On the day of opening (January 27th) we hosted many people including the  Israeli Ambassador Shmuel Meirom,  and as a special guest, Oto Konstein.  He held a special lecture with students involved in the project in which he described his fate in the Holocaust.  He then took time to answer their questions.

Getting our hands dirty - planting

Yesterday we had another day of “Indian summer” with 21 degrees Celsius and Sun. We gathered the “green team” and went outside, in front of the school. Nice lady from school stuff was a big help and advisor in planting the bulbs. On Friday we received 100 bulbs from HET Ireland. The first thing that we had to do was preparing the compost. Some earthworms joined our party so we are pretty sure that the compost is very good for planting flowers. We hope that the job was nicely done and just for the fun we put our hands on the plated bulbs to transfer our good energy.

The students of Herring Cove Junior High and five other schools in the Halifax area decided to combine efforts in taking this human rights abuse story to the public: we took part of the museum on the road (on tour).  On October 29, 2008, we went to Citadel Hill, a large defensive structure in the centre of the city of some 300 000 inhabitants.  The circumference of Citadel Hill is approximately 2 kms.  Herring Cove Junior High brought the 100 000 paper clips from their museum and joined them to the other paper clips brought by the other schools.  Within one hour, some 250 students had attached 100 000 paper clips.  This amount went around the base (circumference) of the Citadel one time.  Students were again able to extrapolate that in order to represent all six million victims of the Holocaust, we would have to circle the Citadel 60 times!!  The amount of loss now become much more clear to them.

The estimated number of paper clips at Citadel Hill that day was 250 000.  This was possible because of the efforts of Prince Andrew High School, J. L. Ilsley High School, Gorsebrook Junior High, Sacred Heart School of Halifax, and the Maritime Hockey Academy.

Also present was Philip Riteman, a survivor of 7 death camp experiences, including Auschwitz.  He was joined by Edith Gelbard, (a child hidden in a French town from the Nazis), who very much wanted to see what we were doing.  There were also people in attendance who lost relatives in the death camps.   Additionally, a member of our provincial legislature, and many well wishers made their presence known.   Those who were curious asked my students what was happening, and what the five ribbons of different colours on the chain represented.  At this point, my students became the teachers and described one of 5 case studies from the Holocaust that we had learned in class and that we linked to the coloured ribbons: Janusz Korczak, Philip Riteman (a survivor of Auschwitz), Max Kolbe, Anne Frank, and a fifth one researched by students individually.

The media found this event very interesting and came to cover it.  I am including some of this coverage so that you can get a feeling for what we did.

The media clips are too large to send to you (I tried) so I am sending you instead the links.  Go to the following site and click on the files under the heading, “Holocaust Museum on the Road.”
http://www.hcjh.ednet.ns.ca/HOLOCAUST/HOLOCAUST%20PAGE.htm

Tomorow our “squad” will start a big “propaganda attack” on our local community. In the last two months we did some activities on our project and its time to go public. We prepared two sided fanzine called V.I.P. – could be “very important person” but it also means “Vijesti iz povijesti” (News from history). The fanzine will be copied in at least 100 copies or acording to interest. Text is on Croatian but you can get a sneak peak at this link: vip-001

Senkovec, Croatia

This is our first post and information about our project. The title of the project is “Learning about human rights on the example of holocaust”. In this project we will combine the “Classroom Holocaust Museum” project and the “Crocus” project. So, who are we and what are we doing?

Croatia is a small country in the middle of Europe. The state is divided into 20 counties and our county name is Međimurje (well not so easy to pronounce in English). We are the northeast county and after our capital Zagreb we have the densest population. Our school is “Senkovec Elementary school” in the village of Senkovec. We have 462 students and 50 persons in staff (teachers and others). The students are divided into two groups – the young ones till fourth grade and the “seniors” from fifth to eight grade (seniors are from the age 10 till 14).

Students have the opportunity to select some non obligatory classes depending on their interests. 24 students (age 12-14) decided to take an extra hour of history. We have a meeting once a week and discus various history topics. This year our teacher Hajdarovic was in Israel participating in International school of holocaust at Yad Vashem and he encouraged us to work on the project “Learning about human rights on the example of holocaust”. The main goals are to learn about human rights and holocaust, establish a holocaust museum in our school using 100.000 paperclips (each paperclip representing a soul perished during holocaust), plant crocus bulbs that will bloom in early spring (new life after winter representing life after holocaust and the fragile children life’s lost in holocaust). The “Grande finale” will be to teach the local population about holocaust and human rights after the opening of our museum.
During the last two months we discussed how to establish a holocaust museum in our school, how to gather 100.000 paperclips, we talked about human rights, about Ana Frank and some other topics. In the next two months we will develop couple of posters, talk to Mrs. Treska about her family that partly perished in Auschwitz, talk to a member of Croatian Jewish community, talk to a historian dealing with Jewish history on our territory, talk to Jehuda Sterk (survivor) from Jerusalem, gather the rest 90.000 paperclips we need for the museum and so on…

We have just started our own blog on http://pg-senkovec.blog.hr/ and you can write us on pg.senkovec@gmail.com. If you have some paperclips to spare send it to:
Osnovna skola Senkovec
Marsala Tita bb, Senkovec
HR-40000 Cakovec
Croatia

Imaju li spajalice veze sa ljudskim pravima?

