Jennifer Brown

Dr. Warner

11 May 2011

English 112B

Unit of Study: Night and Holocaust Literature

"We are all different; because of that, each of us has something different and special to offer and each and every one of us can make a difference by not being indifferent."

- Henry Friedman, Chairman of the Holocaust Education Centre, Washington.

 

Centerpiece Work: Night by Elie Wiesel

 

Why Historical Literature?

            History can be one of the more difficult subjects for students to grasp, particularly as studying history becomes a chore of mesmerizing dates and names, without ever really getting a chance to contextualize the events. Historical fiction is important because it allows students the opportunity to read stories that feature the events they are learning about in their history classes, but from a different perspective. YA historical fiction especially can be helpful because students will be more able to relate to the events that are depicted if they are told by someone around their age.

Why Night and Holocaust Literature?

            The Holocaust is a difficult topic for many people to come to terms with—not just students—and I feel that any information about this time in history is helpful for understanding exactly what happened. Novels like Night by Elie Wiesel give a human voice to the inhuman actions of the Holocaust and help to ensure that the Holocaust is never looked upon lightly. By reading someone�s firsthand account of the horrible events that took place, readers are able to empathize with the author and with the victims. Genocide is still occurring today and yet not much is done to stop it; while places like Darfur have received more press over the past few years due to what has been occurring, the war still rages on. I believe that students should read a novel like Night not just because it is canonical, but because of the important message that it carries. The Holocaust was one of the most devastatingly destructive periods in history, and it is crucial that we all do our part to ensure that these events are never repeated.

Overall Approach:

            The Holocaust can be very difficult to understand, because it is so heavy and dense. However, I think before one can understand the Holocaust, one should understand what led up to it. I feel that this starts with simple discrimination, of any kind. That is why I have chosen to begin my unit with two poems from famous African-American poets; although they are writing about their own race�s struggles with Civil Rights, the idea of discrimination is ever-present, and something they have in common. African-American struggles with slavery and Civil Rights are taught much more often than the Holocaust, so I feel that high school students would be comfortable with this topic and it would be a way to ease them into a more difficult subject.

 

Launching the Unit

1.)  I would begin with the poem �My People� by Langston Hughes:

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

Although Langston Hughes is black, not Jewish, I think that there are definite parallels between the discrimination both minorities faced and even in some way continue to face. Further, this poem represents pride in one�s background, which must never be forgotten, particularly in the face of hardship.

2.)  I would then share the poem �Still I Rise� by Maya Angelou:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

 

This poem discusses being proud of one�s background and a refusal to be pushed down by whatever negativity haunts one�s past. Although it is, again, about being African-American, the themes are similar and the discrimination is similar. I think students would be able to relate to this poem as with the first one, as it would be more familiar than the Holocaust.

 

3.) One of the most famous Holocaust poems, �First They Came For The Jews� by Martin Niem�ller�:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

 

Although Martin Niemoller is not Jewish, he was born in Germany and initially supported Hitler before opposing him. I would ask students what they think of this poem, in terms of standing up for themselves and for others, and we would have a discussion about all of the poems so far.

 

4.) I would show two clips from the film American History X, which deals with neo-Nazi �skinheads� in today�s society.

The first clip, which can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-x4uBHvwGg&feature=related (5:00-6:35) features a rant by the grief-stricken Derek after his father is killed by a black man. This is the event that begins his neo-Nazi affiliation, and the rant that he gives to a newscaster is filled with racial slurs and general comments degrading all other races. This clip is important because it shows how the kind of thinking Nazis had, and the kind of thinking that still goes on, even in today�s society.

-Questions for students to think about:

1. What do you think of when you hear the racial slurs?

2. Do you believe that this type of thinking continues today?

3. Have you ever used a racial slur against another person/group?

4. Why do you think there is such strong racial tension? Can you ever see a reason for it? Why/why not?

The second clip, which can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbSI4Ec1vw&feature=related, shows Derek and his younger brother, Danny, taking down their Nazi memorabilia and posters from their shared room at the end of the movie.

-Questions for students to think about:

1. What kinds of images do you see?

2. Why do you think they are removing these posters?

3. Do any words/images stand out to you?

 

The Centerpiece Work

 

I would have students read through Night as homework, but we would discuss the chapters read in class the following day. I would prepare questions for each chapter, such as:

-Does Wiesel believe in God? Does the narrator, Eliezer? What role does faith play in Night?

-What quotes stood out to you? Why?

