The document outlines an assignment for creating a personal historical narrative, emphasizing first-person storytelling from various historical perspectives during specific periods. Students are instructed to select a character based on historical contexts, conduct research, and write a narrative or journal entries capturing the character's experiences, including a bibliography of sources. A rubric for evaluation is also provided, detailing specific criteria to achieve maximum points.

1. Personal Historical Narrative Assignment Instructions and
Rubric
In this creative writing assignment you will travel back in time
and imagine what life was like
for an individual in the past. You will understand the impact of
time and space on perspective,
develop a narrative structure, describe how peoples, groups,
cultures and institutions change
over time, recognize how social, cultural, gender, race, religion,
nationality and other identities
affect historical perspective, and practice research skills.
Tasks:
1. Select one of the following to write your first person
narrative about. (Remember you can
be any gender or race that would be appropriate for that
character and if you have a
suggestion of a character that is not here but falls in the scope
of chapters 13-14 of our
text, please contact me with that idea before proceeding.)
a. A Lutheran Noble in Germany
b. A Protestant or Calvinist in any country between 1500-1600
c. A Sailor in the Spanish Armada during the Anglo-Spanish
War
d. A Huguenot survivor of the Saint Bartholomew's Day
Massacre
e. An apprentice in a German Print shop
f. A devout Catholic in Germany during the Lutheran
Reformation

2. g. A Nun in Spain
2. Research what every day life was like for your character
during the period covered in our
text chapters 13 and 14. While you research, keep in mind that
historical references like
historic dates, actual places, and events add credibility and
interest to your writing.
3. Compose a fictional, first person narrative either in Journal
format or a two page double
spaced paper. If you select Journal format, you must have at
least 10 journal entries
from your character that are one paragraph long. The narrative
does not need to be a
biography of your character but rather describe one period or
event in their lives.
Remember to use descriptions that really bring your audience to
the moment… think what
sounds or smells your character might sense in the moment your
writing about.
4. Be as accurate as possible. For example, your character will
not be able to use cell
phones or a computer; in fact walking may be their only form of
transportation . . .
5. Include a bibliography of three sources you used in your
research.
6. Turn you assignment into the Dropbox by the scheduled due
date, but you may also post
it in the optional discussion for classmate feedback.
Personal Historical Narrative Rubric:

3. Task Maximum Points
Composed a fictional
first person narrative
/10
Assignment was
approximately two
double spaced pages,
while grammar is
important for
readability your
character may speak
differently than we do
today
/20
Used some known
history such as places,
people, and events to
make fictional story
come alive
/15
Used descriptors to
illustrate what the
character experienced
/10
Was accurate in story
by not including

4. artifacts or events that
are not appropriate for
the character to have
or know about
/10
Included a
bibliography of three
sources for
assignment.
/10
Total /75
Josephine Smithe
You may elect to use a journal format in which case you need at
least 10 journal entries, usually delineated by date.
HIS 101
Personal Historical Narrative
December 29, 2014
A Jewish person in a concentration camp (journal)
May 27, 1942
Journal,
Times are continuously getting worse as days pass. With
Germany invading the Netherlands, Belgium and France, I know
life is going to get worse. After receiving word of these camps
for Jews, my family’s fear has risen to a new level. As a Jewish
family, we know our lives are in extreme danger. There is no
way of hiding who we are with these distasteful yellow stars

5. sewn into our clothing. I want to rip them off and burn them to
ash. I pray that God gives me strength not to act on such
impulsive behaviors. I also pray that my family will not be sent
to Dachau or any other camp. The horrifying stories that have
pierced my ears – God forbid that happen to any of us.
Sincerely, Talia
June 12, 1942
Journal,
Instead of my beautifully bound, clean book paper, I am
stuck writing my thoughts on torn, filfthy scraps of paper found
hidden under rocks. I was not able to gather my beautiful
journal when my family and I were rushed out of our home onto
the streets by the Nazis. We were herded like sheep down the
street. My family and so many others were forced into sealed,
cold, putrid railroad cars. I have no idea where we are goind.
There is no food, no water for us. The worst part about this, so
far, is there is nowhere to relieve oneself. I refuse to attend to
this in from of these strangers.
Sincerely, Talia
June ?, 1942
Piece of paper,
“Please Lord save us!” A woman from the front of the car
will not stop screaming this prayer. I cannot tell you how long
we have been in here. I have not seen the sun since the Nazi
soldiers locked us in this cage. What I can tell you is that two
infants have died and six adults have passed also. The lack of
air is suffocating everyone. The only reason I am still alive is
this small crack between the door and the rest of the car walls.
My family and I take turns inhaling what little air we can get.
Many Jews here want to believe we will all be safe, but I know

