Lesson Plan 2:
Arriving in Auschwitz
In this lesson, students will watch a clip of Holocaust survivors talking about their arrival in the Auschwitz concentration camp. They will learn about the dehumanizing selection and intake process. Students will then focus on the story of one survivor: Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who survived Auschwitz because she was selected to become a cellist for the Auschwitz Women’s Orchestra.
Grades: 8-12
This lesson plan is designed for teachers and students working at an introductory level. If your students are just beginning their study of the Holocaust, we suggest taking a look at the following pre-teaching resources:
Holocaust Encyclopedia from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)
Yad Vashem Teaching Materials
Starting in October 2025, you will be able to stream the full-length documentary, The Last Musician of Auschwitz, for free via BBC Select to prepare your classes.
If you are interested in doing further research into specific topics mentioned in this lesson plan, we suggest the following resources:
About Anita Lasker-Wallfisch
Digitized archival resources from the Center for Jewish History about Auschwitz
For definitions of Holocaust terms, you can visit the USHMM Glossary or the Museum of Jewish Heritage Curriculum Glossary. All the specific terms mentioned in this lesson plan are also explained at the end.
You can also explore further resources about the Holocaust and Antisemitism on the Center for Jewish History website.
Introduce your students to some basic information about Auschwitz and the Nazi camp system. If your students are new to studying the Holocaust, you can provide additional historical context by sharing some information from the USHMM’s Introduction to the Holocaust.
Quick-Write Prompt: Give students 3 minutes to write down one question they have about what it might have been like for people arriving at a place like Auschwitz.
Prepare your students by setting the context. They are going to watch a montage of Holocaust survivors talking about their arrival at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Explain to them that at Auschwitz, the first few minutes could decide if a person lived or died. It all depended on whether or not the SS doctors deemed a person fit enough to work or not. Many people were selected to go directly to gas chambers, while others were chosen to perform forced labor.
All the survivors shown in the clip made it past the first hurdle and survived the selection. In the clip, they are describing the next step, the intake process (sometimes called “welcoming” ceremony).
Explain to your students that there are different kinds of testimonies shown in the clips.
In the beginning, they will see an actress playing a young girl named Anita who is retelling her experiences. [This is meant to be the teenager Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. The quotes were taken from her autobiography.]
At a later point of the clip, students will see and hear the real-life Anita Lasker-Wallfisch at 100 years old talking about her memories. The documentary is called The Last Musician of Auschwitz in reference to Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the last living member of the Auschwitz Women’s Orchestra.
In the rest of the clip, students will see interviews with other survivors. These were conducted in the 1990s.
After watching the clip, give your students time to ask all questions they might have and to discuss their feelings. Because of the painful nature of the video, help students understand it is appropriate for them to voice their feelings if they were upset by what they heard or saw.
Class discussion:
If you have time, you can spend some minutes talking about forced labor at this point.
If not, you should at least mention that all labor within the camps was always performed by the concentration camp prisoners themselves – including shaving off hair of the new arrivals or deciding where someone would be forced to work.
There might also be questions about the end of the clip, where the actress playing Anita says, “You will be saved” and then mentions an audition. Surprising as it might sound, one of the many different kinds of forced labor in Auschwitz was playing music in one of the prisoner orchestras. In fact, this was a more privileged “job,” as membership in a camp orchestra could improve a prisoner’s chances of survival.
Divide the students into pairs or groups.
Hand out a different worksheet to each group. (There are seven worksheets, five for the survivors shown in the clip who were interviewed in the 1990s and two for Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. If you think seven group presentations will need more time than you have, you can select which of the seven worksheets you want to use.)
Allow the groups at least 15 minutes to examine the materials and discuss their findings.
Tell students that they should read the quotes and biographical information carefully and to use a marker to highlight key events and anything that surprises them.
Then have students discuss the following questions (also printed on the worksheets):
Have each pair/group present their answers. Make a list of the different elements of the intake process on the blackboard:
Today we heard the voices of survivors from the Auschwitz concentration camp. The word “survivor” means more than simply staying alive – it also means that, despite experiencing the worst of humanity, these people rebuilt their lives and continued to contribute to the world. Imagine you are telling a friend or family member about one of the survivors you heard today. What is one quality about them that stands out to you, and why?
If you want to spend more than one lesson on the story of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, you can:
If students are interested in learning more about the specific survivors, there are links to additional resources printed on each worksheet.
Auschwitz – complex of three Nazi camps established between 1940 and 1942. Originally a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners, it grew into the largest site of mass murder in the Holocaust.
Auschwitz-Birkenau – the second camp in the Auschwitz complex (also called Auschwitz II), opened October 1941.
Bar Mitzvah - Jewish coming-of-age ceremony for a boy (usually at age 13) marking his new religious responsibilities under Jewish law. For girls, the ceremony is called a Bat Mitzvah (usually at age 12).
Concentration Camp – place where large groups of people, often political prisoners or minorities, were imprisoned without trial, usually under harsh conditions. Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 44,000 camps and other incarceration sites (including ghettos).
Death March - forced marches of prisoners over long distances under brutal conditions, usually near the end of World War II as the Nazis evacuated camps to hide evidence of mass murder. Thousands died from exhaustion, starvation, cold, or were shot if they couldn’t keep up.
Deportation – forced removal and transportation of populations (primarily Jews and also Roma and political opponents) by the Nazis to ghettos, concentration camps, or killing centers, often in overcrowded freight or cattle cars under brutal conditions.
Holocaust - a word of Greek origin meaning complete destruction, especially by fire. The word is used to describe the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.
Nazi – a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party that took political control of Germany under Adolf Hitler in 1933, after gaining mass popular support. The Nazi Party was violently antisemitic. In addition to Jews, Nazi persecution was directed toward Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and political enemies of the Nazi Party.
Orchestra – an ensemble of musicians playing together.
Selection – the process where SS doctors decided who would be forced into labor and who would be sent to immediate death.
Silesia – historical region in Central Europe, mainly located in present-day Poland, with smaller parts in Germany and the Czech Republic. Historically, Silesia had a large German-speaking population. Millions of Germans were forced to leave Silesia after the end of World War Two, when the region became part of Poland.
Tattoo – a number permanently inked on the skin of some concentration-camp prisoners used by the Nazis to identify and register inmates. The SS replaced names with numbers, contributing to the prisoners’ loss of personal identity. (Note: Auschwitz was the only place where prisoners were tattooed, in all other camps, numbers were put on the clothing.)