Example of a lessons plan (European Workshop CoE 2013 1020-1026 Poland «Understanding History» 3 – 9 November 2013 in Warsaw/Sulejowek, Poland)

1. Visualizing
Holocaust
European Workshop CoE 2013 1020-1026
Poland «Understanding History» 3 – 9
November 2013 in
Warsaw/Sulejowek, Poland
LESSON PLAN BY:
MILJENKO HAJDAROVIĆ, MIROSLAW KWIATKOWSKI, STANISLAW JEDRYKA,
ANDRZEJ DABROWSKI, PAVLIN ATANASOV

2. Goals:

Students will create a design of Treblinka monument or installation

Discuss the ways in which the Holocaust is commemorated –
especially in our region (do we have monuments for it?)

Expanding their knowledge of Holocaust (case study on Treblinka)

3. Plan

1. Introduction

2. Group work and presentations

3. Discussion

4. Introduction

How do you commemorate your dead relatives?

What would you do if there were no grave of them or if you didn’t
know exactly what happened to them?

Do we have any monuments devoted to the Holocaust in our
city/region?

What is the emotional impact of monuments on you?

5. Group work

Each group will read:



short text with basic information about Treblinka (URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_extermination_camp)
Witness testimony about Treblinka at the Eichmann Trial 1961 by Jankiel
Wiernik (URL:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/wierniktestimony.html)
Each group will create a design of Treblinka monument or
installation

6. Treblinka (material for students)

Treblinka was an extermination camp, built by Nazi Germany in occupied
Poland during World War II.

The camp operated officially between 23 July 1942 and 19 October 1943 as
part of Operation Reinhard (the most deadly phase of the Final Solution). During
this time, more than 800,000 Jews as well as unknown numbers of Romani
people were murdered there.

The victims included men, women, and children. Other estimates of the number
killed at Treblinka exceed 1,000,000.

The camp consisted of two separate units: Treblinka I, and Treblinka II
extermination camp. [...] Inmates died from summary
executions, hunger, disease and mistreatment.

7. Jankiel Wiernik arrived in Treblinka death camp on the
23 August 1942 and he escaped during the revolt on the 2
August 1943.

In the courtyard, there were the two large barracks. They brought the women in to the
left, and the men were kept outside. They made the women remove all their clothes. The
men remained standing outside.

On either side, there were two large written notices to the effect that money and
valuables had to be handed over, and whoever failed to do so would be put to death.
The women’s hair was cut off. At the end, a small area was fenced off their hair was cut
off and then they were taken to the gas chambers. Here was a building with three gas
chambers, in the large building there were ten gas chambers. The doors were closed and
it lasted some forty to forty-five minutes.

Here was the entrance- here is the first camp (points to it). All this belongs to the first
camp. This was the Schlauch (the tube) the path along which people walked.

And here people went through the side, they went into the gas chambers. When the gas
chambers were not yet in existence they went in this way (he indicates the spot).

Until the end of 1942 they did not burn those who had been gassed, but they would bury
them in enormous pits. The bodies were placed inside. Only at the beginning of 1943 did
they make various experiments of how to burn them and they did not succeed.

8. Presentations

Each group will present their work

Teacher will show pictures from Treblinka memorial site

11. Discussion

What do the students designs have in common?

What do the students’ designs have in common with the original
instalation in Treblinka?

Who/what is represented?

UPGRADE: Make a plan for an exhibition...