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.

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?

Provide students with a blank A5 piece of paper (postcard sized) and a pencil. Give students just 2-3 minutes to sketch what they think a Nazi concentration camp looked like. Assure them that their artistic skills are not the main focus, rather this exercise seeks to visualize their prior knowledge and understanding of concentration camps.

In groups of four, ask students to create a gallery with the images they created. Ask them to talk about the similarities and differences between the sketches.

Direct students to the resource, Concentration Camps, 1939-42 by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Read through the first two sections, “Expansion of the Camp System” and “Establishment of New Camps” as a class.

Direct student attention to the list of camps: Gusen, Neuengamme, Gross-Rosen, Auschwitz, Natzweiler, Stuffhof, and Majdanek. Click on one of the camps on the list to show students what type of information can be found for each one. Scroll to the bottom of the page to show where the discussion questions will be.

In the same groups that they are already working with, assign each group one of the camps from the list. Have students prepare a brief presentation about their assigned camp answering the questions below.

Provide students with the following instructions:

1. When was the camp established?
2. How many prisoners were held there?
3. What type of people did they imprison there?
4. What work were the prisoners doing there?
5. Name one thing you found that surprised you about this particular camp.
6. Answer one of the discussion questions found at the bottom of the page.
7. Compare the sketches you made at the beginning of the lesson to what you now know about the camps.

Reconvene as a class. Ask students some new things they learned about concentration camps. Compared to their sketches and what they know now, what would they have changed in their drawing?

Tell students that (as they may now realize) that all camps were different. There is no such thing as a “typical” concentration camp. Different camps had different functions and they changed over time.

Ask students what they know about concentration camps. Do they know when they started? What kind of people were imprisoned in them?

Read through the resource, Early Camps by the BBC with the class. Then go back and demonstrate how to get to the primary sources by clicking on the red lettering in the text and then clicking on “Read Document” that comes up.

Dissect the first resource, “mass arrests” as a class. Use the following guidelines to help go through it:

1. First, identify where the source is coming from.
2. Summarize the resource.
3. What assumptions can be drawn from it?
4. Lastly, come up with a question that comes out of your reflections. The question should attempt to generate conversation between you and your classmates.

Divide the class into groups of three or five and assign each group one of the eight other primary sources. Some sources are longer than others, so you may decide you want to have larger groups analyze those. The longer resources are the ones labeled: ‘no mercy’, ‘murders’, ‘left-wing prisoners’, and ‘German Jews’.

Have them repeat what you did as a class in their groups with their assigned resource. Ask each group to present their resource to the class verbally. If possible, project each resource for the class as the group goes over it.