More development of the workshop – discovery packs

I’m now working on a further section of materials for my workshop. These are discovery packs. There is one for each of the main characters:

• Renate
• Hani
• Clara
• Käthe
• Gisela
• The school girls

 I’m also bringing in a gender balance so I’m including:

·         Hans Edler (Renate’s father)

·         Christoph (the young man who helped at the house on Schellberg Street)

·         Karl Schubert (the man who ran the school in the house on Schellberg Street)

·         Ernst Lehrs  (Käthe’s brother)

·         Thomas (Gisela’s neighbour)

·         All about the Hitler Youth

These are all taking quite a long time to create. I’m providing six sheets of A4 for each character. Each sheet contains a mixture of materials:

·         Facsimiles of real documents

·         Useful links

·         Public domain pictures or ones to which I own the copyright

·         Extracts form the novels

Groups of up to six students should work on one character. There are probably twice as many characters as needed here. Each sheet hints at information and should prompt further questioning in the students. I’m suggesting in an hour’s lesson they spend forty minutes or so on this, aiming for each group to spend up to five minutes presenting to the rest of the class any extra information they’ve found out using the packs. They could of course also lead to a much larger piece of work.          

I also intend to create some creative writing prompts to go with each activity.  

  

Workshop at Hartford High

Friday 31 March found me at Hartford Church of England School delivering a Schellberg Cycle Workshop. We arranged it there slightly differently from the way I normally do. You can read more details about this on my Writing Teacher Blog.    

I was very pleased with how attentive the students were and how hard they worked. Their teachers really engaged with the material as well. I’d sent the workshop pack over in advance so they were able to study the details. Each teacher worked with their class in slightly different ways so different emphases came out in each group. I was pleased to see discussion of the following topics:

·         How difficult it must have been for Renate, finding out only a few days before she came to England, that she was Jewish

·         Why we only rescued 10,000 Jews and all of them children

·         How life wasn’t all bad then – it had its ups and downs (This comes out very much in the board games and the Hanna Braun letters)  

·         Why the girls liked the BDM uniform

·         Seeing the Allies as the “baddies”   

·         The subtle indoctrination that made the girls appreciate camaraderie and duty.

Interestingly, I’d suggested to the teachers that they might include a gender balance in the groups. There are in fact three male and three female roles in each board game. They didn’t do this but allowed the students to stay in single gender groups. However, the boys happily took on the female roles and the girls the male ones.

If you’re a teacher wanting to learn more, sign up here to get updates on the workshop, which is still evolving, and download the teachers’ notes http://gillsfreedwonloads.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/teachers-notes-on-schlleberg-cycle.html.These will give you a real insight as to how the workshop functions.         

Interview with Frederik Nath on his novels set in World War II

What led you to writing your fiction set in World War II?

Although like a lot of people, I’ve always had a vague interest in the French Resistance, it was not something I ever had a burning desire to write about until I was on holiday in the Dordogne and was in the market square in Bergerac. I found the inscriptions on the war monument very moving and thought – well now there’s a story in there somewhere. 

The early morning sunlight flickered from behind the high clouds and reflected golden and crisp from the monument in Bergerac’s market square. Around me, shoppers bustled and in the roadway a car beeped its horn. The grey stone pillar rose fifteen feet above me, its shadow pointing away towards the elm trees that line the roadway. A smell of garlic wafted as I read those brave words that showed the strength of the French and France’s indomitable leaders. The monument was a reminder of the valour and sacrifice of those brave local partisans who gave up their lives in the struggle against the occupying Nazi forces all those years ago.

Yes, it is moving. Surely there’s a story here.

In my head a story began to form. What would it have been like to have to make the choices needed to protect oneself and one’s family yet still remain French? The main character would need to do something admirable. He would need to depart from the norm. If you became a partisan you would endanger the people nearest you. What if you were caught? 

I began to think of how it would be to be the one who is rounding up the local Jewish people. Would you hate it? Of course you would, even if you were forced to it for fear of endangering your family. For a religious man it would be even harder. Surely one would do anything to avoid such ‘duties’ if you had a conscience?

The story began to form. A Vichy French policeman, a man of conscience, a family man working with evil Nazis whom he secretly hated. I created Auguste Ran, a good policeman, but in essence weak, until a certain event tips him over the edge and slowly he begins to fight back.

That’s where THE CYCLIST came from and it was my springboard for the other books in my French resistance series. Each takes a character and makes life hard for them, allowing them to become. In the end, THE CYCLIST sold 30,000 copies. It was Editor’s choice in the Historical Novel Review in 2011.

You can catch all six books on Amazon: a policeman, a teacher, an artist, a chef, a philosopher and in THE PROMISE a medical student.

THE PROMISE is the last and most recent of the series. Jean Valois, a medical student before the war, swears to his sister he will protect her. But in war, who can keep such promises? Trained to kill by SOE, in a desperate bid to save his sister Rebecca, he undertakes a mission deep into enemy-occupied Poland, risking all for the sake of a promise made long ago. A story of love, war, hatred and revenge, THE PROMISE tells a tale of courage and staunchness.

Why is this era so important to so many people?

