teacher's guide
STUDY QUESTIONS

Liberation and Epilogue
TIMECODE 01:47:05-01:55:13

"Who will wait for me? Where will I go?"

At the end of the war, Barbara, Faye and Shula each faced a life without their families. They felt despair thinking about their immense losses but found ways to go on with their lives.

Q: What is it like to live with memories of one’s family and the inhumanity of their killers?

For Shula, why is it so difficult to live with the memory of Ruth?

What circumstances explain Faye’s profound sense of loneliness after the war?

What made the closing months of the war in Holland so traumatic for the Dutch?

What indications are in the film that the war and the Holocaust made indelible marks on the lives of Barbara, Faye and Shula?

The directors decided to produce this Daring to Resist, because at the time of production there were no films focusing on women's resistance during the Holocaust. Why do you think that previous films on resistance focused on men?

EXTENDED ACTIVITIES AND ASSESSMENT

Daring to Resist: Three Women Face the Holocaust
Subject: Social Studies, Civics and Language Arts

Overview: Students will consider what it means to take a stand in society by making an in-depth study of three women who participated in resistance activities during World War II and the Holocaust. Students will develop oral presentations on the lives of women in resistance; they will work in small groups to create clay monuments to the concept of resistance and present their work to the class with written captions and oral presentations accompanying the monuments.

Procedure for oral reports on the three women in the film

Students will divide into three groups. Each group will conduct research on one of the three women in the film. In addition to watching the film, each group will answer the following questions pertaining to their woman.

1. What country did she come from?
2. When was she born and what were her circumstances at the time the Nazis came to power?
3. What was her relationship with her parents, other relatives?
4. What type of schooling did she have? Was she still studying in school when the Nazis came to power?
5. How did she get involved in resistance work?
   
6. Who influenced her to take a stand against the Nazis?
   
7. What forms of resistance work did she conduct?
   
8. How did she manage to take risks and keep alive under the Nazi terror and mass murder?
   
9. What type of personality did she have?
   
10. What characteristics of her personality may have helped her conduct resistance?
    
11. What phrases did she use that revealed aspects of her personality and beliefs?
    
12. What particular skills did she have that were valuable for resistance activities?

Once these three groups have met and conducted their research, new groups of three persons will be formed. In the second set of groups there will be one person from each of the three original groups and the three members will exchange information on Barbara, Faye and Shula.

Each of the second set of groups will elect a reporter who will report back to the entire group.

Extension Activity
Students will break into groups of two. Each pair will design a memorial/monument to one of the themes they have reflected on in studying the film and background sources. The memorial/monument will be created in clay after students have reviewed some of the better-known monuments and memorials in the American landscape. Students may also take a field trip to their local community monuments and memorials and discuss how they are created, where they are located and what the message is of the work of art. For overall guidelines in setting up a monuments/memorial exercise, contact Facing History and Ourselves, 617-232-1595 for a packet on such projects.

After each pair completes a monument/memorial, they will compose a statement that describes the artwork and they will select a title and indicate what location they want their work displayed.

Assessment
Each pair will be assessed on:

1. The idea for the memorial/monument and how it relates to discussions and the film as well as general research
   
2. The creation of the memorial/monument: how does it reflect their thinking about the topic
   
3. Their written statements: how clear are they/ how do they help viewers understand the art/ how do they reflect thinking about issues in the film and related discussions
   
4. The title: how does the title reflect their thought about the project
5. The mode of oral presentation that the pairs use in presenting the memorial/monument to the whole group: it is possible for a pair to compose a poem or music to accompany the monument/memorial and this should be incorporated in the oral presentation
6. Optional if students have access to a digital camera: make a photo of the monument and prepare to have it shown to the entire class on a large screen