Lesson Plan: Thursday, 3/2 90 minutes

This lesson plan will be the same for both the Monday/Wednesday section and the
Tuesday/Thursday section.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
Holocaust
o How and why did the Holocaust happen?
o How can some people resist injustice and others obey authority?
o How can an individual be upstander?
History and today
o How can the past affect the present?
Primary/Secondary Sources
o What is the purpose of using both primary and secondary sources?
o Why do we need to critically evaluate what we read?
Graphic novel
o How can graphic novels depict historical events?
o How are themes utilized in graphic novels to tell a story?

ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS
Content/Enduring Understandings:
o Students will learn how and why the Holocaust happened.
Students will understand the Holocaust was not an accident in historyit
occurred because individuals, organizations, and governments made choices
that not only legalized discrimination but also allowed and promoted
prejudice, hatred, and ultimately mass murder to occur.
Students will learn what it means to be an upstander vs. a bystander.
Students will understand silence and indifference to the suffering of
others, or to the infringement of civil rights in any society, can
however, unintentionallyperpetuate the problem.
Students will learn how to become upstanders in their day-to-day lives.
o History and today
Students will come to understand that the past affects the present on
individual, familial, community, national, and global scales.
o Graphic novels
Graphic novels allow authors another level of expression compared to
traditional books.
Graphic novels blend text with art to create a new form of literature.
The artwork in a graphic novel is a form of text that conveys additional
information to the reader.
The art in a graphic novel allows a deeper level of expression; this concept is
a valuable tool for the reader to utilize.
Skills/Goals/Objectives:
o Students will develop skills in analysis of primary and secondary sources.
o Students will draw explicit connections between graphic novels and history to
understand deep knowledge of the Holocaust and how it affects today.
o Students will learn how to create their own thematic graphic novels.

STANDARDS
N/A

MATERIALS
 I will need my lesson plan, PowerPoint, the documentary, and my copy of Maus.
Students will need a piece of loose-leaf and a pencil to take notes, the guiding questions
handout, and a classroom only copy of Maus.

PROCEDURES

OPENER- 5 minutes
Students will be lined up in 2 quiet lines.
I will explain that there is a Warm Up on the board.
Happy Womens History Month!!!

BODY OF THE LESSON- 80 minutes

Warm up 15 minutes
o Color image of Auschwitz same questions with the other ones
o Students will answer the warm up independently.
Collect homework paragraphs on Hana
Reveal her past:
o One of the 500 able-bodied women selected for forced
labor in Hamburg, Germany 1st transport of people
ever leave behind Auschwitz
o From there, sent to Bergen-Belsen
o Liberated in Bergen- Belsen on April 15, 1945 Anne
Frank
o Died 2014, survived by husband, 2 children, and 10
grandchildren 88 years old
o I will call on a few students to share out their answers.
Just like Hana and her experience how does she describe her experience?
o So too was Kittys
Documentary 70 minutes
o I will hand out the guiding questions worksheet, to be turned in at the end of the
lesson.
We will read the top explanation paragraphs that introduce the
documentary together.
Source note:
Director
Name- documentary- secondary source- the people making it
were not there, but contains 1st person testimony, images, and
historical footage
USC Shoah Foundation Institute the Institute for Visual History
and Education
o Mission: Dedicated to making audio-visual interviews
with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and
other genocides a compelling voice for education and
action
Date:
o Produced for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the
camp
o 2015- Kitty is still alive- now in her 90s
 o I will tell the students there are some intense images and stories- if you need to
excuse yourself or close your eyes you can. However, I encourage you to stay
because this is what actually happened and you should see it.
o Pause at these times for a question/to answer questions:
9:00- after the chicken- let students write, ask questions
19:11- after the hunger
31:47- after friends, they were gone and I was on my own
35:09- only one way out and that is through the chimney
41:07- after dont look
My answers to the worksheet:
One Day in Auschwitz

This documentary follows 89-year-old Holocaust survivor, Kitty Hart-Moxon's, emotional

return to the former Nazi death camp where she was sent 72 years earlier, with her
mother, at the age of 17.

Making the journey with two teenage girls, Natalia and Lydia, Kitty tells them her story of
daily existence. In her narrative, themes begin to emerge: the ever-present threat of death,
friendship, human resilience, resistance, and living like an animal, while still remaining
human. The two teenage girls ask questions and Kitty provides answers, passing her legacy
to the next generation.

Source: Purcell, Steve, director. One Day in Auschwitz. USC Shoah Foundation Institute,
2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWKyo1R1_xo.