-What is the significance of the title, Night? What are the literal and symbolic meanings of �night� throughout the novel?

 

After finishing the book, students would have the option of writing an essay/book report (choosing from this book among a few others we�d read) or of comparing/contrasting Night to any of the Young Adult Literature books featured below in the section �Extending the Unit.�

 

 

Extending the Unit:

 

Boas, Jacob. We Are Witnesses: Five Diaries Of Teenagers Who Died In The Holocaust

Like many teenage boys, Egon Katz, 17, a Jewish baker's apprentice, is full of energy, big ideas, and love. But his home is Nazi Germany; it is one month after Kristallnacht; and life as he has known it is disintegrating. He comes to the attention of the authorities when he is involved in a scooter accident with a prominent businessman. Rather than report to Gestapo headquarters, Egon decides to flee the country. Ray's afterword explains that this is her father-in-law's story of escape. Knowing that these events happened to a real man who lived to tell about them lends power and credibility to the novel. But the author has not always been careful to separate what Egon knew then from her post-Holocaust knowledge, often making the narrative seem too modern and, in one case, historically misleading. Egon mentions "a crime of Dachau proportions," when the reality of the concentration camps would not have been known so soon after Kristallnacht. Still, the book is exciting and accessible to teens, regardless of their cultural background, and the relatively happy ending instills hope for the continuation of a people. –School Library Journal

 

Boyne, John. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: A Fable. Nine-year-old Bruno, the only child in an affluent German family, is shocked when his family moves to a place in Poland where, from his new bedroom window, he can see a high wire fence and hundreds of people wearing striped pajamas. –Literature for Today�s Young Adults

 

Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century. Since its publication in 1947, it has been read by tens of millions of people all over the world. It remains a beloved and deeply admired testament to the indestructible nature of the human spirit. Restored in this Definitive Edition are diary entries that were omitted from the original edition. These passages, which constitute 30 percent more material, reinforce the fact that Anne was first and foremost a teenage girl, not a remote and flawless symbol. She fretted about and tried to cope with her own sexuality. Like many young girls, she often found herself in disagreements with her mother. And like any teenager, she veered between the carefree nature of a child and the full-fledged sorrow of an adult. Anne emerges more human, more vulnerable and more vital than ever. Anne Frank and her family, fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation, hid in the back of an Amsterdam warehouse for two years. She was thirteen when she went into the Secret Annex with her family. [www.barnesandnoble.com]

Nolan, Han. If I Should Die Before I Wake. Sixteen-year-old Hilary Burke hates Jews. As part of a neo-Nazi gang in her town, she�s finally found a sense of belonging. But then she is critically injured during a motorcycle accident with her boyfriend, Brad, and nothing will ever be the same. Lying near death in a Jewish hospital, Hilary finds herself bombarded by memories of a life in Poland—she becomes Chana, a girl whose family is forced from their home by the Nazis and marched to the Lodz ghetto, where starvation drives people to desperate acts and the streets are smeared with filth. Those who are strong enough to survive are shipped to the mass slaughterhouse at Auschwitz. How can Chana endure such a life? And how can Hilary? –Harcourt Brace & Company

Roy, Jennifer. Yellow Star. Middle schoolers will appreciate the detailed observations in tt1is moving retelling of the experiences of Jennifer Roy's Aunt Syvia in the Lodz Ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland. – Literature for Today�s Young Adults

Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survival Tale

Told with chilling realism in an unusual comic-book format, this is more than a tale of surviving the Holocaust. Spiegelman relates the effect of those events on the survivors' later years and upon the lives of the following generation. Each scene opens at the elder Spiegelman's home in Rego Park, N.Y. Art, who was born after the war, is visiting his father, Vladek, to record his experiences in Nazi-occupied Poland. The Nazis, portrayed as cats, gradually introduce increasingly repressive measures, until the Jews, drawn as mice, are systematically hunted and herded toward the Final Solution. Vladek saves himself and his wife by a combination of luck and wits, all the time enduring the torment of hunted outcast. The other theme of this book is Art's troubled adjustment to life as he, too, bears the burden of his parents' experiences. –School Library Journal

 

Wolf, Joan M. Someone Named Eve. Wolf tells a fictionalized story of a young Jewish girl from the Czechoslovakian village of Lidice who was one of the ten children chosen from the doomed village to be taken to a Lebensborn center for "Germanization." –Literature for Today�s Young Adults

 

Other Resources:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: http://www.ushmm.org/

Holocaust Center of Northern California: www.hcnc.org