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Lesson Frank Blaichman: Ethics in a Time of Genocide

Video

Life in the Forest

Former Jewish partisan Frank Blaichman discusses how partisans persevered in the face of challenging weather, hunger, and suffering.

Video Length

01:08

Subject

History

Language

English — US

Updated

May 9, 2016

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We went through many hardships, many sufferings. I can't tell you what, somehow we overcame all those. And let me tell you another thing. The first two months, we were in forest.

It was very bad. We went through hunger, scary beatings, all kind of things. But none of us, including me, was complaining. You know what I was saying? "This is still better than to be in a concentration camp or a death camp, no matter what it is. And tomorrow are going to be another day." That I was telling myself, and all the others were saying the same thing.

And that's how we overcame all the things. We were sleeping in the forest in freezing rain, in storm, and the snow. The snow covered us up. In the morning, I got up, it was a blanket of snow. That's how we were living for a few months. Sometimes for several days going around wet, hungry, but still we didn't give it up.

Former Jewish partisan Frank Blaichman discusses how partisans persevered in the face of challenging weather, hunger, and suffering.

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.

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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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Lesson

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Mini-Lesson

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Mini-Lesson

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Lesson

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