Perspective
Students will analyze the different types of Holocaust memorials that can be found around the world. Open up into a discussion about what purpose memorials serve, and what they signify. Allow students to create their own memorial.
Memorials and monuments commemorating the Holocaust have taken on different forms, all begging to answer the questions: “How should we remember?” and “What impact of memorials have on the way we think about history?”
Ask students, what is commemoration? Then ask, what purpose do monuments and memorials serve?
As a class, read through the Visual Essay: Holocaust Memorials and Monuments by Facing History and Ourselves and look through the pictures of the memorials featured.
After you go through the reading, go over the Connection Questions found at the bottom of the page. You may choose to do these as a class or have the students discuss them in small groups of three to five people.
Distribute the Creating a Memorial worksheet to each of your students. As this last activity asks students to reflect in depth, you may consider giving students the opportunity to work on their memorial at home. You may also want to give students the option to create their memorials in pairs, allowing them an opportunity to share ideas and concepts. Some teachers will ask students to create a physical model of the memorial they have conceptualized. If able, provide materials such as construction paper, clay, or paint to work on their memorials.
Collect memorials created by your class as a class project. These memorials can then be used as examples when carrying out this lesson for future classes. If doing physical models, you may consider taking a photo of the model to collect instead of holding onto the physical ones.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Explore the creation of the Nuremberg Race Laws and what the significance of their implementation into society meant for the future of Jews in Germany.
The Nuremberg Race Laws aimed to define race and provide the framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany.
Explain to students that the Nuremberg Laws were the first official step in systematic persecution of Jews in Germany. Creating this definition was not an easy task, it took years for German officials to agree on what being Jewish meant. This initial step in identifying and separating Jews from society was essential to carry out the persecution that followed.
Take the students through the resource, Nuremberg Race Laws by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. With a partner, ask the students to go through the resource and take notes using the 3Ps method, jotting down what they find a) Profound b) Puzzling and c) Propelling.
In order to familiarize yourself, and your class with this model, please look over this guide: 3Ps: A Critical Reading Guide.
Have the pairs partner up with another group to form groups of four. As they gather in these groups, provide them with the following instructions:
Give students 20 minutes to complete these tasks and use the last 10 minutes to hear what the groups came up with for their questions.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Watch a short video with testimony about the reality of liberation and life after the war in Displaced Person (DP) camps. Students will engage with the content by exploring a variety of questions about the post-war situation for Holocaust victims.
The period immediately following the war was often one of the most difficult for Jewish survivors.
Explain to the students that the end of the war left millions of people homeless; that liberation was difficult for many survivors because of the mental and physical problems that they had to overcome.
Lead a short discussion asking the students what they think Holocaust survivors felt, and some of the problems that they had when they learned the war was over. Take time to list individual answers.
Watch this short video by Yad Vashem with the class, with a short pause between each survivor. Ask students to list different problems and feelings that survivors discuss in their testimonies.
Lead another short discussion, asking the students if there were any problems that survivors faced that they had not thought about before, writing the answers on the board. Ask the students if there is any story/feeling in particular that stuck out to them in these survivor stories.
Discuss the following questions as a class:
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Examine the acts of resistance that occurred at the killing centers and consider how the ‘success’ and ‘failure’ of these efforts is graded on a different scale.
Even in settings engineered to create docile victims, Jewish prisoners found the strength to fight back.
Ask students how they define resistance. What does resistance look like and what form does it take?
Ask them also if they would expect there to be much resistance in killing centers. Why or why not?
Finally, set the stage for their learning: is revolt meaningful even when it is crushed by the oppressor?
Read together the page on Resistance from the BBC which gives a brief overview of acts of rebellion against the Nazis that occurred within killing centers.
Attempt to clarify any questions that emerge from the reading before splitting the class into groups. Know that group work will also fill in many details.
Each group will be assigned one of the pop-out links which gives more context and introduces primary sources about specific stories of resistance.
Assign the following pop-out links first, reserving the other links for exceptionally large classes:
‘secret meetings’
‘resistance outside’
‘saved others’
‘defiance’
‘uprising’
‘saved others’
‘terrible consequences’
Once divided into groups, give each group the task of examining their particular word. It will be their job to report to the group what is meant by the term and summarize the example that is provided. Ask that students not only prepare to speak for 2-3 minutes on their term, but also identify points they would like to investigate more deeply.
The goal for the class is to understand the particularities or nuances to this brief summary.
Read the summary again, prompting the group assigned to the word to fill in details about what they learned from their own investigation.
At the end, ask each group to identify what more they would like to know, given the research they did for today’s exercise.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Watch a video detailing the steps taken to isolate Jews from German life. Open up into a conversation about the precursors the world should be on the lookout for when seeing human rights violations taking place around the globe.
Isolation and dehumanization, when not countered, allows for increasingly harsh treatments and injustices to take place.
Ask students, what is segregation? Have them come up with some examples of ways in which people can be segregated from one another. Open the class into a brief conversation about segregation by asking the questions below.
Pull up the video, From Citizens to Outcasts, by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Introduce the video by reading through the context that can be found directly above the Discussion Question. Provide students with the question below prior to starting the video. While they watch, have students take notes to answer it.
How did Nazi Germany gradually isolate, segregate, impoverish, and incarcerate Jews and persecute other perceived enemies of the state between 1933 and 1939?
Reiterate to students that Nazi Germany took great measurers in order to dehumanize the Jews. Propaganda made them out to be enemies of the state. These tactics made many non-Jewish Germans take little notice or regard for the mistreatment and grave injustice that would continue against the Jews.
