Tell students that the letters that they will look through in this exhibit were sent from the Czech lands, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, and the Ukraine and that they were written by victims of the Holocaust.

Not all authors of these letters understood their fate. Some letters may depict uncertainty, some optimism, and others may show that the author knew exactly what awaited them. There were also cases when people were coerced to write letters saying all was well, when the reality was far more grim.

Direct students to the handout “Creating a Found Poem” by Facing History and Ourselves. Read over the instructions as a class before directing students to the Yad Vashem exhibit, “Last Letters From the Holocaust:1944”.

Each letter is accompanied by some background information on the sender and receiver; students should read these as well.

Create a poem together as a class in order to give students an idea of what to do. Use the short letter, “Dear Papa” as an example. Ask students to brainstorm ideas on how to write the poem. Remember, you can reuse words to help make the poem longer than the postcard. Be creative!

Have students look through the Yad Vashem exhibit and choose a letter to write their poem from. Allow your students some time to complete their poems. When it appears that everyone is done, get the conversation flowing by asking the following questions:

1. How did it feel reading these letters?
2. Did you feel a connection to the person whose story you wrote about?

Let students have the opportunity to take their poems home to keep working on them for the next day or two. Collect the poems at the end of the class (or week if you decide to give more time). Keep them as a class project that you can use as an example in doing this lesson with other classes. Ask for volunteers to read their poems aloud to the class.

Create a collective workspace (chalkboard or online space) that is divided into two sides.
Then, ask your students to reflect on what makes a good leader. Ask them to offer some words or ideas. Write down summations of what was said on one side of the collective work space. Challenge them to move past characteristics and think about the approaches that they think are positive.

Have your students read Excerpt 9 from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s speech (page 3), which happened two days after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

Have them read with the 3Ps method: They should take notes on what they find to be the most a) Powerful b) Puzzling and c) Propelling. Give them 15 minutes to read and record their responses on their own.

In order to familiarize yourself, and your class with this model, please look over this guide: 3Ps: A Critical Reading Guide.

Ask students to share their reflections on the speech by Bonhoeffer. Help clarify any of the puzzling and point (if possible) toward further exploration when students are propelled toward another subject or thought that was sparked by the reading. Spend 15 minutes on the 3Ps.

Then return to the collective workspace and ask them to identify what makes a good leader, specifically prompting them to think about the Bonhoeffer piece. As participation wanes, turn to a comparison of the two sides. Are there any words or ideas that showed up on both sides? Can they conclude anything about what it means to act like a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ leader?

Collectively read Martin Niemoller’s famous lines, recorded as a poem “First They Came” available from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

Ask students to reflect on the meaning of the poem. What is most striking about it? What message is it sending to its audience?

Place Martin Niemoller in context by watching the video Awakening Conscience from Facing History and Ourselves. Prior to showing the seven-minute video ask your students to take notes on the things they think are most important. What strikes them about the story of Niemoller and the history that surrounds his story?
After the video, ask students to share what they discovered, prompting them to clarify why they felt this information was important.

If missed, ask students what they make of the following issues, in particular and return to these sections of the video if necessary:

1. Broad acceptance and hope about the Nazi Regime (1:05)
2. Nationalism–an exclusionary allegiance to one’s nation or state (2:47, 3:50, 6:00)
3. Churches willingly aligning with fascism (3:20)

Ask students to return to the poem and either ask a student to read it aloud or watch this rendering here.

Given what they now know about Niemoller’s story, ask them to reflect on the lines again in some individual writing. Who is the ‘they’ Niemoller is referring to? What does it mean to ‘speak out’? To whom would Niemoller or any other citizen of Germany ‘speak out’?

Read this quote by Holocaust historian, Raul Hilberg, from “Destruction of the European Jews” to the class. “In retrospect it may be possible to view the entire design as a mosaic of small pieces, each commonplace and lusterless by itself.” (Hilberg, 1885, P. 263)

Ask students, What could have happened if one of these “mosaic pieces” were to refuse an order?

This lesson has been simplified from a lesson created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (full lesson can be found here). Distribute this worksheet and the caption-less photographs to students in groups of three. Explain to them that they will first receive a photograph without any context and that they will be asked to answer the questions as best they can.

Provide each group with a photograph without a caption and a worksheet. There are seven different photographs, depending on the size of the class some groups may be examining the same picture.

Allow students some time to look over the picture and answer the questions in Section 1 of the worksheet. When everyone is finished, hand out the same photograph this time including the caption. After looking over the photograph and caption, ask students to answer the questions in Section 2 of the worksheet.

Have each of the groups share what they learned from their photographs. If possible, project the pictures on a large screen so the entire class can see the picture the group is describing.

How does looking at the pictures after receiving the context change how you feel about the photo?

As your students if they have ever heard of a conspiracy theory. What is a conspiracy theory? What are the ones that fascinate them the most?
Provide the definition of conspiracy theory: “a belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event.”

Provide your students with insights from Dr. Deborah Lipstadt (available in full here), who suggests that antisemitism “is rooted in a conspiracy theory. As such, the Jew is not just to be loathed but is to be feared.” Ask your students, “Why do conspiracy theories evoke fear?”

Furthermore, Dr. Lipstadt suggests that the conspiracy theory of antisemitism “has a structure. It is not just a haphazard conglomeration of sentiments. It generally has three to four essential elements: wealth, cunning (smarts used nefariously), and power beyond their ‘legitimate number’ (punching above their weight).”

