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Lesson Sonia Orbuch: Becoming a Partisan

Video

Killed as a Fighter, Not Because I Am a Jew

Former Jewish partisan Sonia Orbuch describes how she approached the dangers of life as a partisan.

Video Length

00:39

Subject

History

Language

English — US

Updated

May 10, 2016

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From all sides, there was shooting. I didn't even bend down my head. I wasn't worried that I was, again, going to get killed. And if I was going to get killed, I was going to get killed as a fighter, not because I'm a Jew. So that itself gave us strength to go on. This was the mentality of people who went through all these atrocities in the ghettos. So this is the way we crossed railroads at middle of the night, and the railroads were watched. And we try to avoid it, but it wasn't possible.

Former Jewish partisan Sonia Orbuch describes how she approached the dangers of life as a partisan.

Credit:

© 2016 Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, www.jewishpartisans.org

1) Website use only

Collection

Find interview transcripts, historical overviews, and primary source documents about a particular Jewish partisan or country.

Russian partisans, one of them photographer Faye Schulman, gathering together in the forest, Naliboki Forest, Belarus, December 1944. The Molotava Brigade was a partisan group made up mostly of escaped Soviet Army POWs. The woman pictured is Faye Schulman, a Jewish woman who fled into the Naliboki forest with her camera equipment and joined the Molotova Brigade. For two years in the forest she photographed the partisan's activities, worked as medical aid and participated in the partisans raid's.

Unit

Explore the stories of Jewish partisans that stood against Nazi oppression, genocide, and antisemitism during World War II.

Russian partisans, one of them photographer Faye Schulman, gathering together in the forest, Naliboki Forest, Belarus, December 1944. The Molotava Brigade was a partisan group made up mostly of escaped Soviet Army POWs. The woman pictured is Faye Schulman, a Jewish woman who fled into the Naliboki forest with her camera equipment and joined the Molotova Brigade. For two years in the forest she photographed the partisan's activities, worked as medical aid and participated in the partisans raid's.

Lesson

Students connect themes from the film to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's concept of “single stories," and then consider what it would take to tell more equitable and accurate narratives.

View of people on a city street.

Lesson

Students view the film, analyze a primary source from the Oyneg Shabes archive, and consider why it matters who tells the stories of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

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Mini-Unit

Invite students to reflect on why it matters who tells our stories as they view a documentary film about the profound courage and resistance of the Oyneg Shabes in the Warsaw ghetto.

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Assessment

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Mini-Unit

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Lesson

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Mini-Lesson

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Mini-Lesson

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Mini-Lesson

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Lesson

Students explore the life and choices of anti-lynching journalist Ida B. Wells and learn about the long tradition of Black resistance to racial terror and violence.

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Using the strategies from Facing History is almost like an awakening.

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