Guidelines for Teaching the Holocaust

Sally N. LevineTeacher Fellow

Regional EducatorUnited States Holocaust Memorial

Museum

Recommendations are based on the publication

Teaching About the Holocaust: A Resource Book for Educators,

USHMM, Washington, D.C., March 2001

1. Define the word “Holocaust”

A specific event in 20th century historyDefinition: “The State-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945”Victims:

Jews were primary victims Roma and Sinti the handicapped Poles Homosexuals Jehovah’s Witnesses Soviet prisoners of war political dissidents

Glass bridge at the USHMM listing the names of victims of

the Holocaust

“Shoah” Trailer with Claude Lanzmann

2. Avoid comparisons of pain.

Highlight policies carried out by Nazi regime against various groups.Do not compare suffering between groups.Do not compare to victims of other genocides.Avoid generalizations which suggest exclusivity.

A chart of prisoner markings used in German concentration camps.

The Forgotten Genocide

3. Avoid simple answers to complex history.

Examine differences in human behavior.Do not over simpifiy.Emphasize multiple causation for the Holocaust.Assess fundamental causes: Racism Antisemitism Nationalism The Depression

SA members preparing for the boycott against Jewish businesses in Germany, ca. 4/1/33

The Reader

4.Just because it happened does not mean that it was

inevitable.Remind students that the Holocaust took place because individuals made the decision to act, or not to act.Help students develop insight into human nature.Nurture students to become critical thinkers.

Danish rescuers ferry Jewish refugees from Denmark to Sweden, 1943

Weapons of the Spirit

5. Strive for precision of language.

Do not overgeneralize.Refrain from using absolutes – all or none.Introduce students to euphemisms.Evaluate all facets of terms such as resistance.Compare and contrast terms such as bystanders and collaborators, guilt and responsibility, etc.

Members of the French resistance parade a collaborator through the

streets –armed resistance

Ringlebloom Oneg Shabbat archive which

contained secret archives of the Warsaw ghetto –

spiritual resistance: bearing witness

Defiance

6. Make careful distinctions about sources of information.

Distinguish between fact, opinion and fiction, primary and secondary sources and types of evidence.Analyze all interpretations of information. Identify sources that distort or deny historical fact for personal or political gain.

Primary source

Secondary source

Questionable source

7. Try to avoid stereotypical descriptions.

Although all Jews were targeted for extermination, not all Jews had similar experiences.Avoid generalizations and stereotypes.Do not reduce any nationality or religious or racial group to a one dimensional description.

A German Jewish doctor and his wife in Mannheim, Germany 1930-1937.

Many German Jews were assimilated into German life.

A group of Jewish children cross a street in Kazimierz, the Jewish quarter of Krakow,

before 1939. Some Polish Jews lived separately from their Christian Polish

neighbors.

8. Do not romanticize history to engage students’ interest.

Rescuers are role models for students, however, only a small minority of non-Jews helped to rescue Jews.Overemphasis on rescuers can give the wrong impression.Overemphasizing the horrors of the Holocaust can create a lack of balance.Accuracy and balance are critical in teaching the Holocaust.

Garden Of The Righteous Among The Nations at Yad Vashem

Life is Beautiful

“Hitler Gives a City to the Jews”

Contextualize the history you are teaching

Remind students that people did not act consistently; they often reacted to changing events and circumstances.Jews should not just be viewed as victims; life before the Holocaust and the cultural contributions and achievements of European Jewish life should help them balance their perceptions.Students would also benefit from learning about the Roma and Sinti.

                                          

Albert Einstein, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1921, German Jew

The Diary of Anne Frank

9. Contextualize the history you are teaching.Place events of the Holocaust in historical context.Review events in the contexts of American and European history.Frame your approach based on:

where and when certain acts took place

the consequences of one’s actions

the degree of control the Nazi’s had on a particular population

cultural attitudes the potential for hiding and

rescue.

A young Adolf Hitler and members of his National Socialist German

Workers Party – Nazis.

Schindler’s List

10. Translate statistics into people.

The number of victims defies imagination.Speak about individuals and families.First person accounts and memoirs help to individualize the victims.Note that individual experiences are not the experiences of all victims.

Tower of Faces at the USHMM

Paper Clips

11. Be sensitive to appropriate written and audiovisual content.

Use graphic material sparingly, if needed to achieve the goal of the lesson.Create a “safe” learning environment.Limit the use of graphic images: they can engage students for the

wrong reasons they may shut down their ability to

learn about the Holocaust in depth.Choose images which take into account the sensitivity of students.Choose images which are respectful of the subjects in them.

Detail of the scale model of crematorium II at Auschwitz-

Birkenau on display in the permanent exhibition of the

USHMM

Night and Fog

12. Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your teaching of the Holocaust.

