A History of the Holocaust — With Lego

By Anne Cohen January 19, 2015

John Denno

One John Denno, of Liverpool U.K., was given a pretty standard high school history assignment: to illustrate the events of the Holocaust.

Denno took the project to the next level. Instead of drawing the usual stick figure Hitler or putting together a run-of-the-mill bristol board poster (ah, good times), he used pieces from his massive collection to build a Lego Holocaust timeline.

Denno starts out his visual narrative in January 1933 (“Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany”) and ends in April 1945 (“Hitler commits suicide”). Though he used mostly standard bricks and figures, he also had to improvise when necessary. According to Pixable, Stalin was “a combination of Chancellor Palpatine, Uncle Vernon from Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker.”

But laugh-factor aside, Denno seems to have learned a valuable lesson through this effort. “The biggest thing I realized about the Holocaust through making this project is just how long the persecution went on. From 1933 Jews slowly lost all their rights until they were being murdered in their thousands,” he told Pixable.

Not bad for a class assignment.

Check out some of Denno’s constructions here:

‘April 1933: Nazis define Jews as non-Aryan and boycott Jewish owned business’

John Denno

‘November 1938: Kristallnacht; Night of the Broken Glass, riots that destroy Jewish shops and business. German police overlook it’

John Denno

‘October 1941: Auschwitz is opened. Jews from around Europe will be killed here in their millions over the next few years’

John Denno

‘April 1945: Hitler commits suicide’

John Denno

For the complete run-down, see Denno’s Flickr album.

[h/t Heeb]

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO