124holocaust.docx - Sara Paige Young JS 211 Professor...

Sara Paige Young
JS 211
Professor Gillerman
December 2018
Final Writing Assignment
Part I: Primary Sources
For this section choose any two primary sources, preferably two that can be easily contrasted and
outline how you would answer a question on the final. For the outline ensure you hit the main
points such as the basic information: author, purpose, date and historical context. Then outline
how they shed light on the historical period in which they were written and the phenomena they
represent.
Warsaw Diary of Chaim Kaplan
a. Written by Chaim Kaplan, a school teacher who founded a Hebrew elementary school,
where he was principal for forty years.
b. Purpose
i. Writing was Kaplan’s way of resisting, a form of spiritual and personal resistance
to the Nazi party
ii. To be remembered and to document his struggles
iii. To record the story of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto and speculate about what
was to come
iv. Expose Nazi corruption in the ghetto
v. To document anti-Jewish policies imposed by the Nazi party and how those
affected life in ghetto.
vi. To detail how Jew’s living in the ghetto reacted to the laws and policies that
eliminated their rights
vii. To present his evidence and opinions about the victimization of the Poles as well
as the Jews
c. Date: The diary starts on September 1st, 1939 and ends on August 4th, 1942
d. Historical context:
i. Germany invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939, and the ghetto’s are established
ii. Germany continued conquer most of Europe over the next year, ghetto’s are
established across Europe
iii. 1942 there is mass deportation of the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka death camp
e. How the dairy shed light on the historical period/ phenomena
i. Kaplan talks about cruelty is a sickness that can affect whole communities and
even entire nations when referring to the rapidly spreading Nazi ideology

ii. Kaplan describes how the ghetto was first separated by guards posting at the
border and eventually walls were built to make ghetto a closed community
iii. He describes everyday life in the ghetto-- people first were fearful and panicked,
but later became accustomed to the cruelty and discrimination of life in the ghetto
iv. He talks about the effect the ghetto had on Polish Jews- with only each other to
rely on, inhabitants of the ghetto felt like they were responsible to take care of
each other. Social action was diffused through all levels of the community in the
ghetto.
v. The Jews formed a functioning community in the ghetto--everyone took upon
public duty in their courtyard. Each courtyard committee was divided into
reporting subcommittees and each subcommittee was again divided so that
everyone had a role
vi. In the ghettos schooling of children was forbidden, however Kaplan details how
Jewish children are still secretly learning. Inhabitants often used children to
smuggle food from the outside world.