Explain to students that the Nazis established numerous ghettos and camps throughout Europe, all with their unique attributes. The camp that will be discussed in this lesson, Terezin, or Theresienstadt, was incredibly unique and served many purposes.

Prominent Jews, especially artists, musicians, and cultural figures were among the people sent to Terezin because their disappearance in society may otherwise raise suspicions.

Use the resource, Terezin: A Site for Deception, by Facing History & Ourselves to give students an overview of the ghetto. Read through this resource as a class and analyze the picture by Bedrich Fritta together. Students will be given other pictures from Terezin to analyze later, so do this one as a class.

Divide students into small groups and provide them with these images (without captions) and have them look through the images and discuss the questions on the last page. Give students about 5-10 minutes for this.

After students have had a chance to look through the images without the captions, provide them this document that includes the captions and context. Give students some time with the pictures and allow them to discuss the questions on the last page. Give students an additional 5-10 minutes for this.

Call the class together to share what they discussed. Have a representative from each group share an overview.

Lastly, return to the essential questions and open into a class discussion about the use of art in the camp system.

Using a think-pair-share discussion, students reflect on the following two questions:

• How are individuals with disabilities viewed and treated by society?
• How does a society’s treatment of people with disabilities reflect the society’s culture, values, and ideology?

Share the following information with students:

Franz Karl Bühler, who was a well-known German artist at the turn of the twentieth century was diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized by the 1920s. He continued to produce art, which was criticized by the Nazis and included in the degenerate art exhibition, as the Nazis tried to show supposed links between modern art and mental illness.

The Nazi T4 program was the systematic murder of institutionalized patients with disabilities in Germany. It started in 1939. The program was one of many radical eugenic measures that aimed to restore the racial “integrity” of the German nation. It aimed to eliminate what eugenicists and their supporters considered “life unworthy of life”: those individuals who—they believed—because of severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical disabilities represented both a genetic and a financial burden on German society and the state. Among those murdered under the T4 Program was Franz Karl Bühler.

Display Self-Portrait by Franz Karl Bühler (pronounced Bueller) from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Display the art piece while your students read through the text individually or in small groups. Encourage students to click through the hyperlinked text to learn more about the “Degenerate Art” exhibition and the T4 program.

As students look through the articles, have them respond to the following questions:

1. What was the Degenerate Art exhibition? What purpose did it serve?
2. What was the T4 Program? How did it feed into Nazi ideology?
3. What happened to Franz Karl Bühler? What is the significance of having his self portrait for review?

In a whole class discussion, students discuss the relationship between culture and ideology, returning to the opening questions:

1. How did Nazi ideology influence policies and practices around the idea of dis/ability in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s?
2. How are individuals with disabilities viewed and treated by society?
3. How does a society’s treatment of people with disabilities reflect the society’s culture, values, and ideology?

Explain to your students that art can be a powerful way to learn about people and places. In Auschwitz, access to materials was incredibly limited. However, some artists were commissioned to produce art or signs for the Nazis, thus providing them access. Using these materials for personal use was a punishable offense. Some of the art they will see was created while people were in Auschwitz while others were drawn after liberation.

Pull up the resource, Teaching about Auschwitz through Art, by Yad Vashem. As a class, read through the sections: Art as Evidence (1), Portraits (2) and Art as a Means of Conveying (4). While you go through each section, expand the accompanying art and ask students to share what they see and how it makes them feel.

In partners, ask students to discuss their answers to the questions below. Provide 10 minutes for this discussion and then ask for people to share.

1. What are the different reasons why people created art about their experiences?
2. How do these pieces help tell the story of the Holocaust?
3. What does it say about the importance of art that people risked their lives to create it in the camp?

Begin by providing your students with background information on concentration camps. Concentration camps were created for a variety of reasons, including forced labor, detention of individuals viewed as enemies of the state, and eventually, mass murder.

Pull up the resource, Polish Victims, by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. As a class, read the first two paragraphs of this article, ending where it begins to talk about “Germanizing Poland.”

Open into a brief class discussion with the following critical thinking question:

Why did German forces eliminate or arrest not just leaders of political groups, but of religious organizations as well?

Explain to your students that they will be examining documents from a Polish victim of Nazi persecution, Rev. Stanley Dabrowski.

In groups of 2-3, have students look through and analyze the primary documents from series 1 and 2 of the Rev. Stanley Dabrowski papers from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

In groups, provide students with the following instructions below. Provide 10-15 minutes for this activity.

1. Look through the documents from series 1 and series 2.
2. What can you gather from these documents about Rev. Stanley Dabrowski’s life?
3. What was happening around this time in the greater context of the Holocaust leading up to Stanley’s arrest?

Once students have had an opportunity to research for themselves, provide this overview of Rev. Stanley Dabrowski’s life, compiled from research by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

How does Rev. Dabrowski’s story contribute to your overall understanding of the Holocaust?