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?

Explain to students that there was a very distinct process that the Nazis developed to optimize the efficiency of arrivals at the camps. Ask students if any of them are aware of what this was like? Have they heard anything about the selection process before?

Watch this video by Yad Vashem to get an overview of the structure and layout of Auschwitz. Then show students video testimonies from Ellis Lewin and Eva Kor by USC Shoah Foundation iWitness.

Ellis Lewin Questions:

1. How does Ellis describe the experience of arriving at Auschwitz?
2. What does Ellis say about the pace at which things were happening?
3. Why didn’t Ellis’s father want Ellis to hang on to him?

Eva Kor Questions:

1. How does Eva describe her surroundings when she got off the train?
2. Why did Eva’s mother hesitate when she was asked if the girls were twins? Explain to students that, alongside the other horrible things done to people in the camps, some were chosen for medical experiments. Twins were often selected for genetic experimentation.
3. How did Eva react when the SS tried to tattoo her arm?

Survivors often describe their arrival at the killing centers as a chaotic time filled with fear and uncertainty. How did listening to these two testimonies contribute to your understanding of this?

Begin by asking your students, What was Auschwitz? What does it symbolize? What happened there? You may want to show the class a map of the Auschwitz camp by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Ask your students if anyone has visited the site? If someone has, ask them if they would share this experience.
Explain to students that today Auschwitz is a museum and a memorial, therefore when one enters the site today, one will not see the place as it was 60 years ago. Some buildings were preserved and others are gone; there is grass, and so on.

Direct students to the resource by Yad Vashem. Take some time to introduce your class to the site. The numbers in the left sidebar will take you to primary sources accompanying the major phases people went through while in Auschwitz. Click through pages 2-6 to show students what to expect on each page.

Divide the class into groups of three to five and assign each group a number 2-6 (number 1 is the Introduction page) and the resource page that corresponds with that number.

Provide groups with the questions corresponding to their group and give them the instructions below:
Read through the testimonies and look at the photographs for your designated section.
Prepare a presentation answering the questions that accompany your topic.
If possible, project the page for each group as they present so the entire class can see the images and testimonies that are being discussed. Present in order, having the group for Arrivals start off.

If time permits, end the class by showing students this drone footage of Auschwitz 70 years after it was liberated.

Begin by asking students if they have ever heard of Auschwitz. Then ask if they have heard about Dachau. Do they know what they were? What was the difference between the two? You may find it helpful to pull up these maps of Dachau and Auschwitz by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Read through the resource, The Nazi Camp System: Terminology by USHMM with the class. Start at the top of the page with the overview and the three Key Facts before moving on.

After you go through the reading, ask students what is the importance is of using the correct terminology when talking about the Nazi camp system?

Then divide the class into groups of three or five and direct them to the resource, Killing Centers: In Depth by USHMM. Have groups read through it amongst themselves. They can all read silently or they can switch off reading out loud to their group. Once they finish reading, have the groups discuss and record their answers to the Critical Thinking Questions located at the bottom of the page.

Go over the Critical Thinking Questions with the class, giving students an opportunity to ask questions and clear up any confusion.

Finally, ask students why they feel it is important to differentiate and use the appropriate terminology when discussing the Nazi camp system. It may be worth pointing out that the term ‘concentration camp’ is used by some people in the U.S. to describe the Japanese American camps established during World War II, although the term used by the U.S. government was ‘Internment Camps’.