Divide the class into groups of five. Provide the groups with the instructions below. Give students the opportunity and time to research if necessary.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Students will analyze a famous poem and anthem from the resistance movement. Engage your class in a discussion on anthems as a method to encourage bravery and resistance.
Poetry and anthems during the Holocaust, as well as in today’s society, work wonders in gaining traction behind a movement.
Begin by asking students, what is an anthem? What anthems do you know? Do they all encourage resistance?
Before you begin the lesson, provide some historical context about the author of the poem by reading the passage below to the class. This context, as well as other points from this lesson plan have been taken by elirab.me/study. The full version of this lesson plan can be found here.
Hirsch Glik was born in Wilno (now Vilnius) in 1922. He began to write poetry in Yiddish in his teens and was a co-founder of Yungwald (Young Forest), a group of young Jewish poets. Glik entered the Vilna ghetto after the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union. He was a participant in both the ghetto’s artistic community and the underground movement and took part in the 1942 ghetto uprising. Glik wrote the poem you will be reading right after this in early 1943. He was able to flee when the ghetto was being liquidated in October 1943 but was recaptured. He escaped once more in July 1944 and was never heard from again. It is presumed that he was captured once again and executed by the Nazis in August 1944.
Divide the class into groups of three or four. Give each member of the group a copy of the Partisan Poem. When giving them the poem, provide them the instructions below. Allow approximately 15 minutes for this initial discussion.
Take a few minutes for groups to share their responses.
After the students have had some time to go over the poem, tell them that the poem (albeit not the exact wording) was also used as a song, or anthem amongst the resistance. The song, Zog Nit Keynmol, translating as “Never Say” and, to this day considered the anthem of Holocaust survivors.
Listen to the song as a class. Watch the video from beginning till 2:38 (when the English ends) unless you would also like to have the class listen in its original form, Yiddish.
Have the groups discuss the questions below after listening. Allow an additional 5-10 minutes for this section.
Come back together as a class. Open up a class discussion with the questions below:
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Listen to testimonies from survivors about their time spent in a ghetto. Students will learn the history of the term “ghetto” and think critically about the implications the history has on their understanding of the term today.
Ghettoization was both physically and mentally difficult. The harsh conditions caused many to lose their lives.
Write the word “ghetto” on the board. Have students share what they know about the word and record their responses. Follow this discussion by sharing the history of the word.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia states that the term “ghetto” originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, Italy. In 1516, Venetian authorities compelled the city’s Jews to live in this quarter. Following Italy’s example, local authorities and even the Austrian emperor ordered the creation of Jewish ghettos in Frankfurt, Rome, Prague, and other cities.
This lesson is adapted from The Ghettos by Echoes & Reflections, the full unit can be found here.
Play the video testimonies for Joseph Morton and Ellis Lewin. While they watch, encourage your students to listen for specific examples of how ghettos during the Holocaust differ from their understanding of what is referred to as a “ghetto” today. It could be beneficial to take students to the resource, Life in the Ghettos by USHMM and scroll through the photos and watch a few of the brief videos.
Open up into a class discussion with the questions below:
Lastly, divide the class into groups of three to five to discuss the following questions:
If time permits, open into a class discussion.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Students will learn the history of anti-Judaism and its relevance when studying the Holocaust. Open up into a discussion about prejudices in history and how rumors and hatred get carried through generations.
Stereotypes and misinformation of the Jewish people has persisted and changed through the years, with much of it still visible in present day.
Ask students how they define religion. Then, how might they define ‘religious differences’?
Furthermore, can they consider how religious differences have been handled throughout history? Is this a peaceful history or a bloody one?
Divide the class into a maximum of six groups. Have each group elect one person as their recorder. Note that everyone else must read and all members should contribute to the answers.
Direct student to the resource, Anti-Judaism before the Enlightenment by Facing History and Ourselves. Ask students to read through the resource and go over the Connection Questions found at the bottom of the page in their small group. Have groups write down their answers. Give 25 minutes for this exercise.
Come back together as a class and go over the answers to the connection questions. Ask each group to answer one question, selecting them randomly. Tell students they should be adding to their answers with thoughts discussed by the class and answers from other groups.
If time permits, ask students the questions below in an open discussion.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Watch part of a lecture by Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, the world’s foremost scholar on Holocaust Denial, who explains the absurd proposition of denying the Holocaust.
Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Prompt your students with the following questions to respond to with a short discussion or writing exercise: Have you heard of someone who does not believe that the Holocaust happened? What would you say to a Holocaust denier if you met one today?
The following video might give every student a few more things to say if ever they hear denial again.
Preview the video by noting that it moves quickly and lots of information is provided. Ask your students to take notes about the things they feel are most important. Then, watch Holocaust Denial, Explained from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
After the video concludes, ask the group to share what they thought were the most important points within the video. Using a collective workspace, make notes of these points for everyone’s benefit. Ask the student who shares each point why they felt it was important. Ask the students if they have any questions about the video. Note those in the collective workspace as well.
Watch the video again, prompting students before you begin to keep these points and questions in mind as they search for more pertinent information.
After viewing the video a second time, ask your students to write a response to a Holocaust denier. What arguments would they use? What would be the main message they would want to convey to someone who refuses to accept the facts of history?
Give them 10 minutes to begin crafting a letter before asking them to share their thoughts with the class.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Examine opinion polls throughout the era of war and investigate key figures in American politics who helped shape the landscape of public opinion and action in this time period.
Public opinion is shaped by multiple factors and does not guarantee that action will be taken on behalf of that opinion.
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:
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:
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.