Holocaust Education Network

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Holocaust Art and Instructional Resources

Dear Colleagues,

I’m Margaret Lincoln, a library media specialist at Lakeview High School in Battle Creek, Michigan and a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Teacher Fellow, class of 2002. I am seeking your input and expertise as educators and invite you to contribute to a project involving Holocaust instruction and art.

Over the past several years, I have been privileged to meet and work with Dr. Miriam Brysk. Miriam is a Holocaust survivor and artist living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 2007, she published her memoir Amidst the Shadows of Trees in which she recounts her experience as a child in Poland and her family's arrival in the United States after the war. Throughout most of her adult life, Miriam (who earned a doctorate from Columbia University) worked as a researcher and professor of dermatology, microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Upon her retirement from teaching in 2002, she returned for the first time to the ghettos and camps of Eastern Europe. Throughout the trip, images of her lost family kept entering back into her consciousness, while childhood fears reemerged as nightmares.

Miriam's art career was launched through that return trip to Eastern Europe. Her art utilizes original photographs and computer graphics technology. The resulting works are a reflection of Miriam's own life and stories of friends and relatives who perished during the Holocaust. Miriam feels a deep inner need to portray the suffering of these people, to restore to them their dignity as Jews, to honor and remember them.

Miriam is now engaged in compiling a collection of her art to be published in book form. She would like to include in this publication curriculum support material so that Holocaust educators could incorporate these artworks into their teaching in a meaningful way. Such a publication could then be marketed as both a collection of artwork and as an instructional resource.

To better acquaint you with Miriam's work, the following materials may be accessed online:

-- Exhibit "In A Confined Silence"
-- Exhibit "Children of the Holocaust" Because Slideshare is classified as a social networking site, it may be blocked in some school districts. If you are unable to access the site, I can email you both PowerPoint presentations.
-- The Detroit Jewish News featured an article about Miriam's art at the Holocaust Memorial Center.
-- The Battle Creek Enquirer provided coverage for a Miriam Brysk exhibit in fall 2008. Her art was on display at the Davidson Gallery of Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek.
-- Miriam's website gives additional information.

Please consider developing a Holocaust instructional lesson plan utilizing the art of Miriam Brysk for inclusion in her forthcoming book. A lesson plan template is available but you are not obligated to follow this exact format. Your lesson may be edited. I would like to receive first drafts of lessons by May 30, 2009, sent electronically or through US mail.

I look forward to working with you and appreciate your involvement in this important Holocaust education project.

Best wishes for the remainder of the school year!

Margaret Lincoln
Lakeview HS Library
15060 South Helmer Road
Battle Creek, MI 49015
(tel) 269-565-3730
email: mlincoln@lakeviewspartans.org
http://remc12.k12.mi.us/lhslib

Odette
Odette was born in Paris in 1931. She was interned at Beaune-La-Roland, probably separated from her parents, where her hair was shorn off. She was transferred to Drancy and then deported to Auschwitz on August 21, 1942 on convoy 22. Odette is pictured here with other children at Auschwitz.

He Perished in Ponar
In memory of the Vilna Jews who were shot in Ponar by the Elinsatzgruppe.

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This could be listed here, or there could be a category for "relevant books":
Abstraction and the Holocaust by Mark Godfrey
Please note that we have extended the date for lesson submission from March 30 to May 30, 2009. I hope to hear from members of this network who have an interest in this Holocaust art project!

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