Read about Zak Kolar's project on Yom Hashoah with your students. Zak Kolar created an online database of names of people who died in the Holocaust. His goal is to remember the Holocaust victims as individuals, not statistics. In the accompanying lesson, students will look at photographs of pre-war Eastern European Jewish children and write about their personalities, families, likes, and dislikes in order to see them as individuals. Students will also learn about the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer and why it is recited in memory of the deceased. Finally, students will visit Zak’s website and choose the name of a Holocaust victim to remember.
$0.00$0.00By Beth Panitz SIX MILLION. The number echoed in Zak Kolar’s head as he joined in a prayer to remember the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Sitting in that memorial service two years ago, Zak, 13 at the time, was suddenly awe-struck by the magnitude of the tragedy. “It hit me just how big of a number six million is,” says Zak, from Naperville, Illinois. One short prayer couldn’t cover such an enormous loss.
Lesson Summary:
In this lesson, students will look at photographs of pre-war Eastern European Jewish children and write about their personalities, families, likes, and dislikes in order to see them as individuals. Students will also learn about the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer and why it is recited in memory of the deceased. Finally, students will visit Zak’s website and choose the name of a Holocaust victim to remember. This lesson is appropriate for Yom Hashoah.
Printable Lesson:
Lesson Plan
Additional PDFs:
Photographs by Roman Vishniac
Source Sheet
Additional Resources:
Zak’s website, Each of Us Has a Name
More photos by Roman Vishniac
More information about the Mourner’s Kaddish
Holocaust Museum Houston’s butterfly project
