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Lesson Frank Blaichman: Ethics in a Time of Genocide

Video

Protecting Jews

Former Jewish partisan Frank Blaichman describes finding shelter for Jews who could not join the partisans' resistance efforts.

Video Length

00:4

Subject

History

Language

English — US

Updated

May 9, 2016

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Those who could not come with us and could not fight, we found shelter for them by farmers, some of them who made bunkers for them. And they lived there until the area was liberated. And then at Parsha Forest, there were maybe 200 Jews like that in the forest, living until the end of the year, and they were under our protection. All the bandits knew if they're going to touch them, they're going to be punished for that.

Former Jewish partisan Frank Blaichman describes finding shelter for Jews who could not join the partisans' resistance efforts.

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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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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