Explore the stories from women rescuers during the Holocaust. Students will have the opportunity to learn the stories of courageous female upstanders and what they risked in order to save the lives of Jews.
This lesson is generously sponsored by Godfrey & Kahn.
During the Holocaust we can see numerous accounts of people going out of their way to rescue Jews from being harmed or deported.
Start by asking students, “What is an upstander?”
After students have had a chance to answer, you can provide them with the official definition. An Upstander is “a person who speaks or acts in support of an individual or cause, particularly someone who intervenes on behalf of a person being attacked or bullied.”
Next, discuss the following quote by Samantha Power- “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
Direct students to the “Women of Valor” section from Yad Vashem. Show them where to find the women’s stories; take some time to click on one or two of the women’s stories to demonstrate how to find the information they will need.
Divide students into groups of three to five. Assign each group one of the heroines’ stories to look into. Ask students to prepare a presentation telling this person’s story. Presentations can be made with Prezi or PowerPoint, if your class does not have access to computers, presentations may be done with poster boards or large pieces of paper.
Once students have been assigned their group and heroine, provide them with the following questions to help structure their presentation.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Watch a video on “upstander” Sir Nicholas Winton and how he saved the lives of children during the Holocaust. Students will learn Winton’s story and be inspired by the man’s reluctance to take credit for his good deeds.
During the Holocaust we can see numerous accounts of gentiles, or non-Jewish persons, going out of their way to rescue Jews from being taken, harmed, or deported.
Write the word “upstander” on the board. Ask the students what they think it means and if they can come up with any examples of being an upstander.
Watch the video, produced by CBS 60 Minutes, Sir Nicholas Winton “Saving the Children.” While students are watching the video have them take notes answering the following questions:
After the video ends allow students to pair up and discuss the answers they put down. Allow approximately 10 minutes for this sharing.
After the video, discuss the following questions as a class:
Collect answers about being an upstander, specifically any answers about what makes people risk their own safety/well-being for the benefit of others. Bring these out in future discussions about bystanders.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Watch a video on bystanders in the small town of Buczacz in the Ukraine by Facing History and Ourselves. Students will catch a glimpse of the side of the Holocaust that was not carried out by systematic murder in the camps.
Half of the Holocaust murders took place in small towns like Buczacz. In these towns, occupants knew their Jewish neighbors intimately- making their involvement more on the side of a perpetrator versus a bystander.
Start off by asking students what they think a bystander is. Provide them with the official definition:
Bystander: a person who is present at an event or incident but does not take part.
Read the quote, “The one thing that does not abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” By the character Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird to the class.
Ask the students what they think this quote means, how does it relate to being a bystander?
Watch the video ‘When There Are No Bystanders (short version)‘ by Facing History and Ourselves.
Stop the video at the intervals below and ask the question that follows:
4:23
What impact do you think the area’s history of violence had on the villagers?
6:47
What choices did the villagers have to make? What were the consequences of each?
8:28
Do you believe Omer Bartov’s assertion that there are no bystanders in a small town? Why?
Read the passage taken from the video out loud to the class:
“…when you look from the top and say, well, this was industrial murder. People from Berlin were put on a train. They went to Auschwitz. In 20 minutes, they were dead in a gas chamber. It was dehumanizing. It was mechanized. No one really was involved. Here, everyone was involved.”
Hold a class debate answering this question: Are the bystanders from a small town more guilty than the onlookers from a bigger city?
Divide the class in half. Have half of the class come up with some reasons why they believe bystanders from a small town are more guilty than onlookers from a big city. The other half will debate for the other side: that all bystanders are guilty the same, they could have all done something.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Milton Mayer, an American journalist and educator, interviewed people to find out how they reacted to Hitler’s policies. Students will read a testimony from a German professor on his being a bystander during the Nazi era.
Bystanders during the Holocaust came in all forms. Many felt it uncomfortable to stray from their everyday thinking, despite the obvious unjustness that was taking place around them.
