Ask the class to think of different ways someone could resist a dictatorship. Write all of the answers people come up with on the board or a shared work space.

Provide a brief overview of the Rosenstrasse Protest with the students. Use the resource, Rosenstrasse Protest by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum as a resource for this. Please have the students read through it individually and have them take notes. Take time to answer any questions students have as best you can.

Divide the class into groups to discuss the following questions:

1. What do you think could have happened if Germans had protested the mistreatment of German Jews during and right after Kristallnacht?
2. How do you think the German public would have responded had the protesters been met with violence?

Explain to students that the War Refugee Board was one of the initiatives that the United States worked on to provide aid during the Holocaust. Explain that they will be learning about one of the individuals that worked through these efforts to save Jews in Hungary.

Talking points provided by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Holocaust Encyclopedia.

• In January 1944, the War Refugee Board (WRB) was established. Bu this time, the United States government was aware of the mass murder of European Jews and established the WRB to provide aid.
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt tasked this organization with conducting an official American policy of rescue and relief.
• Staff from the WRB worked with Jewish organizations, diplomats from neutral countries, and resistance groups in Europe to rescue Jews from occupied territories and provide relief to Jews in hiding and in concentration camps.
• The War Rescue Board was vital in the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews.

Play the Yad Vashem video (6 minutes) for the class. If necessary, play the video again.

While they watch, ask students to write down answers to the following questions:

1. Who was Raoul Wallenberg?
2. How did Wallenberg provide aid to Jews?
3. What happened to Wallenberg?
4. How have his rescue efforts been honored?

As a class, discuss the responses to the video.

Lastly, show students a clip from Holocaust survivor, Tom Lantos through USC Shoah Foundation iWitness. Please note, that this link may take you to a search result. Click on the video for Tom.

After watching the clip, open into a class discussion on the impact that Raoul Wallenberg had on Tom Lantos. Remind them that Tom is just one of tens of thousands of Jews whose rescue is credited to Wallenberg.