Holocaust Museum Project

Quite simply, this project involves teachers internationally creating Holocaust museums in their classrooms.  Having done this in my school in Canada, I can assure you that it is quite doable and will be one of the most enriching experiences for you and your students.
(see: http://www.hcjh.ednet.ns.ca/HOLOCAUST/HOLOCAUST%20PAGE.htm)

Here are some the steps to take to make this project successful:

1. Tell the students they are going to make a museum in the classroom.
2. Inform the media early about what you are doing.
3. Teach about the Holocaust (or a genocide you are studying in your curriculum).  I used information I got from Yad Vashem, books, and reliable internet sites like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
4. Teach about who the Jews were before the Nazi era. I used a picture study and had students compare the living conditions and lives of the people in the photos (poor, rich, educated, uneducated, healthy, sick, etc).
5. Find a few case studies of people (children their own age) so that students can relate better to their story.
6. Teach about anti-Semitism in Europe (and elsewhere) prior to Hitler.
7. Teach about the rise of Nazism.
8. Teach about the Holocaust
9. Put the museum together.  Students have dozens of good ideas to help with this.
10. Students become the tour guides for the museum teaching the general public that have been invited and the other classes in the school.

There is much you can include in your museum.  The difficulty will be in leaving out much information that is available.  The students and you can start making and gathering artifacts for the museum beginning with the first class.  I am asking participants to consider using paper clip chains to hang from the ceiling as the central display of the museum.  I hung 100 000 paper clips in over 1000 chains from the ceiling in my classroom.  The effect is incredibly powerful.  Each paper clip represents a person lost in the Holocaust.  When the museum finally closes, I encourage teachers and students to take the paper clip chains, link them end to end, and take them to the main street of your community to see how far they stretch.  This gives your students and the citizens an opportunity to visualize just how large a number 6 million is.

Goals:

…to educate our youth to better prepare them

• for understanding genocide,
• for working together with their teachers with a common purpose in mind and to share this with their community,
• to be alert to the leadership in their community,
• to change conditions that lead to genocide.

To open dialogue in the community about atrocities around the world.

There is so much more to say, but I will leave that for when you contact me with your questions at waymac@hrsb.ns.ca.

Sincerely,
Wayne MacIntyre

The purpose of this workshop is to have teachers realize that they can have students invest in understanding the Holocaust on more than a passive level, to impress upon students the magnitude of the Holocaust, (I want them to understand how many 6 million are), to have students become teachers of the Holocaust, to have people talk about the Holocaust in their homes and in the community at large, to lay the foundations for studying other cases of genocide at the high school level, and to make the Holocaust unforgettable in the minds of students.

Problems: How to teach the Holocaust to a white, Christian, fishing community and have them care about the topic, so distant in the past.  How to enthuse students to want to talk about the Holocaust to others.  How to deal with deniers.

The materials I used were powerful to the senses, inexpensive, and they involved the greater community.

Teaching Methods: I will share information freely, I will use the Socratic method, student participation,  technology, and foster creative variations for successful museums.

Teaching Materials and curriculum

Curriculum: Jewish life prior to the Holocaust (picture study), Maus, Night, Diary of Ann Frank, information on Janusz Korczak, Ann Frank, Max Kolbe, Nazi Platform (1926), Nuremberg Laws, Ghetto (video), Schindler’s List video, Holocaust Timeline,

Materials:
Tommy Pictures, list of Schindler’s Jews, Holocaust Museum Topics, map of Death Camps, map of ghettos, poster panels from Atlantic Jewish Council, passport document display, CD recording of victims names, CD recording of original songs from ghettoes, enamel pot,  Whitwell Tennessee Paper Clip chain
three case histories :     Anne Frank, Janusz Korczak,  Max Kolbe, picture of the model of Auschwitz killing Factory, list of Schindler’s Jews, symbols on prisoners’ uniforms, paper clips.

I created a Holocaust Museum in my classroom.  After studying about the Holocaust, my students became the teachers to the other grade levels in the school and to the general public.  These materials and curricular texts were chosen to help students appreciate the magnitude of the loss.  When they saw 100 000 paper clips hanging in chains from our ceiling (centre piece to the museum), they could better understand the quantity of six million.  When they had some history of the people, in particular the three case studies of Karczak, Frank and Kolbe, they could better relate to their loss.  When they understood the enormity of the injustice, they were ready to talk about it and share their knowledge and their feelings.  The Classroom Holocaust Museum that they actively helped create gave them the ideal venue to do this.  The materials and curricular documents were needed to both build understanding and create the museum.

I have created and used many simulations.  This was by far the most powerful lesson I have ever taught.  After summer vacation, students came to me asking me to teach them more about the Holocaust this year.  They showed that they cared about what happened.  This fosters life-long learning.
During the instructional time students cried, screamed, and expressed their feelings in various ways. They were incensed at the injustice and the lunacy they saw.  This gave way to professionalism when they became the tour guides to their museum.  They were extremely eager to share what they had learned with students from other grade levels and with the general public.  Parents and the public were most impressed.  The comments in our Visitors Book testify to this. The museum drew the attention of our two national TV networks and from one local one.  There was also newspaper media coverage.  The students beamed with pride at their accomplishments every time we were covered in the media.  As a result, there are 18 of my students who have taken part in the Asper Foundation Human Rights Course which brings us to Washington D.C. this May and which includes a lengthy visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  How fitting for my students.
I strongly encourage my colleagues to create a museum in their classrooms.  It affords your students the opportunity to learn history in a meaningful and memorable manner.  One of the advantages of the museum is that it can be designed at almost any grade level in the middle and senior high schools.  It also opens cross curricular possibilities.  In my school the Art, Language Arts, and Social Studies teachers teamed up to teach this unit.  Math could easily be incorporated too.

Addendum: I would like to see 60 schools open a classroom Holocaust Museum in the same week in countries around the world.  Each classroom could use 100 000 paper clips as the focal point of the museums.  This would represent the 6 million who perished.  I think this could draw a great deal of positive public attention to the Holocaust.

Wayne MacIntyre, Vice Principal with the Halifax Regional School Board at Herring Cove Junior High School, Herring Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada