WOMEN'S SURVIVAL IN THE CAMPS

Curriculum Developed by:
Sally Cohen, Tottenville High School photocohen@comcast.net
Christopher Wilkens, Roxbury High School wilfam@worldnet.att.net

Grade Level: Grades 9 -12
Subject Area: English, Social Studies

The field of women’s Holocaust literature began to develop in the 1970s, with primary-source memoirs and critical response growing steadily over the last three decades. Today, readers have available an important body of work representing the female Holocaust experience in places such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbruck, and Terezin (Theresienstadt), among others. Were the reasons for women’s concentration camp survival inherently different from those of men? In this unit, students will encounter the details of camp life, the physical and mental cruelty, the “choiceless choices” forced on women daily.

Whether the focus of a woman’s survival was the generosity and co