Holocaust Learning Stations One Survivor Remembers

Holocaust Museum Exhibit Proposal Background: A proposal is a written statement intended to sway an audience toward a certain goal. For example, the purpose of a museum project proposal would be giving the audience reasons in favor of a specific museum project.  

Your Task Task: Write a museum proposal for an exhibition to be created for Gerda Weissmann, a Holocaust survivor.   Your proposal must include the following: Brief background information about Gerda Weissmann The reasons why your proposal should be accepted Use 3 different primary source artifacts from the five learning stations throughout the classroom Use these artifacts to support your reason why a museum exhibition should be created for Gerda Weissmann Explain who can benefit from this museum exhibit

“Why. Why did we walk like meek sheep to the slaughterhouse “Why? Why did we walk like meek sheep to the slaughterhouse? Why didn’t we fight back? What had we to lose? Nothing but our lives. Why did we not run away and hide? We might have had a chance to survive. Why did we walk deliberately and obediently into their clutches? I know why. Because we had faith in humanity. Because we did not really think that human beings were capable of committing such crimes.” -From All But My Life, by Gerda Weissmann Klein

Station 1 Personal Information

By Christmas 1939 The deportation of the Jews was postponed; the Weissmann family was forced to move into their damp basement as their house was given to an ethnic German family. The new family lived in their rooms and walked in their gardens as the Weissmann were cooped up below, without running water or electricity. “Things were very bad, but we were still in our own home,” Gerda would recall. “Even though we lived in the basement, we were still there.” Gerda came to realize all she had taken for granted.

May 8th, 1940 Monumental events were happening in the world: wars, invasions, conquests and killing. Gerda’s world would become ever smaller; daily life with her family, the feeling of confinement, the longing to go into her garden again and enjoy the glories of spring and the gift of renewal and rebirth.

May 8th, 1942 Gerda turned 18. Her only present was a fresh orange, purchased after her mother sold a valuable ring. The orange was the last tangible gift Gerda would receive from her parents.

Station 2 Family History

Bystanders/Anti-Semitism Station 3 Bystanders/Anti-Semitism

Station 4 Concentration Camps

After six weeks of endless marching, only 1 in 5 girls remained. March 12th, 1945 After six weeks of endless marching, only 1 in 5 girls remained.

April 28th, 1945 Ilse, on the edge of death said, “I am angry at no one, and I hope no one is angry at me. If my parents survive, don’t tell them how I died.” Ilse would die before dawn. As Gerda would later recall, “We both fell asleep, I woke up; she did not.”

May 7th, 1945 Suse would die on the day before the war ended, the day before V.E. Day and the day before Gerda’s 21st birthday; she did not live to collect her bet. Gerda was one of only 120 girls-from among more than 2,000 who began the march- to survive. The survivors were liberated in Volary by American soldiers, including Kurt Klein; at liberation, Gerda weighed 68 pounds, her hair had turned white and she had not had a bath in three years.

Station 5 Liberation