Distribute the Range of Human Behavior Vocabulary Terms worksheet by Facing History and Ourselves. Go over the actual meaning for each of the terms with the class. Tell students to keep these worksheets as they could be useful in later lessons/discussions about perpetrators, victims, and upstanders.
Perpetrator: a person who carries out a harmful, illegal, or immoral act.
Victim: a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.
Bystander: a person who is present at an event or incident but does not take part.
Upstander: a person who speaks or acts in support of an individual or cause, particularly someone who intervenes on behalf of a person being attacked or bullied.
Direct students to the resource, No Time to Think by Facing History and Ourselves. There is an audio version of the testimony that you can play if you would like to have your students listen as they follow the written testimony. Alternatively, you can just read it without listening to the audio.
Before breaking students off in groups to complete the Output section, click on the identity chart link from the second question at the bottom of the page and show the students what it is supposed to look like.
In groups of three to five, have students go over the Connection Questions found at the bottom of the page. If time permits, open up into a group discussion going over some (or all) of the questions. Have groups share their identity chart.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Listen to a podcast episode from We Share the Same Sky presented by USC Shoah Foundation. Students will hear about the host’s experience visiting Sobibor extermination camp and her connection to the victims.
The Nazi death camps were a dehumanizing place where many lost their lives. Survivors have different stories from their experiences that they pass down to relatives.
Explain to the students that they will listen to a podcast hosted by the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. The host, Rachel, tells bits of her grandmother’s story in each episode. This episode is about Rachel’s trip to Sobibor- visiting the extermination camp her family was sent to in 1942.
Warn students that the content can be unsettling.
Play the podcast episode Chapter IV: The End of The World by We Share the Same Sky. Explain to students that this podcast is hosted by the grandaughter of a Holocaust survivor. The host, Rachel, researches and retraces her family history in order to tell their story.
While they listen, ask students to write down something they found powerful.
Divide students into small groups of two or three to discuss the questions below. Come back together as a class and ask the students to share what their groups discussed.
Collect the answers to the major questions to be used in later discussions about the Holocaust and historical testimonies.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Students will watch a clip of the 1984 German film Die Wannseekonferenz, witnessing how Nazi officials controlling various facets of German bureaucratic life worked together to make decisions surrounding the minutiae involved in organizing the genocide of 11 million people.
The Holocaust was a gradual application of violence and destruction, culminating in a meeting where the final outcome and details were meticulously planned by Nazi authorities. Almost every part of the German government was involved.
Give the students a brief overview of the lead-up to the Wannsee Conference, including a short history of the development of internment camps and ghettos. Explain that the Holocaust was a gradual process of violence and oppression; the end result of a series of events throughout the 1930s and WWII, and implemented by various groups throughout the Nazi sphere. There was no direct order signed by Adolf Hitler from the beginning. Many different people were in charge of its organization. The Wannsee Conference served to iron out details of mass extermination of the Jewish people. Despite everyone knowing what was happening, there was never a direct order for murder.
Watch the first 30 minutes of the 1984 German film Die Wannseekonferenz, available with subtitles. (Suggested stop time 31:22). Ask students to take note of details that may have surprised them, as well as key words or phrases, such as “final solution” and “Jewish question.” Stop the video at the following intervals and talk about the topics underneath, or take this time to answer any questions your students may have.
Pause movie at 10:06
Pause movie at 19:15
Lead the class in a discussion about what details may have surprised or stood out to them about the depiction of the Wannsee Conference – for example, how people casually discussed mass murder interspersed with laughter and socializing; the scene where we see one SS official paying fetch with a dog while his colleague complains that his “top secret” documents about Jewish mass killings are being circulated amongst everyone.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Students will explore just how complex the Nazi effort was to destroy European Jews, as well as the vague or subtle language used to describe how to implement a systematic genocide within Europe.
