The Jews & Nazism
 Mass Murder
 Liberation & Beyond
 Teaching
 Teaching About the  Holocaust
 Lesson Ideas

 - Defining Jews
 - Simulation
 - Scale & Book Review
 - Internet Project
 - Using Testimonies
 - Teaching about the      Righteous    
 - Other Resources

 Discussion Questions
 Sydney Jewish
 Museum
 Lesson Xchange
 Links

This website has on it numerous testimonies collected from survivors in Australia. Teachers may find it helpful to ask their students to think about these stories and organise them in a way which develops students' skills of recording and analysis. The educational objectives and outcomes targeted in this exercise are based on those of the NSW Board of Studies Modern History Syllabus, Stage 6 for the Preliminary and HSC Course.
(See http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/index.html )

OBJECTIVES
A student develops knowledge and understanding about:
OUTCOMES
A student:
  • significant, historiographical issues
  • Identifies varieties of sources
  • Evaluates sources for their usefulness and reliability in relation to specific historical investigations different
  • Identifies different perspectives and interpretations of the past
  • Describes and evaluates different perspectives and interpretations of the past
 
  • Undertake historical enquiry
  • Selects and organises relevant historical information from a variety of sources
  • Analyses and synthesises historical information from a variety of perspectives and presents the findings of the investigation
 

LESSON PLAN
This lesson may be useful to students undertaking a research assignment or as part of a structured classroom lesson which unpacks the memories of survivors and allows the students to answer a question such as: "How do individual experiences of the Holocaust help people today to better understand what it meant to be a victim of Nazism?"

Step 1: Ask students to locate and read the survivor testimonies on this website.
Step 2: Ask students to complete the oral testimony summary sheets individually or in pairs. Different students in the class may be allocated different survivors to read about, to make more economical use of the time.
Step 3: Provide time for feedback to the whole class.
Step 4: Ask students to add ideas/information they have gleaned from others in the class and write up an overview of survivor experiences.

WORKSHEET ON SURVIVOR TESTIMONY

Name (s)  
Age At Time Of First Awareness Of Discrimination and/or Contact With Nazism  
Place/Country Of Origin  
Memory Of Life Before Being Deported or Fleeing  
Memory Of Deportation Experience  
The Camp/Ghetto: What Was It Like? [Write about what was seen, heard, smelled, touched, tasted, plus personal feelings]  
What Happened To Family/Friends?  
How He/She Survived  
How He/She Found Safety/Safe Haven or escaped  
Reaching Australia/safety  
How can this testimony be used to understand the Holocaust experience?  
How the testimony has influenced/affected me  







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