Schindler�s List By Thomas Keneally: In an engrossing account based on the testimony of those known as Schindlerjuden (Schind

Prior to reading Milkweed, share with your class one of the two movies on the Holocaust. Then students may research a few websites dedicated to the History of the Holocaust after watching footage of the devastation that took place.

Night and Fog (1955)

Hailed as one of the world's greatest documentaries, Night and Fog is the definitive film on Nazi concentration camps and a devastating record of man's inhumanity to man. Like a master conductor, director Alain Resnais (Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad) weaves contemporary images of the abandoned camp at Auschwitz with newsreel footage of the atrocities that occurred there. Juxtaposing color and black-and-white film, Night and Fog brings the horror of the Holocaust to the present. An elegy on memory and immeasurable sorrow, this tightly structured half-hour film foreshadows Resnais' remarkable feature films. Upon its release, Francois Truffaut called it the greatest film ever made (31 min.).

Conspiracy (2001)

The record of the cold-blooded decision of a small group of Nazis about to do with Jews in Europe, the so-called �final solution.� Conspiracy shows how on January 20, 1942, fifteen highly ranked Nazis met at Wannsee on the outskirts of Berlin to determine the future of Jews. The meeting was organized by S.S. Major Adolf Eichmann and directed by Chief of Security Reinhard Heydrich. It was a civilized meeting with food and wine and lots of talk, but the meeting had only one item on its agenda, the extermination of six million European Jews. The text for the film was taken from minutes at the meeting and found after the end of the war (95 min.) (Donelson and Nilsen 245).

1. Have students use the Jewish Virtual Library- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org to research information about specific topics: ghettos in Poland, identifying marks for Jews in Poland, Jewish self-help in Warsaw, and the Warsaw ghetto. Have groups of students identify and report on the most important facts about the assigned topics.

2. Another important website is http://www.ushmm.org. This is the site for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Here students will find numerous exhibits and a map of the Holocaust.

3. After finishing Milkweed the class can use the following questions to discuss the novel with the class and then have the class write personal journal entries:

A. Many themes are touched on throughout the novel as suggested by Pat Scales at http://www.randomhouse.com. Using these themes: survival, identity, fear, family, friendship and memories ask the students to discuss how each of the main characters deal with these themes and how one theme may be related to another. The students should then write journal entries on how they have personally dealt with one or several of these themes.

B. A great vocabulary activity for students is to find and write down unfamiliar words and by using clues from the story try to define them. Using dictionaries and /or the Internet afterwards students can check themselves.

4. Read the poems aloud as a class. Students can write their own dedication poems.

�God Please Give Me Hope�
Hanna Wilson

I hear the Nazi�s footsteps:
They�re at the back door.
It scares me
Because I know what they�re here for.
They want to take us away;
They want us to die.
My mother, beside me,
Silently begins to cry.
I want to run;
I want to run away,
But the Nazi soldiers block each passageway.
They order us outside
And into a waiting car.
The concentration camp
Is not very far.
They pull us out of the car
And into a cell.
They pushed me so hard
That I stumbled and fell.
I am not hurt,|
Maybe only my pride.
I hope I don�t end up
Like those who died.
Every morning
I wake up and prey
That God will help us
And release us some day.
We work all the time
From morning till night.
We work until the moon
Provides the only light.
It�s been a month,
Maybe two,
Since I arrived here
With all the other Jews.
�The war is almost over,�
I heard the Germans say.
They will free us now,
Any day.
They�re finally here;
We�re finally free.
Everything is going to be normal
Like it used to be.
That�s not true;
It will never be right.
Too many people
Have fought their last fight.

�There Lies Hope�
By Jessica Hollander

With one great swipe of his unmerciful hand,
He led us destruction.
With one great tear streaming from my eye,
I send myself back in time to those painful years.
A time when the world was ablaze with a burning hatred.
A hatred so threatening and vicious,
Against a humble people so full of innocence.
Why?

