Everyday 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

Make certain that the photo you choose includes a location where it was taken.

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 location (city and country) (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
Using the following questions, analyze ONE of the photos. Write this on a separate piece of paper.

Describe what you see. · What do you notice first? · What people and objects are shown? · How
are they arranged? · What is the physical setting? · What, if any, words do you see? · What other details can you see?

Why do you think this image was made? · What’s happening in the image? · When do you think it was made? · Who do you think was the audience for this image? · What tools were used to create this?
· What can you learn from examining this image? · What’s missing from this image? · If someone made this today, what would be different? · What would be the same?

What do you wonder about...
who? · what? · when? · where? · why? · how?

Assignment #3 Photo Research-- type these paragraphs on a sheet of paper in the lab. You will present them tomorrow.
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?

Assignment #4 Photo Reflection-- using one of the photos you selected from the archives and the photo you brought from home to "match" it, please answer the following questions, also in a typed paragraph:
Identify evidence that suggests that life was normal for Jews prior to the Nazis.
What did you discover as you looked through your own family's photos in comparison to those that you had researched?
Which photo of your family did you choose that relates and why?
How do the photos show similarities between you, your family, or your community to those in European Jewish life prior to WWII?