Resources

The HerStories Teaching Compendium is a comprehensive educational resource designed to explore Jewish women’s experiences in 20th-century Europe, inspired by the seven biographies in the HerStories project. It is made by teachers, educators, and researchers who took part in the project with the aim to equip educators with a variety of tools to introduce women's stories into classrooms, fostering empathy, historical awareness, and thoughtful discussion around themes of gender, identity, religion, persecution and resilience. With lesson plans, oral history methodologies, and interdisciplinary activities, the compendium makes history more accessible, especially for students in today’s diverse classroom environments.

It's available both as a downloadable PDF file and as a section on this website.

This document gives an overview of the historical background of Greece during the early 20th century, to better understand and contextualize Lisa Pinhas' biography.

This document gives an overview of the historical background of Slovakia during the early 20th century, to better understand and contextualize the biography of Rosl Heilbrunner.

This document gives an overview of the historical background of Slovakia during the early 20th century, to better understand and contextualize the biography of Katarína Löfflerová.

This article gives an overview of the historical background of Poland during the early 20th century, to better understand and contextualize the biography of Irena Wygodzka.

This document gives an overview of the historical background of Slovakia during the early 20th century, to better understand and contextualize the biography of Rosa Rosenstein.

This document gives an overview of the historical background of Czechoslovakia during the early 20th century, to better understand and contextualize the biography of Katarína Löfflerová.

This document gives an overview of the historical background of the Jewish history in Hungary, to better understand and contextualize the biography of Vera Szekeres-Varsa.

Students learn to discuss the topic of Holocaust by comparing pictures of women Holocaust survivors, and talking about their stories. The idea of this exercise is to make Holocaust stories personal and visual (while at the same time not too graphic or violent), in order to let students relate better and gain a concrete idea about what people went through. In this exercise, students will discover particular faces and life stories. 

Students learn about Holocaust history through individual women’s stories, and apply their knowledge through creating their own poster. By making informative posters, students learn how to sort out important information and remember it through active learning. Students “educate themselves” by becoming creators of their own learning material. 

This exercise is divided into seven practical parts. Its aim is to help students imagine stories from the Holocaust, and contrast them with realities learned from women’s biographies. The idea is to let students work with their imagination, story-telling, map-reading, picture interpretation and text analysis. Elements such as music, live art and personal map creation should help students be personally engaged with some Holocaust stories, while keeping the learning atmosphere playful. 

This exercise

• Extends students' spatial and temporal awareness of the Holocaust;
• Adds depth and nuance to understanding of the evolution and development of the Holocaust;
• Raises awareness about women who survived the Holocaust and the ways in which they communicated their experiences;
• Helps students improve their research skills;
• Challenges the understanding of the Nazi concentration camps (often limited and Auschwitz-centric), through a comparative analysis of two camp experiences . 
• Highlights the diversity of experiences and responses

After hearing about Lisa Pinhas' life and seeing photos of her, students will create a poster about her that reflects her experiences. The tool for this task is Google Jamboard.  This exercise aims at developing historical knowledge of camp life in Auschwitz-Birkenau, at adding depth and nuance to understanding the woman’s perspective and at practicing analytical competencies, as well as familiarising them with multimodal texts. This exercise helps students to reflect on the ethical responsibility for narrating the past.

The exercise promotes collaboration among the students and historical contextualising of one’s individual perspective. It also helps students better understand the history of the Holocaust. 

This exercise is meant to encourage students to look beyond the image. Students should develop values such as empathy by relating to the people in the photo.

The activity includes a discussion about the significance of photos in which students are asked to explain why photos are important in general and why specifically photos shared by Holocaust survivors are a unique historical source.

An article containing practical tips on teaching women's history to children in an engaging way

A reflection essay on teaching women's history from a male teacher's perspective

A journal article about Jewish women's narratives of their WWII experiences, including their gender-related roles

The educational program "Women and the Holocaust" aspires to expand students' knowledge of the Holocaust and highlight the special experiences of women during Nazi persecution. It is estimated that around 2 million women were executed or murdered in Nazi concentration camps or died due to the tragic living conditions they experienced in ghettos, camps and "death marches". The primary source that will support the specific thematic "Women in the Resistance" is an excerpt from the testimony of the fighter of the National Resistance, Sara Jesua-Fortis, also known as "Captain Sarika", which aims to illuminate the unique experiences of women who took an active part in the resistance to save themselves from the Nazis' genocidal policy against the Jews.

The educational program "Women and the Holocaust" aspires to expand students' knowledge of the Holocaust and highlight the special experiences of women during Nazi persecution. It is estimated that around 2 million women were executed or murdered in Nazi concentration camps or died due to the tragic living conditions they experienced in ghettos, camps and "death marches". The primary sources that will support this thematic section "Women in Auschwitz" are the testimonies of three women who survived the Nazis' genocidal policy against the Jews in the Auschwitz camp. They are Lisa Mano Pinhas, Janet Nahmia and Olga Lengyel.

Based on an excerpt from a letter of Neama Kazes in April 1943 to her sons, the JMG created this new educational activity, which can be used on the occasion of March 15, when the first train from Baron Hirsch (Thessaloniki's Ghetto) to Auschwitz started.

A free online course, which aims to introduce its users to the richness and vibrancy of Jewish history and culture from the comfort of their home. It’s flexible and interactive, allowing them to study at theis own pace and to delve into a variety of resources from Germany, Greece, Poland and Serbia.