October 16, 2014 Workshop

Teaching About the Holocaust: A Workshop for Educators

Georgia Council for the Social Studies - 2014 Conference - Athens, Georgia

Subscribe to our mailing list

Resource Books for Teaching About the Holocaust

• Middle school - Tell Them We Remember: The Story of the Holocaust by Susan Bachrach
• High School - War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust by Doris Bergen
• Teacher Reference - The World Must Know The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Michael Berenbaum

What Georgia Performance Standards must be met?

Fifth Grade Social Studies

SS5H6 - The student will explain the reasons for America’s involvement in World War II.

a. Describe Germany’s aggression in Europe and Japan’s aggression in Asia.

b. Describe major events in the war in both Europe and the Pacific; include Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, D Day, VE and VJ Days, and the Holocaust.

d. Identify Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, Hirohito, Mussolini and Hitler.

Sixth Grade Social Studies

SS6H7 - The student will explain conflict and change in Europe to the 21st century.

a. Describe major developments following World War I:  the Russian Revolution, the Treaty of Versailles, worldwide depression and the rise of Nazism.

b. Explain the impact of World War II in terms of the Holocaust, the origins of the Cold War, and the rise of Superpowers.

Eith Grade Social Studies

SS8H9 - The student will describe the impact of World War II on Georgia’s development economically, socially and politically.

c. Explain the impact of the Holocaust on Georgians.

World History

SSWH17 - The student will be able to identify the major political and economic factors that shaped world societies between World War I and World War II.

c. Describe the rise of fascism in Europe and Asia by comparing the policies of Benito Mussolini in Italy, Adolf Hitler in Germany, and Hirohito in Japan.

d. Describe the nature of totalitarianism and the police state that existed in Russia, Germany, and Italy and how they differ from authoritarian governments.

e. Explain the aggression and conflict leading to World War II in Europe and Asia; include the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War, the Rape of Nanjing in China, and the German annexation of the Sudetenland.

SSWH18 - The student will demonstrate understanding of the global political, economic, and social impact of World War II. 

a. Describe the major conflicts and outcomes; include Pearl Harbor, El-Alamein, Stalingrad, D-Day, Guadalcanal, the Philippines, and the end of the war in Europe and Asia. 

b. Identify Nazi ideology, policies, and consequences that led to the Holocaust. 

New National Standards - Common Core Standards in Social Studies

1. Cite specific evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.

2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop.

3. Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.

Online Resources

Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust

Click here to read the full explanation for each guideline. 

1. Define the term "Holocaust".

• Booklets on Victims of the Nazi Era
  • Jehovah’s Witnesses
  • Poles
  • Homosexuals
  • Mentally and Physically Handicapped
  • Roma and Sinti (Gypsies)
• Holocaust Chronology
• Holocaust History Animated Maps
• Holocaust Encyclopedia
• Holocaust Photographs
• Holocaust Documents
  • A Holocaust Reader by Lucy Dawidowicz

2. Do not teach that the Holocaust was inevitable. 

• Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration and Complicitiy in the Holocaust Online exhibition
  • Deconstructing the Familiar: Photo Activity
    • Photos and captions
    • Photo Activity Chart
    • Photo Activity Worksheet

3. Avoid simple answers to complex questions.

• Documents required to obtain a visa
• Document required for emigration from Germany
• Documentation required for immigration visas to enter the United States

4. Strive for precision of language.

• Hiding Meaning:  Letter from Willy Just to SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Walter Rauff, 5 June 1942
• Special Treatment: Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Units)
• Euthanasia – T-4 Program
• Resistance
  • Art as Resistance
  • Documentation as Resistance
    • Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust by Alexandra Zepruder
    • I’m Still Here: Real Diars of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust
      • I’m Still Here Study Guide
    • Ringelbloom Archive
  • Diary of Anne Frank

5. Stive for balance in establish whose perspective informs your study of the Holocaust.

• Hocker Album
• Lili Jacob Album
• The Fuhrer Gives a City to the Jews (Propaganda Film)

6. Avoid comparisons of pain.

• Genocide
• Hitler’s statement on the Armenian genocide (There is currently a debate by historians as to whether or not there is sufficient evidence that Hitler actually said this in his speech.)

7. Do not romanticize history.

• Calvin College Propaganda Archive

8. Contextualize the history.

• Nazi Eugenics
  • Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race

9. Translate statistics into people.

• Tower of Faces (USHMM)
• Pre–world war II European Jewish life photo project
• USHMM ID Cards
  • Georgia Commission on the Holocaust ID cards adapted from USHMM
    • ID cards set
    • Activity Module
    • Diagram of ID cards
• Georgia Holocaust Survivors and Liberators

10. Make responsible methodological choices.

• Middle School - Tell Them We Remember By Susan Bachrach
• High School – War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust by Doris Bergen
• Teacher Reference – The World Must Know By Michael Berenbaum
• "I Saw a Mountain" poem by Moses Schulstein, article by Michael Berenbaum
• Victims’ shoes

Teaching with Primary Sources

• Primary Source Analysis Worksheets
• Hitler’s letter sanctioning euthanasia
• USHMM Poster Set - Nuremberg Laws Poster
• USHMM Animated Maps
• USHMM Maps

Holocaust Literature

• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
  • http://www.annefrank.org/    
  • http://annefrank.com/     
  • http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005210 
• I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from the Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944 by Hana Volavková and Celeste Raspanti
• We are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine by the Boys of Terezín
• The Diary of Petr Ginz
• The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto
• All But My Life by Gerda Klein
  • Teaching Tolerance free toolkits: One Survivor Remembers
• Night by Elie Wiesel
• The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duffy
• The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss
• The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

Graphic Novels

• Maus: A Survivor's Tale and My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
• The Family Secret and The Search by Eric Heuvel

Other Selections

• Daniel’s Story by Carol Matas
• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
• The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak
• The Island on Bird Street by Uri Orlev

Allegory

• Brundibar by Maurice Sendak
• Terrible Things by Eve Bunting