I question myself, gazing above into the clear blue sky.
Expecting an answer, but no answer comes.
With each fresh tear, I struggle with my burden
Until one night in my dream
The answer is revealed.

A dream bursting with hope.
It was hope that took my people by the hand
An led us into a new world of promise.
We are fragile no more.
Within my people there is a strength.
A strength born out of hope
Wretchedness and despair abound no more.
We are here, for deep within us there lies hope.

From Jessica Hollander: I wrote this poem when I was in my first year of high school, at age 14. I submitted it in a poetry writing contest in southern California and won first place for it. there was a special ceremony and Mel Mermelstein was present to give my award.

YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE SELECTIONS

Schindler�s List By Thomas Keneally: In an engrossing account based on the testimony of those known as Schindlerjuden (Schindler's Jews), Thomas Keneally reconstructs the story of Oskar Schindler, the enigmatic prison camp Direktor and German war profiteer who became the unlikely savior of over 1,300 Holocaust Jews.
Secretly appalled by the deeds of his countrymen, Oskar Schindler set up a factory in which he sustained his workers on black-market food and protected them from deportation to death camps through his various wheelings and dealings and bribes of Party officials. Quite unexpected of a heavy-drinking, womanizing, Nazi Party industrialist, Schindler's personal risks and sacrifices showed unforgettable courage and grace to people whom evil had surrounded and systematically worked to destroy.

Stones In Water By Donna Jo Napoli: The day Roberto and his friend Samuele are rounded up by German soldiers and put on a train marks both a beginning and an end. The boys have now become part of the war, providing forced labor for the Nazis at various work camps deep inside German territory. And it's the ending to all they've known -- before their lives as children in Venice, their innocence. For Roberto, the present is unbearable -- backbreaking work, near starvation, and protecting Samuele's secret that, if discovered, would mean death for both boys. Escape is Roberto's only hope, but the Russian winter is upon the land -- and any hope seems remote. But compared to the horrors he has suffered, can freezing be worse? Using the shimmering language that has marked her books Zel and The Magic Circle, Donna Jo Napoli writes a wrenching novel of a boy caught up in a war he hates. As pure as the snow that covers the vast lands he must cross, and as hard as the gift stone he carries with him as a kind of talisman, this is both a war story and a survival story. It is not only the story of how Roberto lives to tell his tale of cruelty and terror, but also how dreams and hope can endure despite the harshest tests.

Stella By Peter Wyden: The story of Stella Goldschlag, whom Wyden knew as a child, and who later became notorious as a "catcher" in wartime Berlin, hunting down hundreds of hidden Jews for the Nazis. A harrowing chronicle of Stella's agonizing choice, her three murder trials, her reclusive existence, and the trauma inherited by her illegitimate daughter in Israel.

Night By Elie Wiesel: Night is an autobiographical novella written by Elie Wiesel, a young Jewish boy, who tells of his experiences during the Holocaust. Elie is from the small town of Sighet, Transylvania. This book begins in late 1941 and chronicles Elie's life through the end of the war in 1945.

At the beginning of the book Elie has a very strong faith in God and the Jewish religion, but this faith is tested when he is moved from his small town by the Nazi's. Elie has to deal with the death of his family, the death of his innocence, and the death of his God at the very young age of fifteen. He tells us of the horrors of the concentration camp; starvation, beatings, torture, illness, and hard labor. He comes to question how God could let this happen and to redefine the existence of God in the concentration camp.

Run, Boy, Run By Uri Orlev: Srulik, an eight-year-old Jewish boy, manages to escape the Warsaw Ghetto and spends the next few years struggling to survive in the Polish countryside, which is occupied by the Nazis. He sees his father killed, learns to be a thief from a group of boys, is taught to pass as a Christian, works for farm families both kind and cruel, and endures near-starvation in the forest. Anti-Semitism is rampant; when his arm is mangled in an accident, a doctor refuses to attend to him, and the arm must be amputated when gangrene develops. Ever resourceful, the boy survives the loss and learns to cope with his disability. The often-horrifying episodes in Srulik's desperate existence are related in short, matter-of-fact sentences, heightening both the awfulness and the grim reality of his experiences for the reader.

