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Lesson plans - from teachers to teachers

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We at Centropa believe that teachers are the best to inspire teachers. We encourage teachers to create their own lesson plans to our educational materials, and share it with each other. These lesson plans have been created for the Survival in Sarajevo film and exhibition. Intrested to see more? Click here and browse "Survival in Sarajevo" among the films. 

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Lesson plans for the Survival in Sarajevo film

The Survival of Sarajevo story can serve as a good starting point for various discussions with your students: you can use this story to talk about the Balkans and Yugoslavia, to discuss the questions of civil courage or Righteous Gentiles, debate about the coexistence of different religions or nationalities, or to talk about survival strategies. You can use the Sarajevo story to discuss contemporary issues as well, for example the wars in the Middle East.

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Personal choice and community dynamics by Elizabeth Emmerth

In this 2015 Milton Wolf Prize winning lesson, students examine the extent to which individual choices shape community dynamics. By watching Survival in Sarajevo, examining images, engaging in group discussions, and creating a final project, students are able to explore how individuals have the capacity to make great changes in the world. This lesson lends itself to themes of community service and action, leadership, and responsibility. This lesson can be taught in the context of American, World or European History courses as well as more specific courses such as Leadership or Holocaust Studies. From the images, film and study guide found at Centropa to the pictures from across America, the content of this lesson is focused on the post-Cold War world. The materials used from Centropa come directly from Survival in Sarajevo. A copy of each of the images necessary for this lesson is attached.

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Download images for the lesson

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Righteous Remembrances by Rachel Shepherd

This 2015 Milton Wolf Prize winning lesson stresses the importance of individual responsibility and accountability in the face of difficult choices. Students will learn about individuals during the Holocaust who, in the face of incredible uncertainty and personal risk, chose to do the right thing and protect those who were being persecuted. Students then have the opportunity for real-world application of their knowledge by recognizing individuals in their community who are making an effort to improve the lives of those around them. This lesson utilizes the Centropa film “Survival in Sarajevo,” as well as biography information from Yad Vashem and other YouTube videos.

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Lesson plans for the Survival in Sarajevo exhibition

Postcards from Sarajevo by Lisa Sterling

We began this lesson by watching Centropa’s film, Survival in Sarajevo, and walking through the traveling exhibition of the same name, which we brought to our school. Each class discussed the story and hardships the people in Sarajevo faced, the choices they made to support no matter what each person’s ethnic background was, and the courage it took to do that during an ethnic war. We discussed what life may have been like for people during the siege of Sarajevo to wait for letters from the outside (and for their loved ones outside of Bosnia to wait for news from them), and how different that is from the immediacy of email and social media. Students then created their own postcards, using images and symbols representing themes from the film to decorate one side, and writing a message on the other. The postcards were hung over the Survival in Sarajevo exhibition, viewed by all students in the school.

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Interviewing a picture by Margaret Chasan

Using Edward Serotta's photographs from the synagogue in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war of the 1990s, students will study several pictures carefully, answer questions and use what they learn in a creative writing assignment. 

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