The Heart from Auschwitz

The Heart from Auschwitz activity enables the study of the historical context in which the Heart was created while focusing on spiritual resistance during the Holocaust. On the day of her 20th birthday, Fania Fainer received a heart-shaped card while she was a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Another young woman, Zlatka Pitluk, risked her life to make her this birthday present.

This in-class project concludes the study of the Holocaust on a positive note as students are invited to make their own version of the Heart and to give it to someone in need of an affectionate gesture.

Download The Heart from Auschwitz Pedagogical Guide

The Heart from Auschwitz pedagogical guide is available online free of charge. Click on the download links at the bottom of this page for the activity that corresponds to your province’s curriculum.

Curriculum Links

• Engage in dialogue with one another, with the past and with diversity
• Practice dialogue through writing and acts of empathy
• Reflect on art as a form of human expression and on its transformative power

Reserve The Heart from Auschwitz Educational Kit

The educational kit itself is free; however, shipping costs are at your own expense (see chart below). To reserve the educational kit, please complete the pre-booking form.

You will receive:

• A reproduction of the Heart from Auschwitz
• A DVD of the documentary The Heart from Auschwitz by director Carl Leblanc (ADHOC Films)
• The Heart from Auschwitz pedagogical guide
• A Brief History of the Holocaust reference guide

Additionally, you can listen to the testimony of Zlatka Pitluk, the woman who initiated the creation of the Heart, here on our website.

1

Heart made by students in 2011.

2

The heart-shaped booklet is a birthday card offered to Fania Fainer for her 20th birthday on December 12, 1944, while she was in Auschwitz.

3

"Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Wishing on the day of your birthday." Message written by Mania M(…) in the Heart of Auschwitz, 12/XII/1944.

Learn more about the Holocaust and the Montreal Holocaust Museum’s collection

Many more artefacts preserved at the Museum are available on the Objects of Interest page of this website, including Heart from Auschwitz. To learn more about the Holocaust, consult the reference guide A Brief History of the Holocaust. You can also use the Artefact Analysis Sheet to help your students further their learning.