6. better. I know th worst is yet to come.
Lord be with us! Talia
June 27, 1942
I write to you, Lord,
Auschwitz. I have heard of this place, but now I call it
home. It is nothing close to home. It is Hell. I could not
believe my eyes when the doors flew open, so many Jewish
families. There must be thousands of us. I had no time to think
of that, I was soon pushed off the railroad car and separated
from my family. My father and brother were ripped from my
arms. I held onto them for dear life, but a soldier hitm e in the
back with his gun to remove me from them. He threatened me
with his gun, calling me foul names, telling me I was first on
his list. I stayed close to my mother, watching children being
taken from them mothers. What could these Nazis be doing
with such young children?
Talia
June 30, 1942
Dear Lord,
I have not slept. I am exhausted. We women have been
put to extreme manual labor. We are placed into different
sections of the camp for work. I have heard that there are
workshops to produce textiles for army men. In those
workshops, poor women have to work with heavy machinery.
They do not feed us, how do they expect us to carry or work
with such heavy objects? I hope I never have to work in such a
place. For now, I am working in the kitchen. It is so tempting
to grab potatoes and run! But I know I will be killed for such
an action. All I can do is dream about eating the food I touch

7. and prepare for these foul Nazis.
Your starving child,
Talia
July 18, 1942
Lord,
Every day since I have arrived here, I have smelt an awful
odor lingering in the air. My innocent thought was that the
smell must be of garbage or buses of some sort, but I was
wrong. I asked a women that I cook with about the smell. She
turned ghost white. Tears streamed down her skeletal face. She
finally whispered, “That is the smell of burning babies, and
poisoned Jews.” This could not be! I had no words to express
the pit in my stomach. She warned me not to trust the soldiers
when they take you somewhere. You will not know if water
will be hitting your skin or gas will be filling your lungs.
I told you this was Hell!
Talia
July 19, 1942
Lord,
I have been beaten, humiliated and raped in a matter of
days. That same soldier who hit me upon my arrival found me.
He beat me until I could not stand, then he took my innocence.
The devil possessed him to abuse me in such a repulsive
manner. That devil of a man will not get in trouble, none of the
soldiers do. Do you know what they do to women who become
pregnant here in Hell? They send the unlucky women to a
“doctor,” not to be treated, but to be tortured. The man
responsible for the pregnant women’s pain is Professor Carl
Clauberg. From what I have heard, he injects something into

8. the womb of the women. This material causes horrific pain and
most women bleed to death. I do not want to be one of those
women. I can live with the temptation of a potato in the
kitchen; I don’t want to die from some sick man’s enjoyment.
Talia
July 23, 1942
Lord, if there is a Lord.
My mother was murdered today. She did not die from
being beaten or raped but she died from this Hell. Like many
others, she died of a broken heart. A broken heart from
knowing her husband, my father, was dead. We were brought
news from a Jew who lived on our street. Our neighbor
reported, “The Nazis lined the men up against a brick wall and
shot them one by one, straight between the eyes.” I wanted to
scream hearing this news but could not, for I would get in
trouble. My mother wept for days. What little food we did get,
she refused to eat. Her decaying body would not work. She
died in my arms.
I have no words, only a broken heart.
Talia
August 24, 1942
Lord,
I woke this morning sick to my stomach. The sickness
does not come from lack of food or the sickening smell in the
air, but the reality of where I am. This place that takes innocent
people’s lives away. And for what? Because we are Jewish?
What is so wrong with being Jewish? Can anyone answer that?
No? So many questions left unanswered. I would drive myself

9. insane if I chose to continue asking these questions, so I empty
my mind and work my eleven hours under the watchful eye of
the devil soldiers.
I heard a train arrive. New Jews to beat. They know very little
of what heartbreak they are about to endure.
Talia
August 25, 1942
Lord,
I pray this will be my last day in Hell, so I may live in
Heaven. I cannot stand to hear gun shots and screams
throughout the day. I cannot take the smell of burning flesh
much longer. If I could take my own life I would. I pray that
the Americans will kill Hitler, that man in control of all this
hate. The mastermind behind all the killings and torture. He
deserves the same treatment we have received. I cannot
describe the amount of hatred the Jews have for this ungodly
man. I pray he gets what he deserves. I pray for this to be my
last night, my last writing, my last breath,
Talia
Works Cited
Florida Center for Instructional Technology. "A Teacher's
Guide to the Holocaust: The Camps." 2005. College of
Education, University of Southern Florida. 29 December 2014
<http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/camps.htm>.
The Holocaust Project. "Auschwitz Nazi Death Camp." 1996.
The Holocaust: Crimes, Heroes and Villians. 29 December 2014
<http://auschwitz.dk/Auschwitz.htm>.

