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Swedish high school students learning about the other’s 20th century history and present day situation in human rights compliance
See below.
Task | Date |
Mostly read different texts, looking at photos and discussing a lot before listening to the survivor. | Meeting 8 times |
The team prepared questions about the life of a Holocaust survivor living in Sweden. | Homework |
Film: The Pianist (Voluntary) |
|
Listening to another survivor’s story being read out loud on the morning of the survivors visit. | 45 min |
The Holocaust survivor, Livia, visited the school and spoke not only to these 10 students but to the whole school year 8, approximately 100 students. (Since the Holocaust survivor had a bad throat that day, she and the students viewed a DVD of her telling her personal story in another school, followed by her answering the students’ questions in person.) | 1 day |
Participating in a “city walk” – what happened in Stockholm during World War II”? | ½ day |
Writing reflections on the project. | Homework |
Objectives and Rationale
a. Content and Context
Special studies within the framework of learning the course about the world wars. The work of the students was part of the base for their grades. The participation could not lower the grade of the course but help to a better one.
b. Pedagogical/Didactic Aims
Learn about what happened during the Holocaust and understand the concept of human rights.
Understand what happens when one loses one’s human rights.
Become better acquainted about the life story of a Holocaust survivor, who lives in Sweden today.
Methodological Approaches
Encourage dialogue among students, trying to interfere as little as possible in their discussions and allowing them to listen to each other and work together.
Practical Challenges Faced by the Coordinators and Resolution Strategies
To find the time to prepare lessons.
Technical Equipment Requirements (if applicable)
VC equipment
Primary Source Materials and Online Resources
Holocaust-related memoir in Swedish: Hamna i helvettet.
Stephane Bruchfeld and Paul Levine, Tell Ye Your Children (Stockholm, 1997) (in Swedish called Om detta må ni berätta). This book has been translated into several languages such as Finnish, Turkish, Arabic, English, Per-sian, Spanish and Serbo-Croatian as well as others. For the English version, see: www.levandehistoria.se/files/engelska.pdf
For more information about the actions of Righteous among the Nations on the Yad Vashem website, see: http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/index.asp
Lesson plans from Facing History and Ourselves may be found at: http://www.facinghistory.org
The Living History Forum in Stockholm (http://www.levandehistoria.se) has designed a special city walk for school classes. Students and teachers walk through Stockholm and stop at special sites where certain events during World War II took place. For more information about this exercise, known as “På denna plats,” see: http://www.levandehistoria.se/node/2799.
