Understanding the Holocaust through Art and Poetry.

In this project, the English, history, and art programs worked together to create a substantial, meaningful, and memorable learning event for the sixth grade class of The Shipley School. The components of the program were: a partnership with another educational institution, Woodmere Art Museum; an interdisciplinary approach to learning about a specific time in history; an opportunity to have a conversation with a primary source, a fine artist; and a major collaborative art and writing project. The event required the participation of each student and was designed to incorporate all the parts of this particular learning process.

Preparing for the Journey

The students had a unique opportunity to visit Woodmere Art Museum to see an exhibit by Frank E. Root which focused on the Holocaust, entitled Journey into Darkness. It was an unusual and powerful exhibit, both in media and content.

The students needed to be well prepared to view and understand the work. They read, listened to, and discussed poetry from the book I Never Saw Another Butterfly. An anthology of poetry written and illustrated by children who did not survive the Terezin concentration camp in Austria, 1942-44.

The students wrote their own poems in response to the poems of the deceased children. They also wrote in response to pictures they were shown of families living in Jewish ghettos in Europe during WWII. The pictures had been selected from photo documentaries; no horrific imagery was used. The imagery focused on children and family groups in their homes, schools, shelters, and on the street.

Their English teacher read them some excerpts from diaries of children who lived during this time. The writing in these journals described feelings, hopes, fears, and dreams of their lives to come. The students learned that only few of these young authors survived, most did not. They learned that most died either of disease in a concentration camp or were killed in an extermination camp. They wrote in response to these journals as well. Their writing revealed a poignant understanding of the depth of the feelings to which they were responding. The sixth grade students too wrote of their feelings, hopes, fears and dreams.

Visualizing Themes

As their art teacher, I asked the students to design visual symbols that could represent some of the themes they had been exploring in their writing. They designed symbols for the words racism, prejudice, bigotry, hope, survival, family, hate, fear, Jewish, Nazi, faith, religion, etc.--they had been inspired by their research and had no lack of ideas. Their graphic designs flowed as freely as their poetry.

The history of the Holocaust was new information to many of these students. For the ones who had prior knowledge, it was enriched and deepened by the lessons preceding the museum trip. It was clear they had been struck by the importance of learning tolerance for differences and respect for all people.

A Look into the Past

The children toured the exhibit with the artist, asking many questions about the artwork and its subject matter. The exhibit consisted of over thirty constructed relief drawings. Each piece represents a specific event associated with the Holocaust. Although the imagery is without any overtly gory or gruesome detail, the horror is implicit in the strength of the images and the monochromatic drawing style, all in shades of gray, black, and white.

The exhibit is chronological, beginning with several images of Kristallnacht, depicted from a variety of personal perspectives, such as inside a shop or looking down a street into a burning synagogue. The exhibit of constructed reliefs continues as if this could have been one family's experience. There were ghetto scenes, boxcars, concentration camps, and finally, a crematorium.

Creating Collages

As each group completed its tour of the Holocaust series, they adjourned to a large gallery. Working on the gallery floor, each group of twenty-two children collaboratively created a four by eight foot collage. Their previously designed symbols, photocopied enlargements of their poetry, photocopies of the family images from the ghettos, large scraps of paper, oil pastels, scissors, glue and background paper awaited them.

The children were told to brainstorm, as a group, a creative plan for the sort of image they wished to communicate. They could keep the poetry and images intact, or change them in any way they wanted. They could add pictures, words, or new symbols as they desired. The background paper for the collage was black; the photocopies were all in black and white. I suggested to them that they use color very selectively, to try to get as much impact as possible out of the limited palette.

Three Approaches

As each group set to work, there was a sense of solemn purpose. Each group resolved their aesthetic goals differently. One group chose to express a sense of chaos by literally separating and scrambling all their poetic phrases so there was a jumble of evocative words such as "... alone ... children ... darkness ... reach ... together ... terrible ..." among the organized drawn designs and photocopied ghetto imagery.

Another group superimposed large handwritten phrases in black and white over their chosen images. The third group chose to juxtapose their complete poems alongside intact and undisturbed images of the families, working their symbols in among the writing and photos.

A Meaningful Experience

This project brought together and integrated many elements important to effective learning and teaching. The children learned about an abhorrent period of history in ways which touched them deeply without frightening them away from the subject. They felt the fear, confusion, and loss experienced by the children whose writing they studied and whose faces they examined in books and subsequently used to create their own images. They learned first hand about the commitment of the artist Frank E. Root who has devoted many years of work to a project which has held his dedicated attention.

When their big, somber, collaborative murals were hung in the middle school building, there was no doubt that these students had shared a meaningful learning experience. Students from older grades were surprised by the powerful images and were intrigued to stop and read the poems and examine the photos.

Benefiting a Generation

The complex messages of this project will live on. These children experienced learning from within. The more they were able to tolerate feeling, the more they were interested in learning. They connected, through their empathic emotions, to a time which many (older, more educated) people still find intolerable to even think about. They were able to think, question, and learn. They felt compassion and anger. They used art as a way to express the information they had learned and the emotions they had discovered within themselves.

The benefits of this multifaceted learning process are many. All of the adults involved worked conscientiously to cross and integrate the curricular issues and maximize this project's potential.

NATIONAL STANDARD

Making connections between visual arts and other disciplines.

Ruth Joray is a middle school art teacher at The Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.