The events of the Holocaust are difficult, sometimes inconceivable, and can engender traumas and fears even in an adult, not least in children. On the other hand, for children growing up in Israel the Holocaust is ever-present in their lives; it is part of the collective Israeli memory, and they are exposed to it from an early age in public discourse, in the media, at special events, and more.
As a result, Israeli children are sometimes exposed at an early stage to Holocaust content that is not at all appropriate for their cognitive and emotional level. Such exposure and in an uncontrolled and unmediated manner by an adult close to them, can create emotional suffering, a sense of distance, and judgment, and even lead to a lack of understanding of the subject. On the other hand, postponing the teaching of the Holocaust to later ages is also not recommended and can lead to an inability to digest the amount of facts and moral challenges inherent in the topic.
In order to address and meet these challenges, the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem has developed a teaching method for studying the subject of the Holocaust for young ages. The method adapts the subject teaching to the emotional and cognitive level of primary-school children, and is based on several guiding principles. Two of them, perhaps the most important among them, are: not to expose children to all the events of the Holocaust, but rather to focus on perspectives that reflect positive coping methods and interactions between groups of people during that difficult period; and a focus mainly on family and community circles.
These principles allow for an engagement in a human framework familiar to students, for which they can develop empathy. The discussion on the subject presents basic dilemmas during the Holocaust, faced by individuals and families in times of crisis.
Intended for fourth- to sixth-grade students, the space is based on the guiding principles of Yad Vashem's unique pedagogic and age-appropriate concept for teaching the Holocaust, and describes life during the Holocaust, from the perspective of the children who lived in the ghetto. The space presents this complex experience, in an interactive manner, with the aim of exposing the young students to the subject of the Holocaust in a way that suits them and creates in them empathy and awareness of human distress and challenges.
The space presents a random street in the ghetto, through which children can get to know and learn about various topics from the Holocaust and Jewish life in the ghettos. The illustration is not a reconstructing of a street in a specific ghetto, as the Nazis established more than a thousand ghettos that were often very different from each other and hence the life of the Jews in them. Instead, the illustrations on the street are a symbolic representation of the ghetto space and incorporate motifs from different ghettos. The end result is an illustration based on historical photographs, containing authentic representative details from various ghettos.
The space presents various topics, through which the child can learn about the lives of children in the ghettos, about difficulties they had to deal with such as hunger and overcrowding, their relationship with parents and siblings, manifestations of courage and their desire to continue to create and learn despite the difficulties.
Each subject is represented by an icon on the street, and the child can choose to enter to study a random topic or go in order, subject by subject. Within each topic, the children encounter a variety of materials between relevant disciplines – short historical texts, explanations of concepts, excerpts from written testimony, video testimonies, photographs of the period, poetry excerpts, paintings, and more. Of course, all the materials are adapted to the level of the older elementary-school children, and allow them to deal with them in a true but protected manner, in accordance with the principles of educational perception. The learning process, which is undergone through interactive and playful activities and the use of different disciplines, opens a window for many students to whom frontal learning methods are less effective.
The author works in the e-Learning Department, International School for Holocaust Studies.
This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 97.
