Projects

Translation Project –

Work is under way to have Izzy’s Fire: Finding Humanity in the Holocaust, The Little Lion: A Hero in the Holocaust and Saving Sara translated into the Lithuanian language with the ultimate goal of having those works made available to the general public and, specifically, to introduce the literary works into classrooms in Lithuania. Providing these works in Lithuanian will support the ongoing efforts of the U.S. Embassy to facilitate understanding between America and Lithuania. Nancy has twice been the guest of U.S. ambassadors to Lithuania and has spoken in numerous other venues there as well.

Curriculum project – Nancy has been working closely with two Virginia educators — Lynne Bland, a curriculum specialist for secondary social studies in Chesterfield County Public Schools, and Tina Tapp, a ninth-grade English teacher who also chairs the English Department at Radford High School (Radford City Public Schools) — in an effort to create lesson plans around her work. Ms. Tapp started teaching The Little Lion in her English classrooms in 2018.

The new project, titled “An Inquiry into the Bravery of Upstanders: A Pilot Project for Holocaust Curriculum in Virginia Schools,” embraces the development of curricula based on The Little Lion and Saving Sara that can be utilized by either English teachers and/or history teachers in Virginia. Pamela Plahs, the chair of the social studies department for Swift Creek Middle, is also a seventh-grade teacher there. She will be the first social studies teacher to implement the developed lesson plans in Chesterfield County.

The aforementioned project supports the statewide initiative launched in 2020 by the Virginia General Assembly (House Bill No. 916, signed by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam), which states “…schools should provide age-appropriate instruction on the Holocaust and other historical genocides as a method of providing anti-bias education for public school students in the Commonwealth.”