Tunes For Bears to Dance to By Robert Cormier: A masterful portrayal of hatred, prejudice and manipulation that challenges readers to examine how they would behave in the face of evil. Henry meets and befriends Mr. Levine, an elderly Holocaust survivor, who is carving a replica of the village where he lived and which was destroyed in the war. Henry's friendship with Mr. Levine is put to the test when his prejudiced boss, Mr. Hairston, asks Henry to destroy Mr. Levine's village.

Number the Stars By Lois Lowry: It�s 1943 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Hitler�s soldiers are making their presence felt everywhere. The Danish people are determined to resist their Nazi occupation by helping the country�s Jews escape to neutral Sweden. Annemarie Johansen and Ellen Rosen are ten-year-old best friends and neighbors. When the Rosen family is selected for �relocation,� Annemarie�s family offers to help by hiding Ellen. Annemarie discovers reserves of adult strength and courage in her as she learns; little by little, that what�s at stake is far bigger than either her or Ellen.

The Diary of a Young Girl By Anne Frank: This book is the story of Anne Frank and her family as written in Anne�s personal diary. It tells the story of how her and her family, along with four others, spent 25 months during World War II in an annex of rooms above her father�s office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After being betrayed to the Nazi�s, Anne, her family, and the others living with them were arrested and deported to Nazi concentration camps.

Because Anne died while in the concentration camps her family decided they wanted to publish her diary. On June 3, 1945 Otto Frank arrived in Amsterdam and he went straight to the home of Miep and Jan Gies. Almost two months later Otto received word that both his daughters had died. As it was now certain Anne was dead, Miep got out the diaries and gave them to Otto. Otto started reading them immediately and was moved and astonished. He had never realized that Anne had recorded everything that happened in the Secret Annex so well and accurately. Otto typed large parts of the diary in German and sent them to his mother in Switzerland. Later he let other people read parts of the diary. They urged him to look for a publisher, but no one wanted to publish the diary so soon after the war. Anne Frank�s diary was finally published in an edition of 1,500 copies in the summer of 1947. Today, her diary has been translated into 67 languages and is one of the most widely read books in the world.

Briar Rose By Jane Yolen: Becca begged Gemma to tell the story of Briar Rose and the castle, and Gemma never refused; in fact, she relished telling the story. On her deathbed, Gemma says that her dying wish is for Becca to �find the castle, the prince, and the maker of spells� (Yolen 16). Her mysterious request launches Becca into an all-consuming search for the truth behind Gemma�s perplexing last words, and leads to the truth hidden within her grandmother�s tale. After discovering Gemma used to be known as �princess,� Becca traces what few clues her grandmother left behind to a castle in Poland that was used as an extermination camp during World War II, and a Polish man named Josef Potocki, whose nickname used to be �Prince.� Josef tells Becca his story of survival, and through his story, she discovers the truth about her grandmother�s mysterious past: Gemma had survived the Holocaust.

Originally written as an adult novel, Jane Yolen�s award winning Briar Rose has been adopted by young adult readers as well. Yolen uses a fairy tale motif to tell the story of a young female survivor of the Nazi run extermination camp, Chelmno. Although Chelmno is a real place, Yolen admits that there is no record of any female survivors, and therefore she argues that the novel itself is a fairytale.

