Do not romanticize history to engage students' interest

Jewish youth in Le Chambon (#83599)
 

Date: circa 1941  

Photo credit: USHMM  

Photographer: No photographer recorded


Photo description
A group of Jewish youth who are hiding from the Germans in the French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon posing for a picture in the snow.


Relationship to guideline

The residents of Le Chambon, a Protestant village in southern France, helped thousands of refugees, including about 5,000 Jews, escape Nazi persecution between 1941 and 1944.  Refugees, including many children, were hidden in private homes and also in nearby Catholic convents and monasteries.  While many students associate Oskar Schindler with rescue, it is appropriate to tell the stories of others who, despite the danger, made choices based on both religious conviction and a sense of moral duty.  At the same time, teachers should not overemphasize heroic tales in a unit on the Holocaust, but instead bear in mind that "at best, less than one-half of one percent of the total population [of non-Jews] under Nazi occupation helped to rescue Jews." [Oliner and Oliner, 1991, p. 363] 

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