The Call of Memory: Learning About the Holocaust Through Narrative
An Anthology & A Teacher’s Guide

Karen Shawn and Keren Goldfrad, editors
William Younglove, associate editor

These two complementary volumes are designed for students and teachers in high school, college, and university. Practical and highly readable, they are intended for use in history, social studies, literature, religion, and humanities classes, and for anyone interested in learning about the Holocaust through literary narratives.

The anthology offers 27 outstanding short stories by Holocaust survivors and contemporary writers including Rachmil Bryks, Ida Fink, Bernard Gotfryd, Aharon Megged, Cynthia Ozick, Kurt Vonnegut, and Elie Wiesel.

Stories Chosen for Classroom Use

The 27 stories in the Anthology are organized chronologically and thematically, allowing teachers to incorporate selections appropriately throughout any related course of study.

Each narrative is short, relatively easy to read and discuss, and stands on its own merits as fine literature. None requires unreasonable teaching preparation beyond a basic knowledge of Holocaust history and familiarity with the references offered in the companion Teacher’s Guide, yet each lays the groundwork for subsequent additional learning.

These stories, along with their analyses and suggestions for substantive teaching, provide the means for engagement that may encourage students to explore and deliberate the social, political, and historical issues that underlie the Holocaust narrative.

Extensive Teacher’s Guide

The Guide offers 43 essays divided into 10 units of study. University professors from Israel, the United States, and Australia provide incisive and detailed literary analyses of each story, along with scholarly resources.

American master teachers, representing public, private, Catholic, and Jewish high schools and resource centers, field-tested the stories, and in highly engaging, firstperson essays, they share their classroom experiences and offer immediately useful suggestions for making these narratives accessible to learners of all backgrounds and levels.

Geared to state standards are goals and objectives, vocabulary, classroom activities, discussion suggestions, writing prompts and rubrics, assessment advice, and extensive citations for research and individualized instruction, including up-to-date Web sites.