Communicate conclusions
Explore the stories from women rescuers during the Holocaust. Students will have the opportunity to learn the stories of courageous female upstanders and what they risked in order to save the lives of Jews.
This lesson is generously sponsored by Godfrey & Kahn.
During the Holocaust we can see numerous accounts of people going out of their way to rescue Jews from being harmed or deported.
Start by asking students, “What is an upstander?”
After students have had a chance to answer, you can provide them with the official definition. An Upstander is “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.”
Next, discuss the following quote by Samantha Power- “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
Direct students to the “Women of Valor” section from Yad Vashem. Show them where to find the women’s stories; take some time to click on one or two of the women’s stories to demonstrate how to find the information they will need.
Divide students into groups of three to five. Assign each group one of the heroines’ stories to look into. Ask students to prepare a presentation telling this person’s story. Presentations can be made with Prezi or PowerPoint, if your class does not have access to computers, presentations may be done with poster boards or large pieces of paper.
Once students have been assigned their group and heroine, provide them with the following questions to help structure their presentation.
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 a podcast episode from We Share the Same Sky presented by USC Shoah Foundation. Students will hear about the host’s experience visiting Sobibor extermination camp and her connection to the victims.
The Nazi death camps were a dehumanizing place where many lost their lives. Survivors have different stories from their experiences that they pass down to relatives.
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.
Collect the answers to the major questions to be used in later discussions about the Holocaust and historical testimonies.
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 process for and the outcomes of the Nuremberg Trials.
The Nuremberg Trials were the first international war crimes trials to take place. The extenuating circumstances and the volume of people being prosecuted meant that the international courts were in unfamiliar territory. Years would go by with thousands of cases in order to bring justice to the victims of Nazi terror.
Ask students if they have heard of the Nuremberg Trials. If so, what do they know about them?
Direct students to the resource, War Crimes Trials by Echoes & Reflections. If not all students have access to a computer, print copies of the resource for your students so they can fill in the Discussion Questions worksheet on the last page.
Read through the resource as a class before having the students answer the questions on their own.
Go over the questions as a class. Did everyone come up with the same answers?
Did anything stand out to them when they read through the charges against the perpetrators?
*Hint* The term “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1943-44 but the crime against genocide was not put into effect until 1948.
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.
Critically watch a film that promotes to a broad audience the sterilization and so-called mercy killing of non-Aryans by the Nazi regime.
To pursue what the Nazis considered a “pure race of Aryans”, the Third Reich used medical techniques to sterilize and kill those they deemed undesirable.
Review the concepts of euthanasia and propaganda and allude to the fact that mercy killings had to be sold to the public in order for there not to be widespread resistance. Before initiating conversation about the video, be sure to clarify relevant terms. Other concepts that are important here include Darwinism and heredity.
Watch the first 13 minutes of the video, The Killing Films of the Third Reich. Prepare to stop at various sections to discuss and contemplate the content.
Now, ask students to generate their own responses to the video. Ask them to write about:
Then, bring the discussion back to a large group and use student answers to have a large discussion/review sections of the video.
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 rise of Nazism in the early stages and see the road that allowed Adolf Hitler to climb the political ladder in Germany.
The rise of Nazism was aided by a depression that plagued Germany after the stock market crash of 1929, which left German citizens vulnerable to the rhetoric of a leader who promised to improve their lives.
Explain to students that Nazism became increasingly popular during the Great Depression and during a time of political crisis in Germany’s Weimar Republic. Ask your students to think critically about why they think this could be the case. What was it about the struggles of German life during this time that made the extremist views of the Nazis more appealing?
Print out the article by Facing History and Ourselves titled, Hitler in Power. Break people into small groups and have them read the page, underlining and making notes for each paragraph before moving on. After reading through, have students discuss the Connection Questions found at the bottom of the page.
