Integrated Media Using

Salvaged Pages

Carrie A. OlsonUSHMM Teacher Fellow

“These writings capture the experience

of young people from the inside—not as the

Nazis decreed it, not as observers witnessed it, not as historians made sense of it after events

occurred.” (Zapruder)

They observed and recorded:• What they ate and how they dealt with hunger• How they communicated.• How they dealt with loss of home and family.• How they continued to hope for a better future.

They wrote with no knowledge of the outcome.

Alexandra Zapruder

Voices on Antisemitism

USHMM Podcast Series

Hope & DespairAnonymous Boy:

Lodz Ghetto• June 11, 1944, p. 371• July 15, 1944, p. 383

Compassion & Empathy Despair as Part of Suffering

Anonymous Girl: Lodz Ghetto• March 5, 1942, p. 234

Hope for Individual Survival Hope for the World

Elsa Binder: Stanislawow, Poland• January 30, 1942, p. 319

“These diaries remind us that even in the

face of annihilation it can be a worthy act of

defiance to write down your story and

proclaim to the world, ‘I exist…

I’m still here’” -Lauren Lazin

director and Academy Award Nominee, Tupac: Resurrection

What are your immediate thoughts?Which images or diary passages stand out for

you?What qualities set those diarists apart?What is new information you learned?

What surprised you?What evoked a strong feeling?

What questions did the film raise?What do you want to know more about?

How did the voice of these young people add to your understanding of the Holocaust?

Zapruder saw how the writers shifted between varying perspectives, voices, and scopes of interest.

Dawid Rubinowicz

She developed one organizing principle to untangle the shifting nature of the diarists’ writing by considering the

different perspective or “worlds.

Eva and Petr Ginz

Zapruder identified these ‘worlds’ as:1) The internal world with the voice of reflecting; 2) The immediate world with the voice of reporting;3) The external world with the voice of chronicling.

Dawid Rubinowicz

The “world” is a model for students to engage in the process of literary analysis.

Students will to learn that the diarists wrote for many different reasons, in many different styles and under very different circumstances.

Elisabeth Kaufman

REPRODUCIBLE 13Internal Perspective/Reflecting• Most personal of these • Reflecting voice • Self-examination, their inner lives,

their deepest thoughts and feelings. • Matters of character, dreams, hopes • Relationships and conflicts with

family, friends, etc• Faith, religion, and belief (or lack of

belief) in God.

Moshe Flinker

REPRODUCIBLE 14Immediate World/Reporting• One step removed from the internal

one• Daily lives or important events that

occur within the writer’s personal • Reporting tone, often devoid of

emotion or personal reflection• Great detail, with an emphasis on

accuracy and specificity.Peter Feigel

REPRODUCIBLE 15External World/Chronicling• More removed from the personal

life • Chronicle a series of events as it

happened to their community, or capture a • Most literary forms of expression; • Chroniclers capture in writing

scenes and incidents• See and sketch these moments for

their generality

Yitskhok Rudashevkski

How does each “world” inform you about the Holocaust?

 What factors impact how the diarists

express themselves? 

As you read this excerpts, keep in mind the factors that shape your own “world”

and voice.

How could you use this in your classroom?