Responding to the Stories of Holocaust Survivors

• How are we affected by hearing the testimonies of Holocaust survivors? How do their stories influence our understanding of this history?
• What can we learn about human behavior from the stories of Holocaust survivors? What can we learn about ourselves?

• Students will experience how the powerful stories of those who were targeted by the Nazis can affect us emotionally and deepen our investment in learning about and from this history.
• Students will recognize that it is not possible for us to fully understand the experiences of those who were victimized by the Nazis, those who lived and died during the Holocaust.

This lesson is designed to fit into one 50-minute class period and includes:

• 1 activity
• 1 handout
• 4 readings
• 1 video
• Recommended articles for exploring this topic

This activity requires each student to use a single survivor testimony to create a found poem. Use the Materials section to create a list of possible testimonies for your students. You might ask all students to use the same source, or you might let students choose from several possible testimonies.

Once students have chosen (or been assigned) a testimony to work with, have them follow these steps, which you can also find in the Creating a Found Poem handout:

1. Read the testimony at least two to three times. If possible, read it aloud at least once.
2. While reading the testimony one additional time, copy down at least 15 to 20 words or phrases from it that you find memorable or powerful.
3. Arrange the words and phrases you have selected into a poem. You might want to copy the words and phrases onto notecards or separate scraps of paper so that you can easily rearrange them. Try to arrange the words in a way that captures what you think is the essence of the testimony, as well as your experience of hearing it. Here are a few more guidelines for creating your poem:
   • You DON’T have to use all of the words and phrases you chose.
   • You CAN repeat words or phrases.
   • You CAN’T add other words besides those you copied from the testimony.
   • Your poem DOESN’T have to rhyme.
4. When you are satisfied with your poem, give it a title. ¹

After students have completed their poems, give them the opportunity to share their work. You might ask each student to read his or her poem to the class, or you might divide the class into small groups for sharing.

After students have had the opportunity to share their poems and hear the poems their classmates wrote, lead a class discussion, focusing on the following questions:

• What strikes you about these poems?
• What do they have in common?
• How are they different?
• What surprised you as you heard them?
• In what ways do these poems honor the survivors' experiences?
• How did working so closely with the words of a survivor affect you? What did these words make you think and feel?

• 1These steps are adapted from the Found Poems teaching strategy.