The genocide of 6 million Jews stemmed from gradually escalating violence beginning in the 1930s. It required the cooperation of numerous facets of German government and society, and took its final organized form from a 90 minute meeting. Using data gathered from previous experiments, the meeting discussed how to best approach mass murder with the lowest monetary and psychological cost.
Ask the students how extensive they believe the planning and execution of the Holocaust may have been – i.e, what kind of organization and resources they believe Nazi authorities used to make the Holocaust a reality.
Walk the students through the resource, Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Have each student take notes on the different examples of government departments they may or may not have expected to have attended the meeting, the goals of the attendees, as well as euphemisms (words used as a less problematic substitute for terms such as “evacuation to the east” instead of “extermination”, etc), aspects or details that were discussed within the meeting that they may or may not have expected to come up.
Lead the class in a discussion about the different actors at play during the Wannsee conference. Depending on how much time you have for this discussion, answer some (or all) of the questions below.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Students will read and examine a copy of the minutes of the Wannsee Conference, which helped to determine the fate of European Jews and remains one of the most damning pieces of evidence about the intentions of the Nazis in committing genocide.
The genocide of European Jews was meticulously planned by Nazi authorities; it required the cooperation of numerous facets of German government and society, such as the military, the railroads, immigration offices, etc.
Give a short background of events leading up to the Wannsee conference. Make sure to mention that mass killing of European Jews had already begun, but it was not as widespread or organized. Give a list of the different people attending the conference, found here, as well as their jobs, to show the variety of different governmental agencies who were brought together to cooperate in genocide.
Divide the class into groups of 4 or 5. Provide each group with a copy of the Wannsee conference minutes. Give the groups 15 minutes to read through the minutes and ask them to highlight words or phrases used in relation to the fate of Jewish populations (i.e. “evacuation to the East”). If students are unsure, a good example would be the phrase “Jewish question” itself as it is not readily apparent that the “Jewish question” means “How do we get rid of European Jews?”
Lead the class in a discussion following the words and phrases that students highlighted. Explain these terms and phrases, and what they really meant (i.e. “evacuation to the East” meaning “being sent to a concentration or death camp”). Make sure to point out phrases that may have been overlooked.
Finish the discussion with an overview of what we can learn from this document, including relevant questions; this document shows that numerous government authorities were in cooperation in an effort to carry out this genocide:
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Students will watch a video on Hitler’s rise to power by Facing History and Ourselves. Questions from the viewing guide will help students get the main takeaways.
Recognizing a strong sense of unjustness after the end of World War I and a dissatisfaction among the German people with the Weimar Republic, Hitler and his fellow Nazis promised to solve Germany’s problems by restoring the nation and the Aryan race.
Explain to the students that they will be watching a video on Hitler’s rise to power. Start by asking students what they may know already about the rise of Nazism and of the Nazis’ political platform.
Watch the video, Hitler’s Rise to Power: 1918-1933 from Facing History and Ourselves. Provide students with the Viewing Guide to accompany the video. Watch the video a second time.
Questions from the Viewing Guide:
As a class, go over the answers the students wrote down from the viewing guide. End the lesson by proposing the following question for discussion:
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Go over documents used during the Nuremberg Trials. (Some of the images contain graphic content.) Students will learn how the Nuremberg Trials came to be and the lasting impact these trials had on future cases of international injustice.
The Nuremberg Trials set the precedent that individual officials could be held responsible for “crimes against humanity” and for implementing policies that violate international law — regardless of their status as government officials.
Ask the class how they would define the terms “justice” and “accountability.” Write the words or phrases they come with on the board, then ask them the following questions:
Familiarize students with the resource, Justice and Accountability by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Show students that there are three sections of images and texts followed by a quote; Documenting the Crimes, The Trials, and Lasting Legacies.
Divide the class into three groups and assign them one of the three categories: Documenting the Crimes, The Trials, and Lasting Legacies and one of the quotes. These groups can end up being quite large depending on class size. Allow groups to divide up the images to go over in subgroups, as long as they all get together to discuss.
Provide the following instructions while they get into their groups:
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.