Explain to your students that while the Nazi party only resided in Germany, Nazi ideology and practices sprouted in areas within the United States. The German-American Bund was a pro-Nazi organization for Americans of German descent. The Bund’s leader, Fritz Kuhn, tried to portray himself as the “American fuhrer,” although the organization never received support from the Nazi party.

Explain to your students that the German-American Bund was present in multiple states. The largest Bund rally was held in 1939 at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Play this 7-minute film, A Night at the Garden by filmmaker Marshall Curry. Warn students that the video contains hateful speech and that some of the clip may be difficult to watch.

While they watch, ask students to take notes on what they see. When the film is over, take 5 minutes for students to share what they wrote down.

Use the remaining time to open a discussion with the questions below:

1. What did you notice about the blend of American and German values?
2. What did you think about the way in which the leader, Fritz Kuhn, spoke to the crowd?
3. Why do you think the man at the end rushed the stage? What were the reactions from those on the stage and in the crowd?

Ask students what it means to be a perpetrator, to perpetuate a crime. Ask them who the perpetrators of the Holocaust were. Explain that today you are focusing on how seemingly small decisions contributed to the perpetration of the Holocaust, even if that was not the person’s intent.

Listen to the audio file, “Do You Take the Oath?” by Facing History and Ourselves.

Think-Pair-Share.

Think: Have students spend a few minutes writing down their response to this question: Why did the man in the recording sign the oath? (3 minutes)

Pair: Have students talk to the person next to them about their answers. Do they think the man should have made a different choice? Why was it hard to make a different choice?

Share: Use this exercise to engage in a discussion about Holocaust perpetrators. Was the man a perpetrator? How does he seem different from the Nazis seen in the movies? In the final wrap up to the lesson, the teacher should highlight that the Holocaust required the consent and participation of many different people, including business people, doctors, nurses, architects, pastors, teachers, store owners, and laborers. Some of these people participated because they agreed with Nazism but other people acted with self-interest and ended up strengthening Nazism.

Distribute the Range of Human Behavior Vocabulary Terms worksheet by Facing History and Ourselves. Go over the actual meaning for each of the terms with the class. Tell students to keep these worksheets as they could be useful in later lessons/discussions about perpetrators, victims, and upstanders.

Perpetrator: a person who carries out a harmful, illegal, or immoral act.
Victim: a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.
Bystander: a person who is present at an event or incident but does not take part.
Upstander: a person who speaks or acts in support of an individual or cause, particularly someone who intervenes on behalf of a person being attacked or bullied.

Direct students to the resource, No Time to Think by Facing History and Ourselves. There is an audio version of the testimony that you can play if you would like to have your students listen as they follow the written testimony. Alternatively, you can just read it without listening to the audio.

Before breaking students off in groups to complete the Output section, click on the identity chart link from the second question at the bottom of the page and show the students what it is supposed to look like.

In groups of three to five, have students go over the Connection Questions found at the bottom of the page. If time permits, open up into a group discussion going over some (or all) of the questions. Have groups share their identity chart.

Explain to the students that they will listen to a podcast hosted by the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. The host, Rachel, tells bits of her grandmother’s story in each episode. This episode is about Rachel’s trip to Sobibor- visiting the extermination camp her family was sent to in 1942.

Warn students that the content can be unsettling.

Play the podcast episode Chapter IV: The End of The World by We Share the Same Sky. Explain to students that this podcast is hosted by the grandaughter of a Holocaust survivor. The host, Rachel, researches and retraces her family history in order to tell their story.

While they listen, ask students to write down something they found powerful.

Divide students into small groups of two or three to discuss the questions below. Come back together as a class and ask the students to share what their groups discussed.

1. Rachel describes her trip to Sobibor as a journey “to the end of the world” and she wonders what the trees would say if they could talk. In your own mind’s eye, what would the trees tell us?
2. Hana describes life during the Holocaust to “slowly being peeled off like an onion.” She says, “You are being conditioned to worse and worse situations…and to live a subhuman life…And when you are looked at like subhumans, no one has trouble killing you.” How were layers of humanity slowly peeled away from Jews and other victims during this time?
3. What is dehumanization and why is it dangerous?
4. The Nazis believed Jews and others- homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the mentally ill, Roma- were subhuman. How did this portrayal of these groups of people impact the victims, soldiers, and ordinary citizens?
5. Rachel describes the podcast as a ‘story of memory.’ In this episode, the details of her family’s deaths are only known from stories passed on from one person to another and may not be historically accurate. However, this is how many families, during and after the Holocaust, learned what happened to their loved ones. In what ways does this affect how we listen and understand survivor testimony? What do you take a “story of memory” to mean, as compared to what you might expect to find in a historic record?

Collect the answers to the major questions to be used in later discussions about the Holocaust and historical testimonies.