10. Ofer, Dalia and Lenore J. Weitzman. "Women in the
Holocaust." 1 March 2009. Jewish Women: A Comprehensive
Historical Encyclopedia. Jewish Women's Archives. 29
December 2014 <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/women-in-
holocaust>.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Women During
the Holocaust." 20 June 2014. Holocaust Encyclopedia. 29
December 2014
<http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=1000517
6>.
Joey Brown
A two-page narrative of a single instance or incident in the life
of your character.
HIS 101
December 23, 2014
Personal Historical Narrative
A Jewish person in a concentration camp
I am a male prisoner in Buchenwald concentration camp, Winter
1944.
I am startled awake by the Kapo yelling at us. It is still
dark out. I have had 4 hours of sleep after a long day of hard
labor and am exhausted. The fear of the Kapo beating me wakes
me quickly and I am alert. My bunkmates and I hastily tidy our
straw mattresses. It is difficult to do. My hands are so cold they
are numb and I am terrified the Kapo will see my struggling. If
I am not fast enough I will be beaten. After I finish with my

11. bunk I rush to the restroom, which is a ditch I helped dig. I have
to have another man hold my hands as I lean backwards to go to
the bathroom so I don’t slip on the frozen ground. It doesn’t
smell as terrible as it does in the summer now because the ditch
is mostly frozen. I must hurry because role call will be in
minutes.
The soldiers spend hours on role call. It is snowing outside
and wearing nothing but rags. I shiver so hard I have to clench
my teeth from being heard. I try to stay as still as possible to
not be noticed by the guards. To be singled out is to be beaten
to death. I do not want to go to the furnaces with the dead man
at my feet. There is a man three rows over that collapses with
weakness. The SS force their way in and drag him out to be
made an example of in front of everyone. He cannot even
struggle. They are excited and enjoy beating the man to death. I
hear the bones breaking and as his blood hits the frozen ground,
steam rises up. There is a competition among the soldiers to see
who can inflict the most damage. We had to take that Jew to the
furnaces with the others who died in the night.
It is time for breakfast. The SS toss bread into a freezing
muddy puddle and we must fight over it. To not fight is to die
and I want to live. I pretend the men I am fighting have no
faces. To see a face is to know the person whose death you had
a hand in. I force my way in and rip the bread away. I can feel
the other men’s cold hands clawing at me and I can smell their
breath. Yet I do not give up. I must eat to survive the day of
hard labor. I wish we could all have bread.
We are surrounded by guards as we are marched by the
gates to our station. As we exit, I can hear the buzzing of the
electrified fence. I have seen people attempt to escape. They
survive the shock, but not the Nazi’s wrath. No one has
attempted an escape in a year. We are all too weak and have
seen too many perish in the attempt. We are helpless and cannot
fight back.
My group and I arrive at the furnaces. There is a never
ending mountain of bodies. We cannot burn them as quickly as

12. they arrive. Some days I work with the furnaces. I have to load
countless bodies into the furnace. I recognize some of the faces.
I cannot afford to feel anything. To feel anything would make
me weak and I am barely surviving. The smoke is acrid and the
worst thing I have ever smelled. When I leave at the end of the
day, it is still in my nose. I smell nothing but death and burning.
Yet, today I stay warm.
Other days, I dig ditches for the ashes and parts that didn’t
incinerate. We are given shovels and pickaxes. It is slow and
hard work because the ground is frozen. Every time my pickaxe
hits the ground my body hurts with the reverberation. My hands
are tired and stiff from the cold. I have trouble holding on and it
falls out of my hands. The guard kicks me in the back into the
ditch. I land so hard I break a tooth on a rock. Then I am beaten
with a club, but he decides to let me live. The pain is nothing
compared to my fear. I apologize profusely and work harder
than ever. It hurts to breathe deeply. I spend the rest of the
time concentrating on my breaths and counting the strikes of my
pickaxe.
Fourteen hours later we arrive back at the center of camp
for the evening role call. I struggle to stay awake. My eyelids
are heavy and I am having trouble keeping focus. I take deep
breaths because the pain it causes keeps me awake and alert.
Role call is finished and I file into my bunk with the other men.
There is a new face with us. We look at each other and I know
we think the same thing. We survived another day but for what
purpose? We dare not hope for liberation, lest it break us when
it never comes.
A bibliography of at least three references in one of the
approved formats. This is in APA format, but you may also use
Chicago Style for Humanities or MLA.

13. References
Borenstein, I. (1999). Survivor Stories. Retrieved from
Holocaust Survivors.org:
http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/data.show.php?di=record&da
=survivors&ke=1
Danner, M. (2013). Horrors of a Camp Called Omarska and the
Serb Tragedy. Retrieved from PBS.com:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/karadzic/atrocit
ies/omarska.html
Yad Vashem. (2013). The World of the Camps: Daily Life in the
Camps. Retrieved from The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes'
Remembrance Authority:
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/about/06/daily_life.
asp