Portray all individuals, victims, perpetrators and bystanders, as people capable of moral judgment and independent decision making.Avoid glorifying Nazi power; students should learn how power can be used positively and negatively in society.Clarify that victims of the Holocaust did not do anything to justify the actions against them.

Picture postcard of saluting Germans superimposed on images of Hitler

and a Nazi stormtrooper

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

13. Select appropriate learning activites.

Avoid activities which do not require higher thinking skills – crosswords, word scrambles.Creating models or drawings does not motivate students to critical thinking.Be wary of simulation exercises; it is almost impossible to recreate the Holocaust experience appropriately.Simulations can trivialize the subject of the Holocaust.Journaling, reflective writing assignments and class discussions can create empathy.

Reflective writing and journaling as well as discussion groups can help students to deal with the emotions

evoked by the study of the Holocaust.

14. Reinforce the objectives of your lesson plan.

Opening and closing lessons are critical to the success of the unit.

Opening lessons should: dispel misinformation set a reflective tone invite student ideas and opinions establish that the study of the

Holocaust is significant to them as individuals and as citizens of a democratic society.

Closing lessons should: encourage additional study encourage synthesis and

application to the world today.

Students being introduced to the poster set from the USHMM. These posters can trigger questions and discussions

Incorporating the Study of the Holocaust into Existing

Courses

United States HistoryWorld HistoryWorld CulturesGovernmentContemporary World ProblemsLiteratureArt and Art History

United States History

Examine: dilemmas resulting from foreign policy

based solely on national interest the need for citizens of democracies to be

well informed and involved the actions of the United States in regard

to the Holocaust the roles and reactions of American

liberators the role of the United States in the war

crimes trials

United States History

The Great Depression European economy Versailles Treaty Rise of Nazi Party

World War II American foreign policy Response of U.S.

government War crimes trials

The Cold War U.S. and Soviet response

to former Nazis Responses of European

allies to former Nazis

The Nuremberg Trials

The Great Depression

World History

Review history of: European antisemitism race science German nationalism German defeat in WWI failure of Weimar Republic.

Explore how Nazi policies were carried out.Reflect on the systematic planning of a government policy of genocide.Evaluate the use of technology, roles of collaborators and bystanders.

Science of race exhibit, USHMM

World HistoryAftermath of World War I

Versailles Treaty redrawing of Europe after World War I

Rise of Dictators factors leading to rise of dictators between

the wars exploitation of long standing European

antisemitism

World War II Effect of Holocaust on military decisions Committing genocide during war

Consequences of War Connection of the Holocaust to the

establishment of the modern State of Israel International law and the Nuremberg Trials Effect of cold war on former Nazis

Mussolini and Hitler

Stalin

World Cultures

Examine tensions between minorities and society in 1933-1945 Europe.Learn how governments can manipulate concepts of race, nationality, ethnicity to justify their acts.Analyze how cultures survive in situations of extraordinary adversity.Apply lessons to understanding of other genocides.

German propaganda slide, ca. 1936, showing the Jewish spider with Europe

in its web.

GovernmentCompare and contrast types of governments.Learn how Germany evolved from a parliamentary democracy to a totalitarian state.Study how public policy and the silence of the citizens can lead to genocide.Examine the systems created to implement Nazi policy.Evaluate the roles of supporters, bystanders and resisters.Examine the creation of the United Nations as a legacy of the Holocaust.

The Reichstag, 7/04

First U.N. Security Council Meeting, London, 1/17/46

Contemporary World Problems

Examine government policies, then and now, which create the potential for ethnic cleansing or genocide.Compare government responses to mass killings then and now.Examine what roles people can play in response to these killings.

LiteratureStudying literary responses to the Holocaust helps students:

develop respect for basic human decency and the need to confront evil

recognize that there were heroes in the ghettos and camps

understand the concept of spiritual resistance and maintenance of dignity through writing

examine how individuals took on or were made to take on roles of victim, bystander, perpetrator and rescuer

examine choices or absence of choices

analyze the use of euphemisms used by the Nazis

"Written in fear and darkness by Jewish children

and adolescents, while waiting for death by SS executioners and their

accomplices, these extraordinary diaries will resonate in the reader's

broken heart for many days and many nights." -- Elie

Wiesel.

Art and Art History

Analyze the implications of censorship of the arts to reinforce Nazi values and beliefs.

Study how art was used as a form of resistance.

Examine how art was used to document individual experiences of the Holocaust.

Evaluate how art is used as an interpretation of the Holocaust in memorials.

Art of the ghettos and camps

Nazi approved art

Holocaust memorial,

Miami, Florida