Das Tagebuch

Note:  If you have lost your booklet, you may submit the entries on a separate page.

Entries will be added to this page as we progress through the unit.

On all entries, write your age and country

 

 

Entry 1 – 1940

 

General information about yourself:

  • What do you do during the day? (Job?) How do you feel about this occupation?
  • What is one of your hopes/dreams for the future?
  • Who is the person you feel closest to, and what is the last thing you did together?
  • What is your basic outlook on life? Are you pessimistic or optimistic and give an example of how this outlook affects your life.

Entry 2 – 1941 – absent students: ask me for an article about nine people hiding that may inspire you to write this entry.

 

You have gone into hiding. Describe the circumstances. Where are you? Who made or discovered this refuge? Has anyone helped you hide? What is life like here? For how long have you been in hiding?

 

Entry 3 – 1942 – Wishes after freedom

 

Consider the entry from Anne Frank’s diary detailing what each person would do when he or she is released from hiding. (see her entry at the end of this task)

 

Based on the life you have created for your identity, what will you do when you are free? Whether you have placed yourself in a concentration camp or have remained in hiding (based on entry 3), your wishes for freedom will be detailed here. Consider the simple pleasures in life.

 

Draw a line under that entry. Now, consider your own life today. If your freedom were taken away, what simple, every day pleasure would you miss most and why?

 

Anne Frank’s actual entry:

 

Friday, 23 July, 1943

 

Dear Kitty,

 

Just for fun I’m going to tell you each person’s first wish when we are allowed to go outside again. Margot and Mr. Van Daan long more than anything for a hot bath filled to overflowing and want to stay in it for half an hour. Mrs. Van Daan wants most to go and eat cream cakes immediately. Dussel thinks of nothing but seeing Lotje, his wife; Mummy of her cup of coffee; Daddy is going to visit Mr. Vossen first; Peter the town and a cinema, while I should find it so blissful, I shouldn’t know where to start! But most of all, I long for a home of our own, to be able to move freely and to have some help with my work again at last, in other words – school.

 

Yours,

 

Anne

Entry 4 – 1944

Part I: You are awakened in the middle of the night during an action and given 15 minutes to pack a bag. You are limited to taking only three pieces that can fit in a standard sized suitcase. Based on the life you have created for your identity, what three items would you take? Include a sentence for each that describes why you would take it.

 

Part II: Imagine that you—today—need to make the same decision. What three items would you pack? Include a sentence that explains why you made each choice.

 

Note: This excludes the basic essentials, such as clothes, weapons, money, or food. It is a collection of items that represent your life, dreams, hopes . . .

 

•  Pictures of friends   

•  A favorite book or CD

•  Your diary       

•  A toy from your childhood

•  A birthday card from a relative

 

•  Items from your baby book

•  Something you’ve written or drawn

•  A handmade item   

•  A piece of jewelry

•  Your lucky rabbit’s foot

 

 

 

Entry 5– 1945 (Terezin Socratic Seminar)

Place yourself in the Terezin Concentration Camp. Are you a child there? A Jew teaching them in secret? React to the situation through poetry or prose or artwork. Try to show me your understanding of the unusual situation at Terezin, not just your identity’s plight during the Holocaust.

 

Entry 6

Final Das Tagebuch Entry

Unit Reflection for Holocaust Hero unit      DUE: Thursday, May 29

 

For the last entry of Das Tagebuch, reflect on the Holocaust Hero Unit:

 

  1. What did you like most or find rewarding and WHY?
  2. What did you like least or find frustrating and WHY? What might you have done to change it?
  3. What did you learn about yourself, others, or the world around you?

Here is a reminder of some things we did in this unit:

 

•  Reading a book about a Holocaust hero (Alicia or The Cage)

•  Connection to art, music, poetry

•  Trench activity (hiding in a “box” on the floor)

•  Story Time The Terrible Things

•  ID Cards/Das Tagebuch

•  Reader response entries

•  Yiddish Word of the Day

•  Ripping paper after “Newsweek” article

•  Socratic Seminars: They Had a System, and Terezin Poetry

•  Maus Comics