Explain to students that as persecution for Jewish people in Nazi occupied territories worsened, more and more people were seeking refuge in other countries. Many countries, including the United States, had a long waiting list to obtain visas.

Pull up this checklist from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Americans and the Holocaust virtual exhibition. Examine one or two of the steps in greater detail.
Up until August 1939, no visas were required to enter Shanghai.

Read the following excerpt from a diary entry about entrance to Shanghai:

“We have to go to Shanghai. Terrible letters come from there. One runs again to see if our names are on the list to leave. Before, when one saw his name on the list, one was happy. Today…one cries.”
-Rose Shoshana Kahan diary entry, 1941

Ask students why they think people continued to seek refuge in Shanghai despite hearing such terrible things from there? What does that say about the desperation people had to leave Europe?

In partners or individually, have students read through this article by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum about Polish Jewish Refugees in the Shanghai Ghetto and answers the questions below.

1. What were conditions like for the refugees that ended up in Shanghai?
2. How did things change after the attack on Pearl Harbor?
3. How did the Jewish refugees maintain a sense or ordinary life?

Come together as a class to go over their answers.

Bring up the painting The Refugee by Felix Nussbaum from the Echoes & Reflections website. Ask your students the following questions: Who is the man? What does the globe represent?

Explain that the painting was created by an artist who was killed at Auschwitz. How does the artist express the plight of the refugee in this painting?

Direct students to the resource, Evian Conference by Echoes & Reflections. Read it through as a class or have students read it to themselves.
· What were some reasons countries gave for not wanting to take in refugees?

Break students out into groups of 3-5 to discuss the questions below.

1. Why do you think Franklin D. Roosevelt made it clear that no country would be forced to change its immigration quotas?
2. What do you think could have happened if at least one of the bigger powers (such as the United States or France) were to volunteer to help in a greater capacity?
3. The Evian Conference is seen as an utter failure by the international community to address the refugee problem in Europe. Considering what happened to the Jews, do you think the international community has a moral obligation to help refugees?
4. Should there be an international agency that requires countries to assist refugees?

If time permits, reconvene as a class and go over what the groups discussed.

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’.

Write down the word, “Deportation” on the board. Ask students what comes to mind when they think of it.
You might expect students to say things such as: separation, returning to their home country, people being sent away unwillingly.
Re-introduce the term scapegoat, noting that deportations are often the result of scapegoating.
→ scapegoat: a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.

Ask students if they have ever thought about why someone might get deported and what this might do to them and their family.

Show the class Part 1 (the first 3:34 minutes) of the Yad Vashem video, The Development of the ‘Final Solution’.
Then, ask the class whether they lean toward the perspective of the Intentionalists or the Functionalists and why.

Then, watch Bert Flemming’s testimony from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. The testimony is quite long, the part that will be used in this lesson is starting at 5:45 and ending at 9:33. Before playing the testimony, read through the overview featured at the top of the page to introduce Bert Flemming and provide some background information.

It may be beneficial for students to read the testimony as the video goes along. The transcript for this video can be found here and the portion of video you will watch begins on page 2 right after 1:06:01.

After you watch the video, take a few minutes to ask the students what they thought of Bert Flemming’s testimony. Allow the students to ask some questions, to provide comments about what they heard. If you are having some trouble getting the conversation started, try asking the following questions:

1. What do you think was going through Bert Flemming’s mind when he saw the men with bayonets on both sides?
2. Did it seem like either side, Germany or Poland, had a plan as for what to do with the Jews?
3. How did Bert Flemming help organize once they arrived in Zbasyn?

Finally, return to the question of the scapegoat.
Ask students why they thought Nazi Germany was trying to push the Jews into Poland. Then, dig a little deeper: what is the end game for the Nazis? Would mass expulsion ever really work to meet the interests of the Nazi party?

Finally, prompt them to consider in writing the following question:
Does scapegoating naturally lead to the worst possible outcomes for the targeted group in a given situation?

Lead a class discussion, asking students what they think of when they think of the word “home.” What does home mean to them?

Read the resource, Displaced Persons by Echoes & Reflections with the class, taking time to answer questions and clarify if necessary.

