The material used in this lesson plan is excerpted from the book Sevek and the Holocaust: The Boy Who Refused To Die by Sidney Finkel:

OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to discuss psychological/relational/economic/physical steps survivors went through upon liberation from the war/Holocaust.

MOTIVATIONAL ACTIVITY: Students should read the following passage:

My family was delighted and relieved by a letter that came from my brother Isaac, while he was recuperating from wounds in a German hospital. He was treated well by the Germans despite all the other atrocities. A year later, after being released from the hospital, he traveled by train to Piotrkow. He had the luck to meet someone who knew where we lived in the Ghetto, and he took him there. His arrival at our home was a huge pleasant surprise to us. Imagine the family’s elation that he was standing among us and looking well. My mother and father were very emotional, crying with tears of joy.

Isaac still had his Polish uniform on except that he, too, was wearing a yellow badge that identified him as a Jew. We all crowded around Isaac hugging him and making him welcome. Mother was able to make a very nice dinner in his honor. After dinner Isaac lit a cigarette and began to tell us a fantastic story of survival (33).

Ask your students what their impression is of the reading. What is its tone? What is the feeling of the people in the story – optimistic or pessimistic? Use single words to paint a word picture of the setting. Compile the students’ impressions in a list on the chalkboard.

MAIN ACTIVITY: Upon completion of the opening activity, students should consider a timeframe for that reading. Knowing that the family in the story was in Poland, yet knowing that they were in a ghetto should tip them off that the story takes place around 1940, perhaps even as late as 1941. However, the following reading, about the same family, takes place in 1945, after the war is over. The Red Army has liberated the Polish lands. Read the excerpt that follows:

Isaac, who had learned that a group of children had arrived from Buchenwald, had walked the streets shouting my name. Isaac didn’t look good. He was skinny, and his eyes were sad like he had been crying a lot. Isaac looked into his knapsack and brought out a bar of chocolate. Wow! This was the first candy I had eaten in five years.

It was common for all survivors to have lengthy discussions about the whereabouts of relatives. We couldn’t abandon hope that someone in our family had survived. The reality was that only a handful of the three million Polish Jews had survived the war, a couple of hundred thousand. When Isaac questioned me about our father, I explained to him that I had contact with father in Buchenwald, and that he had been shipped out to a slave labor camp in Germany. I was short in my answer because I had guilt about what I felt was my abandonment of my father. I was conflicted by my ugly thought that had father dead. This was not because I didn’t love him. I was frightened that I would have to look after him. Even though I was free, I still found myself totally focused on my own survival and felt guilt about having survived.

We thought that Lola could have survived the war, but neither of us knew. People were traveling all over Europe trying to find any family members who had survived the war. A few weeks later Isaac had news about Lola and my Aunt Rachel. Lola had survived and was living in Germany in a displaced persons camp. We also learned from Lola that Aunt Rachel had survived Bergen Belsen concentration camp, only to be murdered by Poles in our hometown of Piotrkow. Then news reached us that Father had died in February 1945 in a place called Miltelbau Boelcke-Kaserne, Germany. Dad was 55 years old when he died of hunger and exhaustion. Remarkably, his death certificate states that he died of a heart attack.

My Aunt Rachel Rolnik had returned to Poland to our hometown of Piotrkow. She, like most survivors, was desperately looking for her family. She went to her old neighborhood and entered her house, which was now occupied by Poles. She made a deal to sell her house to them. She had no desire to live in Poland. She most likely had news that her husband and her two sons were murdered five days before the end of the war in Buchenwald. I last saw them at the time of Harry and my escape. Since she was the only survivor in her immediate family, she had planes to go to Germany and stay in a displaced person camp. My aunt received cash from the sale of her house. She was robbed and then killed in Piotrkow. She is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Piotrkow. Though I have never returned to my hometown, Aunt Rachel’ memory gives me the desire to return and visit her gravesite.

All hopes faded when all our losses were discovered. In addition to father and Aunt Rachel, we had information that mother and my youngest sister had died in Treblinka. The realization that so many had died at the hands of Hitler overwhelmed me emotionally. I refused to accept it and my emotions turned again into rage. I now was an orphan. The dreams that a young boy has were gone. There would never be a normal life for me. All the things associated with family would never exist. The things that bind us to our family, community and the sense of being part of something were wiped out by these tragic events. I had misgivings that I would ever become whole. I wondered if I would have a future.

In my desperation I lost all my belief in my family values. I thought I would never again believe in God. I hated all the religious people who still believed in a loving God, they were such fools! “I hate you God, I screamed. Go ahead and kill me. I don’t care.” For hours I stomped the pavement with my feet and walked all over Thereseinstadt. I was exhausted. And yet I again wanted so much to be able to cry, but tears would not come.

I didn’t reach out to anyone to help me with my grief. I felt it would be a burden to the other boys for they had similar experiences. My brother was emotionally not available to me. His attitude was “Why talk about it, what good will it do?” I started internalizing the fact that the horrible details of the Holocaust are better forgotten.

I was free and being taken care of but I didn’t belong to any country. I had no citizenship. Our experiences in the Holocaust and the extermination of our family made us all feel that Poland was not a fit country for Jews to live in. No matter where I ended up, I was adamant that I would never return to Poland. Most of us were hoping to live in a Jewish state of Israel. We were being prepared and trained for the difficult task of becoming pioneers in the founding of the state of Israel. We were given training in various aspects of life in a new state. A group known as Zionist would take us into the Czech countryside on marches. The countryside was beautiful, and I especially like d passing fruit orchards where I picked peaches from the tress. Our leader rebuked me for stealing food, but I didn’t understand. I felt that this was a necessity of life (79-80).

Upon completion of the individual reading, ask students to partner with another person in the room and fill out the following chart. Each pair of students should turn in one paper. Students should look for information in the reading and write impactful events or perceptions felt by Sevek or his family members and categorize them in the chart under the appropriate heading. After all students are finished with the work, the class might come together as a big group and compare the findings of the room’s pairs. A student(s) could be selected to write the class’s findings on the chalkboard.

Chart

Economic/ Emotional/

Geography Culture Family Religion Education Financial Health

ASSESSMENT: Students should answer the following question in essay or outline form as it relates to the final reading from Sevek and the Holocaust: The Boy Who Refused To Die.

Below is an image of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. You will notice that the foundation of the pyramid contains our most basic survival needs, things such as food, clothing, and shelter. As one progresses upward, the needs tend to take on a more psychological or emotional bent. Using the pyramid and the long post-war reading from Sevek and the Holocaust: The Boy Who Refused To Die, use essay or outline form to answer how Sevek’s world would have been organized according to Maslow’s theory – that is, how or where do you think Sevek would have filled these needs? Are there things stated in the reading that allow you to already fill in? If not, how do you think he might have satisfied his needs/urges?

http://www.uvm.edu/envnr/rm240/old/maslows_hierarchy.jpg

RESOURCE:

Finkel, Sidney. Sevek and the Holocaust: The Boy Who Refused To Die. Matteson, IL: Sidney Finkel, 2006. 104 Pages. ISBN #0976356201.