Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent living memorial to the victims. This year’s Holocaust remembrance week is May 1–8, 2011. The theme designated by the Museum for the 2011 observance is Justice and Accountability in the Face of Genocide: What Have We Learned?
Because so many of our students are introduced to the Holocaust through the Diary of Anne Frank, we’ve gathered online resources for going into, through, and beyond Anne Frank’s story.
* Film footage of Anne Frank – Filmed in celebration of a neighbor’s wedding in July of 1941, shortly before the Frank family went into hiding, this is the only footage of Anne Frank.
* We Remember Anne Frank – Scholastic’s unit includes interviews with Miep Gies, the loyal employee of the Frank family. Lessons are arranged by grade level, starting with grade 3.
* Anne Frank, Writer – From EDSITEment (National Endowment for the Humanities), this site scaffolds their lessons and provides resources for connecting Anne’s story to other examples of racism and exclusion.
* Anne Frank – Lessons in Humanity and Dignity – Provides activities for school and home.
* Anne Frank Received Her Famous Diary in 1942 – From ReadWriteThink!, the unit introduces students to the importance of first-hand accounts in understanding historical events.
* Diary of Anne Frank, the movie – PBS provides a Teacher’s Guide to accompany the DVD (which you can order from the site). The site also includes the Take Action page, a listing of projects and activities for empowering students to make a difference. In the current test-driven climate, all too often the reading of powerful stories ends with the “what,” and students are not moving on to explore the next two components, so essential to meaningful learning: “so what” and “now what.”
* Anne Frank Timeline – Part of the Secret Annex Online site, the timeline provides background and compelling images from Anne’s story, starting in 1914.
* Anne Frank the Writer: An Unfinished Story – From the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the resources include a beautifully done tour of Anne Frank’s diary through images and audio clips.
* Beyond Anne Frank.pdf – Created by Jennifer Norton, Regional Education Corps Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, to complement reading of The Diary of Anne Frank.
* The Danish Solution – From Snag Learning, this documentary film is a tribute to the “upstanders” of Denmark. It details how the Danish were able to save many of Denmark’s Jewish population when the Nazi’s Final Solution was implemented. There are even discussion questions on the page, but thanks to Holocaust Educators Network (HEN) educator Diane Williams, here are two more thought-provoking, guiding questions:
* What inspires us to act? or Why act? (I think this is a question that gets to the root of what my students have grappled with over the years when studying the Holocaust – why did some act and some did not?) This also allows them to look at fear as a motivator, principles, religious beliefs, humanitarian reasons.
*What forms of resistance are the most effective? When and Why?
If you have Anne Frank resources to add to the list, we hope you will post a comment.
