In the Face of the Holocaust
Introduction
In face of the Holocaust—creating a definition of a “witness” and categorizing
other persons.
1. Give a definition for a “victim” of the Holocaust: these are the people, labeled as
Jews under the “Nuremburg Laws” of 1935, not taking into consideration their current religious affiliation, nor their feelings about their own identity.
2. Explain to the students that with the goal of describing the attitudes of individuals during the Holocaust, the following words, or definitions, will be used: rescuer
of Jews as well as those who provided assistance (the so-called Righteous Among
the Nations), passive bystanders, and perpetrators and their collaborators.
3. Hand out to the students the visual materials (attachments 10, 12, 14‒20) and request that they point out, on the photographs, those that could be called perpetrators and their collaborators, the bystanders of the Holocaust, as well as those who
rescued and assisted Jewish individuals. Initiate a discussion among the students
based on their choices. The students should then present and provide the reasons
for their choices.
4. Divide the class into groups and request that the students, working in teams,
formulate a working definition of a “witness of the Holocaust.” Next, suggest that
they present their results, and together with the entire class create a single definition. It may be helpful during the exercise to ask the students a few questions:
• What did the witness see, or know?
• Did they react in any way? If yes—then how?
• What were the motives of their action or inaction?
• Can a victim or a survivor be called a witness of the Holocaust?
Attention: During the brainstorming session, the students may create the following
definition: “A witness of the Holocaust is a person who knew what was happening
to the individuals persecuted by the Nazis—and in connection to this, they remain
passive, provide help to the persecuted, or help the perpetrators.”
Write the definition of a “witness” on a paper or chalkboard, and present it in
a place where it is visible to the students.
Ask the students:
May the formulated definition of the “witness of the Holocaust,” be used in other
situations, not only in connection to the actual Holocaust?
5. There are also different definitions of a “witness of the Holocaust,” which cover
a wider area of human experiences. These may be discussed, based on the
following questions:
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
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Supplement 10
In the Face of the Holocaust
Introduction
• Can the children of victims be also called witnesses of the Holocaust?
• During the war, people living in other countries knew what was happening in
Eastern Europe—can we also define them as witnesses?
• Can we by learning from the testimony of Holocaust survivors, learning about
their lives as well as facts from trusted historical sources, become witnesses of the
Holocaust?
• If so, then what does it mean for us? Does this give us some sort of moral obligation?
Two men (most probably Jews) and Ms. Suchanowa, who was condemned for the fact that she was
selling Jews goods (most likely food). This photograph was taken in Grybów, near Nowy Sącz, on
the main square in front of the church. On the sign around her neck, it states: “It is because she sold
goods to Jews.”
Source: Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
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[On the left] Otto Frank, father of Anne (in the middle), together with colleagues (from the left: Miep
Gies, Johannes Kleiman, Victor Kugler i Bep Voskuijl), who helped him as well as his family while
they were hiding in the house at Prinsengracht Street in Amsterdam. They were arrested for helping
Jews in hiding. Out of the four, the men were sent to concentration camps and the women were released.
Source: Website of the Anne Frank House, www.annefrank.org, ©AFF Basel CH/AFS Amsterdam NL.
[On the right] Józef and Wiktoria Ulm from the villiage of Markowa near Łańcut. In March of 1944,
all (the entire family, together with the young children) were executed, shot inside their own home
by the Germans for hiding two Jewish families: the Szalls and Goldmans.
Source: Private collection, sincere courtesy of Mateusz Szpytma.
Boat-shaped swings and a carousel on Krasiński Square, near the wall of the Warsaw Ghetto. Jan Lisowski took the photograph in April of 1943. His fiancée is standing in the foreground. On the left, a
carousel set up on the corner of Długa Street and Krasiński Square, in the middle boat-shaped swing
in which boys are sitting, on the right the large carousel is standing.
Source: Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
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German soldiers leaving by train for war, September 1939. The writing on the side of the rail car
says: “We’re going to Poland to get even with the Jews.”
Source: Jewish Historical Institute Archive in Warsaw.
Austrian Nazis forcing Jews to wash the streets. The stripping of these peoples’ dignity is looked
upon by a staring crowd, which includes the young as well as children.
Source: Photo Archives of the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial, courtesy of the National Archives and
Records Administration, College Park.
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
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[On the left] Members of a German Police Battalion, which was attached to Einsatzgruppe C, are
posing for a photograph at the railway station in Vienna before their departure to Drohobych in the
Ukraine.
Source: Yad Vashem, © Yad Vashem Visual Archive, FA-3/4.
[On the right] Jews being shot in a mass murder action in Vinnytsia, the Ukraine, in the summer of
1942.
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Adolf Eichmann, responsible for the preparation and implementation of the “final solution of the
Jewish question,” among others, organizing transports of Jews from various countries of Europe
to Death Camps that were located in the occupied areas of Poland. In fulfilling this duty, he showed exemplary bureaucratic abilities as well as a steel will. He was very scrupulous in completing
the goals that were set before him. After the war, he was arrested, then later, in Jerusalem, put on
trial and sentenced to death as the “murderer from behind the desk.” The picture shows Eichmann
during his trial in 1961.
Source: Photo Archives of the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Source: Photo Archives of the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
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Tomaszów Mazowiecki, in the autumn of 1939. Cutting off beards was one of the many ways that
German troops tormented Jews in the first months of the war. This often happened with the aid of
the local Polish population.
Supplement 20
Pogrom against the Jews in Kaunas in Lithuania. Members as well as supporters of the Lithuanian
Front (a nationalist organization that collaborated with the Germans) from June 25 until 29 in 1941
brutally murdered several hundred Jews from Kaunas (among them many women and children).
Source: Bundesarchiv, B 162/364, photograph 20.
Source: Photo Archives of the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Washington, D.C., courtesy of the Institute for National Remembrance in Poland.
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
© 2007 Shoah Foundation Institute and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial
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