Guiding Questions:

1. How does Kitty describe Auschwitz and its prisoners when she first arrived?
a. Within the first minute- answers
b. First night- quarantine, German gypsy, running from train to location
c. Sauna
d. Hair
e. Tattoo

2. What were some tactics for survival in Auschwitz? (Hint: there are _____).
a. Luck, chance
b. Taking clothing and belongings
c. If young and able-bodied and they needed workers
d. Depended on place of work- outside= dead- work parties- commando
e. Shoes- wooden clog
f. Bowl- food or toilet
g. Think like an animal- what does it do, what does it think
h. Get away from predators kapo (prisoner in the Nazi camp who was assigned to
supervise forced labor allowed less SS personnel)
i. Where stand in line for food, knowing the person handing out food
j. Warmth of other bodies to stay less cold penguins and huddle
k. Something to eat, something to sleep, somewhere to shit
 l. Language- German and Polish slang hat you had to understand
m. Friends- mediate a situation where you were not to live organize, work different
jobs to have access to various things- 4- mutual support and friendship
n. Do not touch fence
o. Relationship with mother
p. Try not to be emotional

3. What jobs did Kitty do at Auschwitz? (Hint: there were 4).

a. 1943- the ramp- new rail line
b. Latrines
c. Infirmary- glorified cleaner, bring the bodies out that died- during the night, some
up above to get them out- drag and stack
d. Kanada- valuables collected and shipped back to Germany- we did the sorting;
making quota

4. How does Kitty describe the gas chambers? The uprising?

a. Sitting in the field
b. Herded and sealed
c. Better they dont know
d. SS personnel and gas mask and ladder with tin
e. Scream
f. 20 minutes
g. Sculptural pyramid trying to escape
h. Ovens
i. Dissecting table- valuable
j. Birkenau- reduce the human being to consumable byproduct
k. Ash to pond at the back
l. Tried not to talk about it- dont look at it
m. Uprising
i. Loud noise
ii. That was it- threw on the ground, lie flat
iii. Armed resistance- decision how to die
iv. So dangerous
v. Man come over- cut part of the fencing
vi. Run over and tried to escape
vii. And we were lying down because safe
viii. General shoot out, motorcycles, got most of the men
ix. They were thinking about what they could do to overcome
x. And with no opportunity, they did that

5. What was Kittys relationship like with her mother?

a. Stayed with her during the 1st night
b. Mother would hide her
c. Knowledge of German
d. Physical and mental to work through difficult circumstances
e. Nurse, psychologically tried to keep people alive
f. Work together to enable- increasing survival
g. Realized what was happening, grabbed me
h. Get job with Kanada to get food
 i. Mother to work at Kanada and she was evacuated and asked if I could- why let go-
perfect German, didnt beg, crawl, just spoke, proper manner and called number
j. Speech- leaving here, all equal, no longer have functions, we may need one anothers
help, you are all going to be friends and that is what happened

Questions:

6. Reflection:
a. What types of primary sources did you see in this documentary?
i. Images
ii. First person testimony
iii. Drawings
iv. Historical film footage

b. What is Kittys ultimate message to the audience?

i. If the Holocaust happened once, it can happen again
ii. Kanada- evidence of the Holocaust- the scale of the killing based on the scale
of that site
iii. How it relates to us today; how did this happen
iv. I was here and I prevailed
v. Who is going to be next

c. Did this documentary enhance your understanding of the Holocaust and death
camps? Why or why not?

Students will complete the reflection to turn in. As students complete, they can read the
end of chapter 4 of Maus.
Maus- time remaining if any
o We will finish reading Chapter 4 as a class. I will call on students to read 1 page
each.
o Throughout the chapter, I will ask questions to the class.

CLOSURE- 5 minutes
Homework:
o Graphic novel
o Create 3 questions for Sarah and submit through Google Form on Google
Classroom
Sarahs blurb:
You will have an opportunity to ask your questions during her visit.
I will ask students to pack up. Once they are seated and quiet, I will dismiss them.

ACCOMODATIONS
I have made accommodations for students who learn best through lecture, independent
work, group work, and/or whole class discussion.

ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION
To gauge students learning that the Holocaust was not an accident in history, we will
have the lecture and group and class discussions about Maus.
 To gauge student understanding about what it means to be a bystander, we will have
group and class discussions about Maus.
To gauge student understanding of the idea that history and today are interconnected
on individual, familial, community, national, and global scales, we will have group and
class discussions about Maus, which highlights this idea through the use of the dual
narrative and flashbacks.
To gauge student understanding of the Maus and the graphic novels form as a graphic
novel, I have planned group and class discussions about the artwork and how the art
and text (captions/dialogue between characters) interact.
To gauge student ability to make connections between graphic novels and history, I
have planned group and class discussions.

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS / NOTES