After they go through the first resource, give them the resource, “Restoring” Germany’s Civil Service by Facing History and Ourselves. Let them do the same thing with this reading in their small groups. Have students go through the Connection Questions at the bottom of this page as well.
Devote approximately 15 minutes to each reading.
In an open discussion, ask students what they learned from going through the readings. What surprised them about the relationship between Adolf Hitler and President Paul von Hindenburg?
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.
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.
Complete an activity having students analyze photographs from the Holocaust with and without context; the photos are from the United States Holocaust Memorial site. Students see the actions of perpetrators, bystanders, and victims in these primary sources.
The Holocaust could not have been possible without the participation of many.
Read this quote by Holocaust historian, Raul Hilberg, from “Destruction of the European Jews” to the class. “In retrospect it may be possible to view the entire design as a mosaic of small pieces, each commonplace and lusterless by itself.” (Hilberg, 1885, P. 263)
Ask students, What could have happened if one of these “mosaic pieces” were to refuse an order?
This lesson has been simplified from a lesson created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (full lesson can be found here). Distribute this worksheet and the caption-less photographs to students in groups of three. Explain to them that they will first receive a photograph without any context and that they will be asked to answer the questions as best they can.
Provide each group with a photograph without a caption and a worksheet. There are seven different photographs, depending on the size of the class some groups may be examining the same picture.
Allow students some time to look over the picture and answer the questions in Section 1 of the worksheet. When everyone is finished, hand out the same photograph this time including the caption. After looking over the photograph and caption, ask students to answer the questions in Section 2 of the worksheet.
Have each of the groups share what they learned from their photographs. If possible, project the pictures on a large screen so the entire class can see the picture the group is describing.
How does looking at the pictures after receiving the context change how you feel about the photo?
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 devastation caused by World War I and its equally devastating aftermath. Enter Hitler, a fresh face with the charisma to work his way into a position of power; the perfect platform to spew his extreme views.
World War I was a devastating blow to Germany’s economy, politics, and ego. The result was a struggling society desperate for stability.
Tell students that they will be watching a video on the aftermath of World War I. Ask students why they think it is important to study World War I when setting the groundwork for Holocaust education.
Watch the video, Chapter 1: Aftermath of World War I and the Rise of Nazism, 1918-1933 by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
While the students watch, have them answer the following questions:
Go over the questions as a class, clearing up any points of confusion any of the students may have.
Open up a class discussion with the questions below using pre-writing or pair-and-share if appropriate for your students.
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 simulate the negotiations done during the Paris Peace Conference. This activity will help students to understand the challenge faced when negotiating terms after World War I.
The different players of the Paris Peace Conference all had their own agendas and ideas on repercussions.
Open up the lesson with this simple activity: Imagine you have to split one pizza among four people. One person is gluten free, one is a vegetarian, one is allergic to olives, and the other LOVES meat. How do you compromise? What kind of pizza can you order that everyone could agree to?
You may want to draw a pizza on the board and have students raise their hands with options for crust and toppings.
Explain to the class that they will be divided into three groups in order to simulate the negotiations for the Paris Peace Conference. This document will provide the three groups with the information they will need in order to speak on behalf of either France, Britain, or the United States.
Divide the class into three groups and assign them to be France, Britain, or the US. Ask the students to read the materials for their country to understand where they stand in the negotiations.
The worksheets that will be used below can be found on the Treaty of Versailles Simulation resource.
Provide students with the Options for Negotiation (page 4) so they are able to see what their options are during the negotiations.
It would be beneficial if you can arrange the classroom in a manner that would allow the three groups to converse openly during the negotiations, such as forming a giant circle with all chairs facing towards the center.
As the teacher you will be the one facilitating the negotiations. Using the Options for Negotiation (page 4), ask the first question to the class as a point for negotiation. You may not have time to go over every question so read them through and pick out which ones you find the most suited for your class. Provide students with the Negotiation Worksheet (page 5) to record the terms of agreement they were able to come up with.
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.