Refugee
Thank you for participating in Echoes & Reflections Mini Course Connecting the Past with Today: Jewish Refugees and the Holocaust. We hope you found the experience enriching and useful to your teaching needs.
To further support your classroom instruction on this thematic approach, you now have access to the plethora of resources referenced throughout the course. The materials below are listed by the section in which they were introduced in the course.
We hope you will find these resources helpful in informing your teaching of Media Literacy.
Introduction to Echoes & Reflections Pedagogy
In this section, you were introduced to pedagogical principles for effective teaching as well as the first visual history survivor testimony.
- Echoes & Reflections Pedagogical Principles
- Biographical Profile: Henry Oertelt
- Visual History Testimony: Henry Oertelt
- Handout: Testimony Reflection Guide
Setting the Stage: Jewish Refugees and the Holocaust
This section was focused on investigating the experiences of Jewish refugees in the Holocaust. You were asked to examine a letter from Otto Frank to his colleague Mr. Nathan Straus Jr.
Why didn’t the Jews leave Europe? Nowhere to go, and an uncertain fate in Europe
In this section, we invited you to consider some of the assumptions and questions students often have about the Jewish experience prior to the Holocaust. We introduced the website resource to help support answering these and other questions that students may have during their study the Holocaust.
Prewar Jewish Life and Antisemitism
Echoes & Reflections principles of pedagogy seek to enhance teaching about the Holocaust by encouraging critical thinking. In this section, you were introduced to what life was like for Jewish Germans before 1933 through the testimony of Margaret Lambert, as well as the comprehensive Timeline of the Holocaust resources for your and your students use.
- Biographical Profile: Margaret Lambert
- Visual History Testimony: Margaret Lambert
- Visual History Testimony: Margaret Lambert (2nd video)
- Extended Resource: Studying the Holocaust Unit
- Timeline of the Holocaust
Stereotypes, “Othering”, and Antisemitic Myths
In this section, you explored resources which give context on historical stereotypes associated with antisemitism.
Refugee State of Mind
In this section, you were introduced to different aspects of the migration experience, through the lens of Jewish refugees and the Holocaust. We explored art as one primary source that can help students emotionally connect with the difficult and complex subject matter.
- Handout: The Refugee
- Biographical Profile: Felix Nussbaum
- Lesson Plan: We Were Strangers Too – Learning About Refugees Through Art
Curating a Timeline: The Need to Leave, and Paper Walls Go Up
In this section, you were introduced to Herman Cohn as he describes his parents’ feeling that the political escalation of Nazism and hate would “blow over”. We also explored the Timeline of the Holocaust and using the Asset Guide to examine particular events and to build context around that event.
- Biographical Profile: Herman Cohn
- Visual History Testimony: Herman Cohn
- Timeline of the Holocaust
- Handout: Timeline of the Holocaust Asset Guide
Paper Walls: Challenges of Immigration
This section discussed how Jewish Germans had a very difficult time entering the US. The State Department (in charge of visa policies) and the US embassies (in charge of processing and approving visa applications) created “paper walls” and changed the rules throughout the Holocaust in policy and practice.
- Handout: Letter from Otto Frank to Mr. Nathan Strauss Jr.
- Biographical Profile: Esther Clifford
- Visual History Testimony: Esther Clifford
- Biographical Profile: Liesl Loeb
- Visual History Testimony: Liesl Loeb
Antisemitic Attitudes in the United States
This section discussed the context that Jewish refugees faced when trying to immigrate to the US.
- USHMM’s Americans and the Holocaust exhibit
- Holocaust Encyclopedia Article: Martha and Waitstill Sharp
- Holocaust Encyclopedia Article: The Rescue Mission of Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus
- Holocaust Encyclopedia Article: Varian Fry
- Handout: Evian Conference
- Handout: Primary Source Readings
Countries as Bystanders
This section discussed the case of the MS St. Louis to examine the impact of U.S. and other countries policies, procedures, and practices on Jewish refugees seeking to leave Europe.
- Biographical Profile: Sol Messinger
- Visual History Testimony: Sol Messinger
- Optional Extension Activity – Voyage of the MS St. Louis: From Hope to Despair
- Video: Voyage of the MS St. Louis
- Video: Refugees
Refugee State of Mind: Poetry
Here we explored poetry as another approach to studying the subject matter and support the pedagogy to help students “see” those impacted as individuals rather than as statistics.
- Handout: “When It Happened” by Hilda Schiff
- Biographical Profile: W. H. Auden
- Extended Resources: The Willesden Project
- Video: “Home” by Warsan Shire
- NBC News Article: Minors Migrate in Honduras
- Poem: Refugee Blues By WH Auden
“A bomb crater can be made into a swimming hole” The refugee experience across time
Within the experience of displacement across time and space, there are core ideas that students may be able to connect with – those connections build empathy, and are important to encourage in a humanities classroom. In this section, you were introduced to Sea Prayer: a 360 film by Khaled Hosseini.