Important may not be the right word. I think many people understand and empathise with what the French put up with during the occupation. It takes little imagination to see how those terrible time wove a fabric of anger and resistance. In the second book (Farewell Bergerac) one of the characters says in relation to a child he had seen painting out a German slogan: ‘That child is what the resistance is all about. Each of us must do what we can do. No one expects you to become a soldier. What use would a fat innkeeper be against the Hun? Not fighting, but resistance in every way, subtle or obvious, it doesn’t matter. Resist, object and show it, then die.’ I think that particular sentiment is applicable to many countries and many people who feel oppressed. It creates a kind of kinship with the past which in our minds we interpolate with our present.

Did you have to do much research?

One can do too much research and end up with a history instead of a story. I tend to write picturing the scenes and the action and when I need to make the picture in my head vivid enough to relate, I look up details which give the feel of the time. So, I guess I do much of the research as I go along.

 Which is your favourite book about this era – either one of your own or one by someone else?

My favourite book that I have had published is Francesca Pascal. It’s written from the perspective of a woman who is an artist and describes how she believes in her country and seeks revenge in her way against the Nazis. I’ve lived with and loved women all my life, but have no understanding of them, so writing from a woman’s POV was daunting to say the least.

Could you give us a two line summary of that book?

When Francesca’s daughter is killed by the German invaders, she vows to obtain vengeance in any way she can. She discovers that vengeance is no source of closure and there are better things in life with which to become obsessed. 

Free extract from Clara's Story.

Get your free excerpt here.

Seminar 3 The House on Schellberg Street

You will find it easier to follow this is you have read the book The House on Schellberg Street  

The German girls’ story

Hard times

Why was life so hard in Germany for these girls?

·         The 1930s were hard for most of the world.

·         Germany had lost World War I (The Great War). This made things even worse in Germany. 

·         The girls were born just after the hyperinflation in Germany during the 1920s. They may well have had siblings who remembered it. Their parents certainly would have done.  Imagine: you have to spend what you are paid as so as you can before it loses value.

·         Their parents were damaged by war. 

·         When World War II starts it get even worse.  

Read some extracts about this.  Try:

Helga, 18 February 1939 

Sabine, 27 August 1939

Gerda, 4 December 1939

Anika, 16 April 1940

Helga, 17 August 1940

Erika, 10 May 1941

Anika, 15 November 1941

Helga, 18 January 1942

Erika, 15 June 1942

Ilse, 15 October 1943

Charlotte, 27 December 1943

Erika, 2 April 1944

Imagine what it must have been like for the girls. As well as what they mention remember also that they had no internet, no moblie phones and no social media. Most of their news in fact came via the round robin letter. They couldn‘t buy sweet, chocolate and other snacks as easily as we can.

To do:

Read some of extracts mentioned above and write a short letter or a diary entry as if you were one of the girls.     

The BDM – Bund Deutscher Mädel

The girls would certainly have been members of this group. This was compulsory for girls aged 14 and above. You can get a flavour of what it was like by studying their magazine – see cope here: http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/maedel.htm

Things to bear in mind:

·         This smart uniform and interesting club came at a time when there was  shortage of money and a lot on unemployment.

·         It taught the girls a lot about homemaking.

·         It made the girls feel as if they were doing their bit towards making Germany great again.

Read more about it here: http://www.bdmhistory.com/research/main.html

You can also see some of the unifroms here:  

To do:

Write a letter or a diary entry about your first visit to the BDM.  Talk about some of the activities you did, what the other girls were like and how much you like your uniform.

The Reichsarbeitsdienst

This was compulodory work experience for young German women, from 1935 onwards.  Often they would work on farms but not as Land Girls as we had in Britian.  They would take over the houeshold chores and childcare whilst the farmer’s wife carried on looking after the farm.

If they had attended one of the special schools that trained them in domstic duties, they only had toi do six months RAD.  

You can read about this in the follwing extracts from Th House on Schellberg Street.

Hani, 19 April 1940

Sabine 2 June 1943

Charlotte 18 August 1943

Gerda 22 August 1943

Anika 22 October 1943

The girls’ letters generally form 1942 onwards give quite a good idea of the work they did, even if they don’t mention the word RAD.   

You can also read more about it here:  http://www.feldgrau.com/rad.html

To do:

Pretend you are another German girl and write a letter or diary entry about your RAD.

The Kriegshilfsdienst

This was tagged on to the end of the RAD and often involved similar work but also could sometimes be more closley related to the war. Girls were often invovled in:

·         Working in munitions factories

·         Looking after hospital supplies

·         Looking after the post

·         Working a telephone exchange  

Here are some examples from The House on Schellberg Street:

Hani, 19 April 1940

Helga 17 August 1940

Charlotte 5 January 1941  

Sabine 23 March 1942  

Charlotte 27 March 1942

Charlotte 18 August 1943

Anika 22 October 1943

Hanna Braun 7 November 1943

Two themes came out in the original letters I read:

1.      Camaraderie

2.      Duty

Are these worthy qualities or is this Nazi propaganda?  What is good about this? What is less good?

In groups make two lists.

Would you like this as a handy PDF?  Download it here.