Friday, August 23, 2013

Jewish Life Pre-WWII

In order to better understand what Jewish cultural and communal life was like in Europe prior to WWII, you will be finding photographs from that time period and analyzing them, as well as researching the town(s) where the photos were taken. Follow the assigments below in order, working at your own pace.

Sidenote: Spend a few minutes looking around the Holocaust Museum website. That link is here.

Assignment #1 Photo Collection
Think of two words that symbolize "everyday life". Ex: shopping, school, family time, sports, etc. Go to the USHMM Photo archives collection and type your word into the search engine. Don't pick the very first picture you find. Instead, browse the pictures. Spend some time looking at what is available and thinking about them. Your photo cannot be dated AFTER Nazi occupation, which varied by country. Below is a list of Nazi occupation dates:
Austria March 1938
Poland Sept 1939
Czech March 1939
Denmark 1944 but not really
Norway April 1940
Holland May 1940
Belgium, Luxembourg, France June 1940
Transylvania 1940
Greece April 1941
Yugoslavia April 1941
Russia June 1941
Hungary 1944
Slovakia, Romania 1940
Italy-->Albania April 1939
Sov Union -->Poland 1939
Sov U --> Finland 1940
Sov U --> Romania June 1940

The link to the archives is here.

Once you have found a photo for each key word that you really like, right click on it, copy it, and paste it into a word doc. Also copy and paste ONLY the date and locale (no other info like captions). Print it.

Photo requirements are that it must have people in it, cannot be what is classified as a portrait, and must be prior to German occupation.

Assignment #2 Photo Analysis
Use the worksheet provided to answer questions about ONE of the photos.

Assignment #3 Photo Research
Look up each town from your two photographs. You need to write a well-researched paragraph for each in which you will note the following:
How large was the town/city's Jewish population and how long had Jews been living there?
What was the Jewish life/culture in that town/city like prior to the Nazi invasion?
Where is or was that town/city located?
When and how did the town/city come under Nazi rule?
What was the fate of this particular town's/city's Jews during the Holocaust? What about the country?

No comments:

Post a Comment