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Vitka Kempner was 19 years old when she made the choice to resist the Nazis. She had watched the Nazis gather Jews and force them into a monastery, and she heard their screams as they were beaten. She reflects that this was the moment when she decided to run away from home with friends and become a partisan. She fled to the city of Vilna and then moved into the Vilna Ghetto, where she joined other youth to become a founding member of the United Partisan Organization (FPO).
Students will review Vitka Kempner’s personal stories from when she ran away from home to become a partisan until the end of the war. They will investigate what role, if any, age might play in the decision to engage in resistance. Central to Vitka’s identity as a partisan was her understanding of the concept of dignity. For her, her dignity and her choice to resist were deeply connected. Students will also consider Vitka’s choice to commit acts of revenge at the end of the Holocaust. The activities in this lesson require the use of critical analysis, teamwork, methods of comparing and contrasting, and creative thinking.
Essential Questions: What is the relationship between identity, circumstances, and the choices we make? In times of injustice, what is the relationship between resistance and dignity? Is revenge ever justified? Learning Goals: Students will be able to: Identify how Vitka Kempner’s identity and circumstances influenced the choices she made as a partisan Reflect on the way that Vitka Kempner’s ideas about dignity shaped her identity as a partisan Critically deconstruct how views on age and gender created divisions between the “young people” and the older generations in the Vilna Ghetto Communicate effectively about Vitka’s experience of gender roles within the partisan groups and how this lesson’s content has affected students’ own view of gender roles Acknowledge the complexity of ethics in a wartime or postwar context as they consider the choice Vitka made to poison 1,900 German POWs at the end of the war
Anticipated Timeframe: 2 class periods
Explore other items in this layer of this branch of
Lesson 2: Frank Blaichman: Ethics in a Time of Genocide
Lesson 3: Vitka Kempner: Identity and Resistance
Lesson 4: Sonia Orbuch: Becoming a Partisan
Lesson 5: Creating Student Projects
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