If I Should Die Before I Wake By Han Nolan: Hilary Burke, a sixteen-year-old Neo-Nazi, has been severely injured in a motorcycle accident while riding with her boyfriend, Brad, the leader of the local Neo-Nazi gang. The closest hospital is a Jewish hospital and Hilary is taken there, Nazi armband and all. Her roommate is Chana, an elderly Holocaust survivor-the only member of her family to live through the horrors of World War II. In a strange twist of fate, Hilary is transported back through flash back to the German occupation of Poland where she becomes Chana. While unconscious, Hilary begins torelive Chana�s wartime experiences. The story flips back and forth between Chana and Hilary with one major plot in each girl�s life. In Chana�s story, she endures the full horror of being Jewish under Nazi rule which includes the complete dismantlement of her family, the horrors of the Lodz ghetto, and ultimately the hell of Auschwitz. Before her accident, Hilary helped to kidnap her Jewish neighbor, Simon, and he is trapped inside his locker at school. There is a large search underway to find him. Hilary is also wrestling with her relationship with her mother, who has a long history of nervous breakdowns and abandoning Hilary. Her mother sits by Hilary�s bedside most of the story.

�Darkness in the Night �
by Emily Ginsburg

Darkness in the night
Darkness, choking the lungs and soul Like the toxic breath of vile monsters

Silver moon glowing in the night
Silver moon, clouded by the ashes of human beings
And the barbed wire hatred of man

Stars in the night
Stars; blue, gold, and mocking
Toppling skyscrapers of faith

Cold in the night
Cold that lives in the human heart Freezing the blood, limiting the mind

Prayers in the night
Prayers to a murdered god
Kaddish in the anticipation of death

Screams in the night
Screams, the maniac prophecy of fire Piercing and painful like a bed of nails
Wild beasts in the night
Wild beasts. Hairy Kapos who steal crowns
From innocent teeth

Smoke in the night.
Smoke wafting from fires that are flesh Fierce jagged fires that consume, melt

Darkness in the night
Darkness, morbid darkness
Darkness, deadly darkness
Darkness, toxic darkness

The choking black of the reaper's cloak The icy black of midnight runs to hell The terrible black in watching the death of love
The empty black of an empty soul

Darkness in the night.

In case the poem didn't explain itself-

The reason that Elie Wiesel's book is called Night is simple. His experiences in Birkenau, Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchewald were like night: dark and chilling (E. Ginsburg).

Works Cited

Cormier, Robert. (1992). Tunes For Bears to Dance to. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers.

Donelson, Kenneth L. and Allen Pace Nilsen. (2001). Literature for Today�s Young Adults. Boston: Pearson Education Inc.

Frank, Anne. (1993). The Diary of a Young Girl. New York: Bantam.

Ginsburg, Emily. �Darkness in the Night,� http://cte.jhu.edu/techacademy/web/2000/baczkowski/Emily/Emily.htm. (Nov. 2004).

Keneally, Thomas. (1982). Schindler�s List. New York: Serpentine Publishing Co.

Lowry, Lois. (1989). Number the Stars. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers.

Napoli, Donna Jo. (1997). Stones in Water. New York: Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers.

Nolan, Han. (1994). If I Should Die Before I Wake. San Diego: Harcourt Brace.

Orlev, Uri. (2003). Run, Boy, Run. :Houghton Mifflin/ Walter Lorraine Books.

�Poetry, Essays, & Short Stories by Our Children of Survivors and Our Parents,� http://remember.org/children/poetry.html. (Nov. 2004).

Rudolph, Ms. (2003). �Holocaust Book List,� http://www.websterschools.org/classrooms/willinklib/holocaust_books.htm. (Nov. 2004).

Spinelli, Jerry. (2003). Milkweed. New York: Random House Inc.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. www.ushmm.org. (Nov. 2004).

Wiesel, Elie. (1960). Night. New York: Bantam.

Wyden, Peter. (1993). Stella. :Anchor.

Yolen, Jane. (1992). Briar Rose. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

�There Lies Hope� By Jessica Hollander

From Jessica Hollander: I wrote this poem when I was in my first year of high school, at age 14. I submitted it in a poetry writing contest in southern California and won first place for it. there was a special ceremony and Mel Mermelstein was present to give my award.

�There Lies Hope�
By Jessica Hollander