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Pre-War Sighet Visual Essay

Enrich your reading of Night with photos depicting daily life in Elie Wiesel's hometown.

Last Updated: September 14, 2017

Gallery

Language

English — US

Subject

History

The Holocaust

Enrich your reading of Night with photos depicting daily life in Elie Wiesel's hometown.

Students sitting at a traditional Jewish religious school, or kheyder, in 1920s Sighet.

Credit:

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

A group photo in front of Sighet’s synagogue, ca. 1930–1939.

Credit:

Romanian Jews standing in front of a Synagogue before World War 2.

Leaders of the Jewish community in Sighet, including Mr. Hershkovich, Mr. Klein, Mr. Yacobovich, and Mr. Jahan, ca. 1928–1930.

Credit:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Morris Spitzer

Portrait of Yosef Meir Weiss, the Spinka rebbe from Sighet, 1906.

Credit:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Morris Spitzer

The members of Sighet Soccer Club pose for a group photo.

Credit:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Morris Spitzer

Students in a weaving workshop at a yeshiva, or rabbinical academy, in Sighet before the war.

Credit:

From the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York

An image of the main market square in the Transylvanian town of Sighet, Romania, taken before World War II.

Credit:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Mitchell Eisen

A Jewish family, possibly in Sighet, taken before the beginning of World War II, ca. 1930–1940.

Credit:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Solange Dratler Lebowitz

Unit

Explore the motives, pressures, and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism and the humanitarian refugee crisis it provoked during the 1930s and 1940s.

A crowd of American men and women hold signs protesting Nazi Germany's actions.

Lesson

Students watch video testimony from a Holocaust survivor and engage in purposeful reflection about the survivor’s important story.

Classroom sitting in a circle discussing

Unit

Designed for California 10th grade world history courses, this unit guides students through a study of the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide that focuses on choices and human behavior.

Assessment

Students begin to understand and stake out a preliminary position in response to the assessment writing prompt.

Facing History and Ourselves Bullying Summit September 29th 2012 in Los Angeles CA

Assessment

After learning about the Armenian Genocide, students reflect on the writing prompt a second time by adding a historical lense.

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.

Assessment

Students incorporate new evidence from the history of the Weimar era into the position they are developing.

Assessment

Students consider how what they've learned about the rise of the Nazi Party influences their thinking about the essay prompt and practice making inferences.

Assessment

Students review the documents and videos from previous lessons and consider what information supports, expands, or challenges their thinking about the essay.

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.

Assessment

Students reflect on, gather evidence for, and discuss the unit writing prompt in its entirety.

Assessment

Students reflect on the unit as a whole and begin to write a strong thesis statement for their essay.

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Pre-War Sighet Visual Essay

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