Their task of this lesson is to identify these essential elements within specific examples and then report their findings to the whole class.
Split students into five groups.
Each group will examine one of the five examples of antisemitism shown in Antisemitism Over Time from Echoes and Reflections. Distribute one example per group.

Then, provide the following instructions:

1. Read the description of the antisemitic incident or artifact carefully.
2. Examine the artifact or direct quotes from the incident.
3. Record which elements of the conspiracy theory emerge in this example.
   1. Are there implied elements that are not displayed directly? Explain.
   2. Does “fear of the Jew” enter into the equation here? How so?
4. Generate a brief presentation for the class that summarizes the context (time, place, participants, etc.) and your findings about the themes that are most significantly expressed in the artifacts or quotations.

Ask students to reflect on what they think contributes to their opinion on something? Who are the influencers in their world? Do all influences carry equal weight? How do they balance the difference of opinions that they hear and that they may agree with?

Cycle through the opinion polls that run the length of the Holocaust, presented via the US Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit on Americans and the Holocaust.

As you cycle through, prompt students to quickly jot down answers to the following questions that pair with each slide:

1. What do you make of the disparity between disapproval of persecution and willingness to allow more refugees into the country in 1938?
2. Why do you think Americans were uncomfortable entering a war with Germany in 1940?
3. Americans were widely opposed to information they heard about Nazi concentration camps, what do you suppose puts them in favor of Japanese Internment?
4. The United States and our allies won the war – in both Europe and the Far East. Why do you suppose we weren’t more welcoming to immigrants at that time? Who did we welcome?

Students will explore the writings and primary sources about various influential people from the 1930s and 40s. Groups should be created, each assigned to a different person of influence. Begin at the bottom of this page from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum with the public voices and extend into the political voices if need be.

Groups should prepare a brief presentation about the person to which they are assigned. Each group should answer at least the following questions:

1. What was this person’s role in US society? How influential were they, based on examples?
   Did they influence policy, public opinion or both? In what ways?
2. What were the main actions they took during this time?
3. How were they able to influence public opinion – especially the publics’ opinion on war, immigration, concentration camps, Internment camps? Why do you think their perspectives were so pertinent to this subject?
4. How do you judge them in light of our current situation? What lessons can they teach us?

Ask students whether they can identify how their opinions about the world are shaped. What are the things that influence their perception of what is going on?

Then, set the stage for what Americans would have been experiencing in 1938. Ask your students, what do they know about the US in 1938? Its economy? Sports? Life? How did people at that time get their information- newspapers, movies, radio? How might their views of the world have been shaped?

Have students watch the video American Newsreel from USHMM’s Americans and the Holocaust exhibit website. Begin by watching the first 2:15, through the Silver Shirts newspaper campaign.

Prompt students to consider the content of the first two minutes in large discussion or via pair-and-share.

1. What kind of messaging is being promoted by Senator Dies, Father Caughlin and the Silver Shirts?
2. If you believe these messages, what kind of opinion might you form about refugees, Jews, etc. ?

Continue watching the video through 4:45, with the meeting of Mussolini and Hitler and then stop to ask questions about the information being distributed in America:

1. Were Americans informed about the rise of fascism in Europe?
2. Was the American Government interested in responding to conflict or aggression around the world? Why not?
3. How do you see these two first sections interacting with one another? Given the tone of the first section and the information from the second, what kind of opinion might someone form about America’s role in the world?

Finally, watch the last two minutes of the video, which is an excerpt from March of Time which gave Americans a glimpse into life in Nazi Germany. After the video, ask students to draft short answers to these questions and either generate discussion from them or collect as an assignment:

1. What is the message of March of Time?
2. Knowing what we know about America in 1938, how might a citizen have responded to this information? Would they have been inspired to act or to stay out of it?
3. Looking back from the present day, what parts of March of Time seem like red flags for what is to come in the next 7 years?

Briefly, ask students if they believe that the US was heroic in their effort to stop the Holocaust. Why do they believe what they do? What evidence do they have to support their position? Then, review the Holocaust Timeline at Echoes & Reflections to take a look at 1941 and 1942. Note some key dates, including the deployment of the Einsatzgruppen in 1941 and the Wannsee Conference in 1942.

Then introduce the Ringer Telegram, by way of the USHMM Americans and the Holocaust online exhibit, (can be found under the section titled “Cold-Blooded Extermination”) which found its way to US officials in August 1942. Begin by showing the full image of the telegram and asking students to read it. What do they understand of the messages that is being conveyed? What is the warning in these words?

After they have investigated the primary source document, read together the description of “cold-blooded extermination” on that same page for context.

Ask students to reflect on this historical monument. What would they have done if they were in a position of power and heard of these acts of violence?

Then, introduce students to the State Department cover up. Read the first part of this section together and ask students what questions emerge in their minds. Ask them to record for themselves, what would they still like to know and what confuses them about this response.

Ask the students to pair up and read the biography of Breckenridge Long via the USHMM Americans and the Holocaust site. Before they begin, prompt them to say their questions aloud to their partner. As they read, they should be attempting to answer these questions by writing down information that pertains to them.

Finally, if time permits, groups can share what they discovered and what remains unknown about this cover-up story.