Share the definition of antisemitism with your students. You may choose to print out this page from Echoes & Reflections for students to have with them during the lesson.

Read through the definition together, breaking it down sentence by sentence if necessary. If you printed out the sheet for students, you could have them write notes or underline as you go through the definition.

Ask students if they have ever heard or seen antisemitism in their lives, whether it be online or in person. Ask if there are any volunteers willing to share their experiences.

Play this video (4-minutes) from CBS Morning News, taken from a lesson from Echoes & Reflections about Jewish teens talking about antisemitism.

Next, open up the class into a discussion with the following questions:

1. Did anything surprise you about what the teens said in the video?
2. Have any of you seen or heard anything similar to what is described in the video? What happened? How did you respond?
3. At the end of the video, the students talk about why other people should care about antisemitism. What did you think about what they said?

How might you respond if you see antisemitism or someone you know is being harassed? As a group, come up with some ideas of how to respond safely. Some examples could include:

• Say “that wasn’t funny” if someone makes a joke at their expense.
• Tell a trusted adult.
• Care for those that were targeted.

How might you encourage others to stand up to antisemitism? Draft a letter, a poster, or a slogan to encourage people to stand up to antisemitism and hate.

Explain to students that after Kristallnacht, the violent outbreak against Jews, it was becoming increasingly difficult for Jewish people to leave Germany. Seeing this threat, Great Britain led a series of rescue efforts allowing thousands of refugee Jewish children temporary visas so they could leave Nazi Germany.

Pull up the resource, Kindertransport, by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and read through it as a class. Watch the videos and look at the historical artifacts included on the website.

Then play this short clip by Gerard Friedenfeld, local Wisconsin Holocaust survivor.

Open up into a class discussion with the questions below.

• How does Gerard explain his treatment by the SS?
• How did Gerard end up on the Kindertransport?

Share Jack Hellman’s teddy bear from the reading. Explain that many children brought very few personal items from home.

• Memory Box Activity: Have students journal about what memories or stories from their childhood they’d want to make sure they preserved and why.
• Consider having students sketch a drawing of their memory or write down their memory and anonymously display them on the classroom wall.

3-2-1 Exit Ticket

On a half sheet of paper, have students respond to the following based on today’s lessons:

• List three specific things you learned about the Kindertransport.
• Write two questions that are still on your mind.
• Write one personal reaction or reflection from today’s lesson.

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.

Begin by asking your students what words come to mind when they think of the word ‘Genocide.’ Write down their responses on the whiteboard. If they are having trouble coming up with words, have them think of the Holocaust and the words they might use to describe that.

Next, provide students with the United Nations definition for genocide:

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such:

• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measurers intended to prevent births within the group;
• Forcibly transferring children of the groups to another group.

Ask your students if they have any questions after seeing the legal definition. If they do, have them write these down. Explain that the following resources will aim to expand their understanding of genocide. They will have the opportunity to return to these questions if they have not answered through the upcoming resources.

Play the video, What is Genocide? by the USC Shoah Foundation. As they watch, have them take notes about the different experiences mentioned and major themes to explore.

When the video is over, ask students to share that they wrote down.

Next, bring up Ben Ferencz through Dimensions in Testimony. Explain that Ben Ferencz was an American lawyer known for his work as an investigator of Nazi war crimes. You now have the opportunity to ask Ben some questions. Below are examples of questions that you may want to ask as a class, but you can ask other questions as they come up.

• What is genocide?
• Describe to me the scene you saw when you arrived at the concentration camp.
• How do you respond to the criticism that there was no need for the Nuremberg Trials?
• Are trials important?
• What is the role of international law in preventing genocide?

Ask students if their questions from the beginning have been answered. If not, have them read their questions to the class and try to answer them as a group. If you need additional resources, try the Holocaust Encyclopedia from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

As a group, go through some of the things they learned. If necessary, return to the list from the beginning and have them add to it with what they know.

Explain to your students that while the Nazi party only resided in Germany, Nazi ideology and practices sprouted in areas within the United States. The German-American Bund was a pro-Nazi organization for Americans of German descent. The Bund’s leader, Fritz Kuhn, tried to portray himself as the “American fuhrer,” although the organization never received support from the Nazi party.

Explain to your students that the German-American Bund was present in multiple states. The largest Bund rally was held in 1939 at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Play this 7-minute film, A Night at the Garden by filmmaker Marshall Curry. Warn students that the video contains hateful speech and that some of the clip may be difficult to watch.

While they watch, ask students to take notes on what they see. When the film is over, take 5 minutes for students to share what they wrote down.

Use the remaining time to open a discussion with the questions below:

1. What did you notice about the blend of American and German values?
2. What did you think about the way in which the leader, Fritz Kuhn, spoke to the crowd?
3. Why do you think the man at the end rushed the stage? What were the reactions from those on the stage and in the crowd?

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:

1. How did Winton hear about the trouble the Jews were facing?
2. What was Winton’s strategy?
3. What risks did Winton take in order to get the children out of Germany?
4. Who did he ask for help in looking for places for the children to go? What happened?
5. What event put an end to Winton’s transport operation?

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:

1. Why do you think Winton stayed silent for so long about what he had done?
2. What made him do it in the first place?
3. How can we be upstanders in our own lives?
4. Consider the quote by Winton, “If something isn’t blatantly impossible, then there must be a way of doing it.” What does this mean to you?

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.

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.

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.

1. Rachel describes her trip to Sobibor as a journey “to the end of the world” and she wonders what the trees would say if they could talk. In your own mind’s eye, what would the trees tell us?
2. Hana describes life during the Holocaust to “slowly being peeled off like an onion.” She says, “You are being conditioned to worse and worse situations…and to live a subhuman life…And when you are looked at like subhumans, no one has trouble killing you.” How were layers of humanity slowly peeled away from Jews and other victims during this time?
3. What is dehumanization and why is it dangerous?
4. The Nazis believed Jews and others- homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the mentally ill, Roma- were subhuman. How did this portrayal of these groups of people impact the victims, soldiers, and ordinary citizens?
5. Rachel describes the podcast as a ‘story of memory.’ In this episode, the details of her family’s deaths are only known from stories passed on from one person to another and may not be historically accurate. However, this is how many families, during and after the Holocaust, learned what happened to their loved ones. In what ways does this affect how we listen and understand survivor testimony? What do you take a “story of memory” to mean, as compared to what you might expect to find in a historic record?

Collect the answers to the major questions to be used in later discussions about the Holocaust and historical testimonies.