Take time to look at the statistics of Jewish DP’s in camps by 1946, pointing out that these were the majority of the survivors remaining in continental Europe from the population of about 10 million in 1933. Point out that many were forced to live in Displaced Person (DP) camps, often built within Nazi camp structures scattered across Europe.

Have students take 10-15 minutes to fill in their answers at the bottom of the resource they read  by Echoes & Reflections. Once they finish, return as a class to go over their answers.

Lastly, return to the question of home. Has their idea of what home means changed from the start of the lesson?

Ask students what the words “liberation” and “freedom” mean to them. Usually people give positive answers to these concepts. Briefly explain that even though personal freedom and liberty is, objectively, good, in cases where you gain liberty and freedom after a period of trauma, fear, and violence, it can be a very difficult thing to adjust to and everyone reacts differently to it.

Give a brief presentation of images of life after liberation taken from the Yad Vashem archives. Point out the faces and body language of image subjects. Explain that people’s experiences of liberation were very different, as allied forces reclaimed territory at different times. Because there were so many people with nowhere to go and no possessions to speak of, often they would live in DP camps which were created from the remnants of the concentration camps that some were liberated from.

Divide the class into groups of 4 – 6 students.

Give each group a selection of survivor testimony provided by Yad Vashem to read and discuss. If possible, allow students to have access to, or have the presentation of images remain projected as they go through the testimonies. In these groups, the students will create a list of questions, concerns, and feelings that survivors bring up in the testimonies to present to the class.

As the groups present, collect their answers to be used in continued discussion. Were there common themes in survivor feelings, concerns, and questions of the future?

Ask the students if any of them have ever read Diary of Anne Frank or Diary of a Wimpy Kid. What sort of things do people write in diaries?

Watch the 16 minute video, The Ghettos by Yad Vashem. Take about 5 minutes having students go around and give examples of what sort of challenges people faced. Then ask, how did people try to maintain a sense of dignity or humanity?

Ask students to reflect on what they just watched and discussed. How did hearing the testimonies and diary entries help paint a picture of what life was like in the ghettos? Provide 10 minutes for students to write and reflect.

If time permits, have students share their reflections.

Ask the students what kinds of problems they thought survivors might have faced when they were finally liberated. Lead a short discussion, based on previous knowledge of the war and the Holocaust, about the difficulties in rebuilding people’s lives.

Read the resource, Survivors and the Displaced Persons era by ‘The Holocaust Explained,’ The Wiener Holocaust Library with the class, including the accompanying images. You can stop reading at the section titled, ‘German-Jewish Communities Outside the Camps.’ Take time to answer questions to the best of your ability and clarify if necessary. Ask students to take notes on key facts that stood out to them about why survivors felt they could not return to their home countries, or the antisemitism they continued to encounter.

As a class, discuss the reasons why many people may have chosen not to move back to countries such as Poland or Hungary at the end of the war.

Lead a discussion with students about what the word “home,” “country,” or “citizenship” means to them, and how difficult it would be to have lost these things. Make sure to discuss how difficult it was to feel as if you could not go back to where you were before because you might be injured or worse, but how other countries did not want you, either.

Explain to the students that the aftermath of WWII and the liberation of people from concentration and death camps was the beginning of a difficult period of recovery for around 6 million refugees and displaced persons. Jewish refugees in particular faced much discrimination by authorities, and had a difficult time re-building their lives.

Split the class into 4 groups, assigning a section of Nate Leipciger’s post-liberation story to each group. Allow each group 15 minutes to read through their assigned text and list out events detailed, as well as specific things that stood out to them in the story, to be presented to the rest of the class.

Allow 5 minutes for each group to present each section of the story in chronological order, beginning with group 1 and ending with group 4.

Use the remaining 10 minutes to discuss with the class the reasons why Nate Leipciger and his father chose to rebuild their lives outside of Poland, as well as what aspects of the story stood out to them. If there is any time remaining, ask the students whether or not knowing the whole story made it difficult to understand what happened. Explain that often families were separated from each other at different points of the war, so that they may know one part of the story but be unaware of others. This made it very difficult to reunite with other members of the family who survived, or to figure out what happened to those who did not.