LESSON: Exploring Anne Frank’s Diary
TIMELINE ACTIVITY
3. Pass out the first eighteen timeline cards to the class (from June 12, 1929, “Anne Frank
Born” to April 29, 1942, “Jews in the Netherlands Forced to Wear Star of David”). In
chronological order, have the students read the card to the class, then place it on the wall.
If it is easier to have the cards on the wall before the beginning of class or you are under
time constraints, have students read the cards as part of a gallery walk. Leave these cards
on the wall as a reference throughout the unit. [Note: The Anne Frank timeline cards
duplicate several cards from the USHMM’s main Timeline lesson. If teachers are already
using this lesson, swap the Anne Frank cards in place of the main cards for duplicated
events/laws.]
Optional: Watch the beginning of the 12 minute film Anne Frank: Her World and Her
Diary, pausing at 4:48.
DEFINITION
4. Read the definition of the Holocaust to the class, defining terms and answering
questions. Teachers should use the Holocaust Encyclopedia to assist in answering
more challenging questions.
The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of 6
million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945 across
Europe and North Africa. The height of the persecution and murder occurred during
the context of the Second World War; by the end of the war in 1945, the Germans
and their collaborators had killed nearly two out of every three European Jews.
The Nazis believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that Jews, deemed
inferior, were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community. While Jews
were the primary victims, this genocide occurred in the context of Nazi persecution
and murder of other groups for their perceived racial or biological inferiority: Roma;
people with disabilities; some of the Slavic peoples (especially Poles and Russians),
and Black people. Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, or
behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, men
accused of "homosexuality" and people that the regime identified as "asocials" and
"professional criminals."
BIOGRAPHICAL ACTIVITY
5. Ask the class to read the June 20, 1942 diary entry, beginning with “My father…”
Using this worksheet, students underline, circle, or highlight the events in Anne’s
description of her life that relate to any of the events on the timeline cards.
Exploring Anne Frank’s Diary | 3