Milkweed

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Presentation of Lives in the Ghetto”

In this activity, students will research residents that lived in Nazi Germany’s ghettos and share their stories with the class.

The majority of Spinelli’s novel follows the lives of Misha and his peers in the Warsaw ghetto. As Nazi German forces invaded countries on the European continent, they established ghettos in major cities in order to separate and isolate—and eventually attempt to decimate—populations they deemed to be unfit. Working in small groups, research survivors of ghettos during WWII and share their stories with the class. Choose one survivor on whom to focus and consider the following questions as you prepare your presentations:

• Who was this person? For example, what was this person’s background and why were they forced to live in the ghettos?
• Where was the person from? In which ghetto did they live?
• What was this person’s experience in the ghetto?
• How long did this person live in the ghetto? Where did they go?
• How did the person’s time in the ghetto affect their future?
• How does this person’s experience compare with Misha’s account of the ghetto?

Share your selected person with the class and discuss with your peers the similarities and differences between individuals’ ghetto experiences.

Teaching Suggestion: This Activity supports students’ development of their research and presentation skills in the context of the novel. Students may work in a group or individually; however, emphasis should be placed on the importance of a cohesive presentation based on research. The following resources may be useful:

• “Life in the Ghettos” from the US Holocaust Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia includes video accounts by ghetto survivors Abraham Lewent, Gerda Klein, and Bono Helmer along with descriptions of the experiences of survivors Paula Garfinkel and David J. Selznik.
• “Eyewitness to History: Holocaust Survivor Testimonies” from the US Holocaust Museum includes video testimonies and transcripts of many survivors, including some who were forced into ghettos. See for instance accounts by Ruth Cohen, Steven Fenves, Allan Firestone, Rachel Mutterperl Goldfarb, Peter Gorog, Estelle Laughlin, Halina Peabody, and Irene Weiss.

Differentiation Suggestion: Students who are English language learners may benefit from sentence frames such as the following: I researched ghetto survivor _____. (They) came from _____ and was forced to live in the ghetto in _______. (They) lived there _____ (months; years) and experienced _____ and _____. The experience affected their future because _____. It compares to Misha’s because _____.