The Warsaw ghetto was the largest ghetto under Nazi rule, housing at its peak as many as 450,000 Jews. In this film Sheryl Silver-Ochayon presents the study unit for high school ages, “Everyday Life in the Warsaw Ghetto – 1941”, designed at the International School for Holocaust Studies. By juxtaposing rare photos taken by a German soldier in the ghetto during 1941 with testimony and documentation of Jews, we get a deeper picture of the life and death within the ghetto walls.
Sheryl Silver-Ochayon is a staff member at the International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem.
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2: Historical Background
- Part 3: Overcrowding
- Part 4: Everyday Life and Survival
- Part 5: Welfare and Mutual Aid
- Part 6: The "Badge of Shame" and Cultural Life
- Part 7: Conclusion
Pedagogical objectives
- Teach the Holocaust as a human story, in accordance with the educational philosophy of the International School for Holocaust Studies.
- Implement multiple sources to create a fuller context to the Warsaw ghetto, as depicted at one point in time (1941).
- Consider deeper aspects of photography-as-documentation: what the photo reveals, what it hides.
Teaching aids
Lesson plans
Resources
- Jewish Self-Help in Warsaw
- The Smuggling of Food into the Warsaw Ghetto
- "From Ringelblum’s Diary: As the Ghetto is Sealed Off, Jews and Poles Remain in Contact. June,1942"
- From the Diary of Stanislaw Adler on the Closing of the Jewish Quarter in Warsaw
- The Dilemma Of Jewish Self Help
- Ghettos in Nazi Occupied Europe 1939-1944
Online Exhibitions
Learning Environments
Testimonies
