Classroom Activities

• A Diary of your own--Have your students keep a diary. This can be for a week. Warn your students if the diary is to be handed in to be checked by the teacher. Diaries can be very personal records, so the students will want to keep their writing on relatively neutral topics for the time of the exercise. In this sense, the diary will be more of a journal. Hopefully, the students will be encouraged to continue writing their thoughts and ideas as a personal record after the class exercise is complete. To give students some direction, give them a question each day to answer. For example: What do you do when you get up in the morning? What do you like to eat for lunch? Describe your bedroom at home. What do you do in the evenings? Describe a situation in the past few days in which you were happy.

• Art project--so many images come to mind when students finish viewing the video Forget Me Not. Have your students draw their impressions. Allow open creativity or you can direct them to a specific theme to meet your learning objectives.

• Geography research--Using a map of Europe, have students locate the major locations for the events in WWII or in the drama of Anne Frank: Amsterdam, Auschwitz concentration camp, and Bergen-Belsen Concentration camp. Anne was born in Frankfurt, Germany. Do this as a library research project.

• Anne Frank's bedroom--Have your students create a space the size of the bedroom in which Anne may have had to stay. Measure out a space about 2 yards by 5 yards. This approximates the size of the bedroom she shared with one other person for the two years in captivity. Have the students compare this space with the size of their own bedrooms.

• Learning Dutch--Anne wrote the diary in Dutch. Have your students learn a few phrases in Dutch. For example, dear Kitty is "Lieve Kitty."

• Essays--Essay topics are included in a separate section in this guide. Try a short essay--one to three pages--on these and any other topics of your choice.

• The sound-free zone--Create a "sound-free zone" in your classroom to duplicate conditions for being in hiding. In other words, students are not allowed to talk and they must act as though someone is listening at the walls. Then have them write about their thoughts and feelings during the "silent" time.

• The Anne Frank meal--Serve your students the type of meal Anne and her family had to eat during the final days of their hiding. At the beginning of their stay in the secret annex, the Frank family had a variety of foods to eat, mainly grain products and vegetables. However, toward the end food became scarce. There was war-time rationing, and all their food had to be smuggled. A typical meal in the final few months would consist of a potato or some vegetable soup.

• Strawberry delight--At one point, the Franks got a crate of fresh strawberries. Make a list of all the things you could make with those strawberries. Have a strawberry festival and eat nothing but strawberries.

• Life without the tube--Anne's family entertained and informed themselves with the radio. For an exercise in relating to these times, have your students go without TV or movies for a week (or some other time period). They can only listen to the radio for their entertainment. Have them write a journal of the experiences.

• Cameo Interview/role playing--Have a student take the part of one of the characters in the video, and be interviewed by others in the class. The student needs to prepare for the role, so give the assignment ahead of time--as much as a week in advance--so preparations can be made. Give the role player some specific questions that the class will ask (20 questions are appropriate); parents can help the students research the questions at home to help support the educational experience. Questions asked should reflect a knowledge of the historical events and attitudes of the times. On the day of the interview, students may want to dress in a costume of the 1940s to add effect and otherwise enrich the performance. If a video recorder is available, try making a recording of the interview to play back to the class.

• Classroom visitor--Have a visit to the class by a person who is familiar with the history and problems of the Holocaust. If there is a Jewish community center or congregation in your city or town, contact their offices for possible resources. Talk with the class about the visit ahead of time, and discuss possible questions for the guest speaker. If possible, ask the visitor ahead of time about the questions they would like students to ask and then prepare the class for these questions. These will help to build a dialogue and open the way for other questions.

• Survivors in your area--Perhaps there are survivors of the Holocaust in your city or town. If there is a Jewish synagogue nearby, check for names of possible survivors, relatives of survivors, or representatives who may be able to visit or talk with your class. There may be a survivor in your area who would not be in a position to visit, but would welcome letters from your students.

• Wearing the badge--Experience what it feels like to be completely cast out. The Jews had to wear yellow stars to identify themselves. Wear something similar to the yellow star around school for a day. Have a class discussion about how it felt to be stared at and singled out. Discuss those invisible "yellow stars" that people wear around the school and what we can do to avoid allowing these to dictate our actions towards these people.

• Newspaper research--Have your students do library research on victims of intolerance in our world today or in recent history. This can be done over a period of time by following newspaper reports, or by directing the students to specific social problems in our nation or to events in other countries around the world.

• Museum Visit--Check to see whether there is a museum in your area with displays and research on the Holocaust. Recommend this as an out-of-class project or take your students on a field trip. If there is no such facility, then make your own museum. Have the students make poster displays with pictures from magazines or from library resources.