Croatian Lessons Available Online

A series of Croatian-language Holocaust lessons commissioned in 2006 by the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports is now available on USC Shoah Foundation’s website. The lessons draw on testimony to teach various aspects of the Holocaust in Croatia.

Loranda Miletic, senior advisor for history education at the Education and Teacher Training Agency (ETTA) in Croatia, said that while the ETTA and the Ministry had offered many seminars and workshops to help educators teach the Holocaust, there needed to be more materials specific to the effect of the Holocaust on Croatian people.

“While much was achieved it became clear that especially regarding the local, Croatian experience, a powerful and modern educational product was needed,“ Miletic said. “The fact that the USC Shoah Foundation holds in its archive several hundred interviews with Croatian survivors, rescuers and other witnesses in Croatian language led to the decision to create an educational product utilizing this unique material, thus enhancing its impact, effectivity and value.“

Each lesson deals with a specific topic: The destiny of Lea Deutsch, Deportations in the NDH (the World War II Croatian state); Jews in antifascist resistance; Responsibility; Collaboration, conformism, confrontation;  Fate of inmates in the Croatian territory occupied by fascist Italy; and The suffering of women and children in the Jasenovac concentration camp. Teachers can use the provided lesson guides, discussion questions and primary source materials as well as testimony clips in their classrooms as they see fit; lessons are targeted for specific grade levels from elementary to post-high school.

Click the following links to view each lesson:

Jews in antifascist resistance

The fate of Lea Deutsch

The suffering of women and children in the Jasenovac concentration camp

Deportations in the NDH

Responsibility

Collaboration, conformism, confrontation

Fate of inmates in the Croatian territory occupied by fascist Italy