From: Melissa Bleiler <Melissa.Bleiler>
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 10:28:50 -0500

I have read with avid interest the discussion on the Holocaust... As a German Literature major in college, I had to wrestle with much of the information you all have touched upon. I honestly don't recall having received any information about it in high school except what little bit was mentioned in our history books.
  While the books I read in college may be beyond what students in middle/secondary school can fully capture, I do believe there are a few that would be meaningful contributions.
  Rue Ordener, Rue Labat by Sarah Kofman follows a French jewish family during the occupation. The main character, a child, is sent to England for safety, where she is miserable and eventually sent back home to France where she is then sheltered by a Christian woman with her mother as they hide from the Nazis. It's a powerful story from the viewpoint of a country outside of Germany and the impacts the occupation had on families there.
  One I recommend to all adults (not suitable for children) is The Last of the Just by Andre Schwarz-Bart which blends fiction and non-fiction into a tale of a family who migrates from Poland after the extermination of their small community to Germany and eventually the France... The story has a religious twist, basing its central plot on an idea (rooted in history as fact by some)that there are 36 "Just" men in the jewish lineage. These Just men carry the burdens of man and their suffering. One child in the lineage, a Levi, is found to be a Just Man, and it chronicles his life. It's beautiful writing and storytelling, with information about the persecution of the jews beginning in the 1100s and continuing to the holocaust. There is some sexual content late in the book and some graphic violence during the pograms, but it also delves into the Jewish ghettos and the mania of a man fleeing from his executioners. Some excerpts may be useful to class discussions.
  And I've been surprised that the graphic novel Maus has not been mentioned so far. Art Spieglman's depiction of the holocaust as told by his persona in mouse form having discussions with his father, now living in Florida, as they discuss his father's past in the concentration camps. It's a fantastic way to keep the attention of students in a format they can easily relate to. I conducted an independent study on the novels (there are 2 in the series), comparing the work with that of Eli Wiesel and how the two forms of expressing the holocaust contrasted. I understnad the novels are difficult to find now... There is a DVD companion to the piece with recordings of his conversations with his father and a step-by-step piece of constructing the storyline. Pieces of which would lend a multi-media approach.
 
  I have shelves of books from the classes I took in college (UW-Madison), but these 3 stand out to me. Taking the discussion to other countries - Italy and France especially, where so many Jews fled to take refuge - also brings to light the enormity of the holocaust and how it affected so many outside of Germany as well.
  Thank you for discussing this with such passion - I am oddly relieved that this conversation is finding such fuel.
 
-Melissa Bleiler Madison, Wi
 
  The Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth (WCATY) www.wcaty.org <http://www.wcaty.org/>
 
Received on Tue 25 Apr 2006 10:28:50 AM CDT