Echoes & Reflections

Thank you for participating in Echoes & Reflections Mini Course Defiant Requiem: Cultural Resistance in the Terezín Ghetto. We hope you found the experience enriching and useful to your teaching needs.

To further support your classroom instruction on this thematic approach, you now have access to the plethora of resources referenced throughout the course. The materials below are listed by the section in which they were introduced in the course.

You will find the resources below helpful in informing your teaching of the topics you covered throughout the course as well as additional resources to provide a deeper learning experience or activities for your students.

Welcome and Overview of Echoes & Reflections and The Defiant Requiem Foundation

In these sections, you were introduced to the Echoes & Reflections and The Defiant Requiem foundations, received an overview of Echoes’ Jewish Resistance unit lesson plan, and reviewed the pedagogical principles for effective teaching found on the Echoes & Reflections website.

What is Resistance and How Did Jews Resist Nazi Persecution?
Understanding that resistance comes in many forms is crucial for students during their study of the Holocaust. To help further your understanding, and to showcase an activity that can be completed by your students, you were asked to complete the Echoes & Reflections Student Activity: How did Jews resist Nazi persecution?

Historical Overview of Prague and Terezín
We began to explore cultural resistance within the Terezín ghetto, and the artist prisoners who defied their Nazi captors with cultural resistance.

Artists of Terezin: Guidelines for Educators Video

Quick History Facts
Prior to viewing the Defiant Requiem film, you learned a little information about Rafael Schächter, whose story is featured in the film. You also received additional resource links about Theresienstadt and the Terezín ghetto.

Defiant Requiem Film Viewing and Discussion
With testimony provided by surviving members of Schächter’s choir, soaring concert footage, cinematic dramatizations, and evocative animation, this unique film explores the singers’ view of the Verdi performances as a work of defiance and resistance against the Nazis.

Defiant Requiem Film Link (Password: “survivingevil”)

Classroom Implementation Discussion
This viewing activity comes from the Defiant Requiem Foundation’s Social Studies I lesson, entitled, The Story of Defiant Requiem.

Analyzing Other Forms of Cultural Resistance
In addition to music, visual and written art have been used as forms of cultural resistance historically and within the context of the Holocaust and the Terezín ghetto. On this page we learned about how other forms of art were used by survivors and victims of the Nazis.

The Lasting Impact of Resistance
We revisited “Teaching the Human Story,” core Echoes & Reflections testimony, to help understand why teaching about resistance is so important and relevant today.