actually were) of the public schools. Numbers from 1932 show that about 14% of Jewish students attended Jewish schools; by the peak in 1937 60% of Jewish children attended Jewish schools (103). With those figures alone, we can pursue a different line of questioning:

1. We have a Catholic high school only about 1 ½ miles from our school. How would life be different here if all of our Catholic students suddenly withdrew and went there?
2. What changes would occur for the Catholic students?
3. What changes would occur here?
4. Discuss times in your experience here where you felt that diversity among your classroom population was good – that it enhanced a discussion or you were able to draw on a different perspective from one of your classmates.
5. Discuss times in your experience here where you felt that diversity among your classroom population was negative – that it created a discussion that you were uncomfortable with or ended with an unpleasant tone in the room.
6. Of the above two experiences, which stands out in your mind more?

Lastly, we can make use of specific memories of children who survived and the pain they carried not only then, but also into adulthood long after the war.

Children not only were aware of the political and social situation of their families but also experienced rejection directly from other children. They were perhaps even more deeply hurt than their parents. A thirteen-year-old who had many girlfriends “was forced to be alone. When I got home, I turned to my homework immediately.” Some of these wounds lasted a lifetime. Marion Gardner, born in 1931, wrote: I was lonely, and until today… it is hard for me to make friends…. It didn’t take long until one got used to not being allowed to be together with other Germans.” (107).

From this last quote, perhaps the most compelling question an instructor can ask concerns the last statement and will delve into the Jewish perspective on the entire issue of forced separation –

It didn’t take long until one got used to not being allowed to be together with other Germans.

Focusing on “not being allowed”, the instructor can ask students to come up with a timeline of not just legislative events, but social events from the reading of Chapter 4. Zeroing in on the phrase “with other Germans” the teacher can lead students to gather the perspectives of persons within this chapter who felt that they were already in the “in-crowd” and had no idea why they were suddenly being shoved aside. And not just aside, but down and out…

This excerpt from Kaplan’s book will serve as a wonderful resource for you to give your students a broader perspective of the perceptions of people their own age as they were forced to endure this hell created beyond their scope of understanding, and certainly beyond their control.