Lesson 10
Lesson Objectives:
As a result of this lesson, students will:
Key Glossary Terms:
The following glossary terms are used in Lesson 10.
Instructional Materials:
Teaching Sequence:
1. Why was Auschwitz chosen as a site for a concentration camp?
ANSWER: Auschwitz already had a deserted army barracks, and here was the opportunity to expand the camp for purposes other than the concentration of prisoners. Finally, major railroad lines could easily reach Auschwitz from numerous European cities.
2. How many camps were at Auschwitz, and how did they differ from each other?
ANSWER: Auschwitz had three camps: Auschwitz I, the concentration camp for “enemies of the Reich” who were mainly political or national opponents of the Nazis; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the death camp, which existed primarily for killing Jews and Gypsies as well as Soviet prisoners of war and, later, Poles; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, the forced labor camp, which was the site of the Buna synthetic rubber factory.
3. Why were doctors important at the arrival of the trains at Auschwitz?
ANSWER: Doctors determined who seemed physically capable of “productive work,” that is, who could last for a while as a slave laborer in the Buna plant or one of the 35 satellite labor camps. These were, the doctors claimed, medical decisions.
4. What was Zyklon B?
ANSWER: Zyklon B was a prussic acid gas, normally used as an insecticide, which became the least expensive and most efficient way of killing Jews.
5. Approximately how many Jews were killed at Auschwitz?
ANSWER: Approximately 1.1 million Jews died at Auschwitz.
6. Why were the Jews and Gypsies murdered at Auschwitz?
ANSWER: Apart from all the racial theories, in the end, Jews and Gypsies were killed simply because they existed. They represented no political threat to Germany; European culture and society; and they were not an organized military force.
Videotape:“The ‘Final Solution’ and Its Perpetrators” (15 minutes)
Reading: Reading 10A, “Arrival in Auschwitz” (25 minutes)
Discussion:
Questions:
1. What do you think was the most frightening part of the deportation to, and arrival at, Auschwitz?
Suggestions for discussion: Responses will vary. Some possibilities are: the separation from family and friends, the murder of a loved one, the total uncertainty and alien nature of the experience, the confusion and pandemonium, the claustrophobic darkness and lack of air, the filth and smells, etc.
2. What is a “rite of passage”? Can you think of any examples of rites of passage that you have experienced or will experience?
Suggestions for discussion: A rite of passage is a significant event that marks the moving from one phase of life to another. Movement from adolescence to adulthood is one example that many cultures celebrate with a ceremony or ritual such as a communion. More secular rites of passage are graduation or marriage, for example.
3. If a rite of passage indicates a significant move from one phase of a person’s life to another, such as from adolescence to adulthood, why is the cattle car experience considered a rite of passage?
Suggestions for discussion: Traditional rites of passage symbolize growth and preparation for another stage of life. They are treated as initiations into life. The cattle car experience for Jews during the Holocaust represented an initiation into the world of death. The killing began in those cars. As one historian has noted: “the trains were where extermination began. The Jews boarded them living; they left them dead or dying.”
4. As a result of the train transport, life has completely changed for the people on the videotape and the person in the essay. What has changed and how will life be different forever?
Suggestions for discussion: Asking what has changed is almost a rhetorical question. The answer is “everything.” These people, as teenagers, have lost everything--parents, siblings, friends, family, home, sense of well-being, any feeling of human worth and, probably, faith. The dead would never be brought back, and there would never be an opportunity for a proper good-bye. The community would never be reconstituted. The sense of well-being would remain uncertain. Some would regain faith, while others would not. “We stepped onto the platform and were on another planet,” noted one survivor. “Part of us has stayed there ever since.”
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