Subject: Social Studies
Lesson Length: 55 - 60 mins
Topic: The Jewish Plight During the Interwar Years
Brief Description: Students will learn about discrimination, prejudice, and the attempted genocide of Jewish people during the Holocaust and the years leading up to WWII.
Know Before You Start: Students should be familiar with the terms discrimination, prejudice, and genocide.
Hook:
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Show students this short video of Holocaust survivors talking about their liberation from a concentration camp at the end of WWII.
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Reflect and discuss as a class.
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Read and discuss the sample comic. Highlight that the atrocities of WWII began before the war.
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Discuss the term othering in relation to the treatment of the Jewish people during WWII.
Activity:
- Using the sample comic as a guide, have students create a two-to-three-panel comic describing an event, or act of discrimination, that led to the genocide of Jewish people in WWII Germany.
- Comics should include:
- A description of the event.
- The significance of the event.
- Key players in the event.
- The date and place of the event.
- Possible examples:
- Kristallnacht
- Concentration camps established
- Nuremberg Laws
Closure:
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Read and discuss the finished student comics.
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Discuss how small events can lead to a large event.
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If printed, students can add their finished comics to a class timeline.
Differentiation:
- Allow students to use the speech-to-text feature.
- Allow students to use the voiceover feature to read their comics aloud.
- Allow students to work in pairs or groups as needed.
- Assign specific events to students.
Make a comic about World War II
Make a comic about Shabbat
Make a comic about The Diary of Anne Frank
