Candles of hope - HMD 

Resources

Candles of Hope templates from our website (one for each pair, plus spares) and printouts

Who were the rescuers? What does it take to be a rescuer?

a) Introduce concept of “Save 1 person, save a world”.

* If you save a person’s life, you also save all they have to offer the world, their influence for good, their creativity, their contribution to humanity.

* You also save for the world the contributions of those that meet them and follow their example and learn from them in the future.

* You also save the children they might have and all future generations that could follow on from that individual person as well as their goodness.

* No one can know which person is one of those who tip the balance of the world away from evil and towards goodness, not even they know! Therefore, ‘save a person, save the world’ applies to all.

(You might want to add a Jewish fable about there always being 36 special people who are so good that the world continues to exist because of them. No one can tell who they are, not even they can, so we are all given the task of treating every human being as if they are one of the 36, just in case. This is a guiding principle for how our attitude to all humanity should be.)

If you want to look it up, there’s more details here https://www.liquisearch.com/tzadikim_nistarim/lamedvavniks

b) Research

Now, we are going to find out about some people who took that message to heart and into their lives. Some of them acted to save life during the Holocaust, others are from our own time and place. Each one took risks and acted with bravery and conviction, to do what they felt was right.

Give each pair of students a Light in the Darkness Candles Template. Use a mixture of ones from the Holocaust and contemporary role models. Make sure you include a German such as Oscar Schindler and Irena Sendler, who was Polish, to exemplify those who were not Jews and who stood up to the Nazis. Ask them to make notes to create a 3 minute oral presentation using the following questions as a guide.

1. Who was this person and what did they do?

2. What were the risks for themself and others?

3. Why might they have chosen to take those risks?

4. What kind of a person might they be?

c) Presentation or these alternative  suggestions

1. Put the pairs of students into small groups, with a mixture of historical and contemporary candles, so that each pair can present to a few others

2. Choose a few pairs of students to present to the whole class

3. Teacher presents a few to the class with a discussion about each one

4. Use as a home learning opportunity

d) Lesson ending

What have we learnt?

What do these people have in common, although their lives were/are so different?

What lessons are there for us in our lives? How might their actions influence us?