Using a think-pair-share discussion, students reflect on the following two questions:

• How are individuals with disabilities viewed and treated by society?
• How does a society’s treatment of people with disabilities reflect the society’s culture, values, and ideology?

Share the following information with students:

Franz Karl Bühler, who was a well-known German artist at the turn of the twentieth century was diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized by the 1920s. He continued to produce art, which was criticized by the Nazis and included in the degenerate art exhibition, as the Nazis tried to show supposed links between modern art and mental illness.

The Nazi T4 program was the systematic murder of institutionalized patients with disabilities in Germany. It started in 1939. The program was one of many radical eugenic measures that aimed to restore the racial “integrity” of the German nation. It aimed to eliminate what eugenicists and their supporters considered “life unworthy of life”: those individuals who—they believed—because of severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical disabilities represented both a genetic and a financial burden on German society and the state. Among those murdered under the T4 Program was Franz Karl Bühler.

Display Self-Portrait by Franz Karl Bühler (pronounced Bueller) from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Display the art piece while your students read through the text individually or in small groups. Encourage students to click through the hyperlinked text to learn more about the “Degenerate Art” exhibition and the T4 program.

As students look through the articles, have them respond to the following questions:

1. What was the Degenerate Art exhibition? What purpose did it serve?
2. What was the T4 Program? How did it feed into Nazi ideology?
3. What happened to Franz Karl Bühler? What is the significance of having his self portrait for review?

In a whole class discussion, students discuss the relationship between culture and ideology, returning to the opening questions:

1. How did Nazi ideology influence policies and practices around the idea of dis/ability in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s?
2. How are individuals with disabilities viewed and treated by society?
3. How does a society’s treatment of people with disabilities reflect the society’s culture, values, and ideology?

Give the students a brief overview of the lead-up to the Wannsee Conference, including a short history of the development of internment camps and ghettos. Explain that the Holocaust was a gradual process of violence and oppression; the end result of a series of events throughout the 1930s and WWII, and implemented by various groups throughout the Nazi sphere. There was no direct order signed by Adolf Hitler from the beginning. Many different people were in charge of its organization. The Wannsee Conference served to iron out details of mass extermination of the Jewish people. Despite everyone knowing what was happening, there was never a direct order for murder.

Watch the first 30 minutes of the 1984 German film Die Wannseekonferenz, available with subtitles. (Suggested stop time 31:22). Ask students to take note of details that may have surprised them, as well as key words or phrases, such as “final solution” and “Jewish question.” Stop the video at the following intervals and talk about the topics underneath, or take this time to answer any questions your students may have.

Pause movie at 10:06

• Attitude in the way people discuss these very serious topics.
• Confusion over racial versus religious definition of Jew.
• What problem did they have with the train in Riga? What was the concern?

Pause movie at 19:15

• Discuss this quote: “Shared knowledge means shared responsibility. Shared responsibility means shared liability” 13:16
• What are your thoughts about the conversation had about feeling sick at the sight of the executions and him saying, “It proves we Germans are human.”?
• What does he mean when he says, “If X, then Y”?

Lead the class in a discussion about what details may have surprised or stood out to them about the depiction of the Wannsee Conference – for example, how people casually discussed mass murder interspersed with laughter and socializing; the scene where we see one SS official paying fetch with a dog while his colleague complains that his “top secret” documents about Jewish mass killings are being circulated amongst everyone.

Ask the students how extensive they believe the planning and execution of the Holocaust may have been – i.e, what kind of organization and resources they believe Nazi authorities used to make the Holocaust a reality.

Walk the students through the resource, Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Have each student take notes on the different examples of government departments they may or may not have expected to have attended the meeting, the goals of the attendees, as well as euphemisms (words used as a less problematic substitute for terms such as “evacuation to the east” instead of “extermination”, etc), aspects or details that were discussed within the meeting that they may or may not have expected to come up.

Lead the class in a discussion about the different actors at play during the Wannsee conference. Depending on how much time you have for this discussion, answer some (or all) of the questions below.

1. Which participants may have surprised them and why?
2. What was the range of occupations and professions required to implement the Holocaust?
3. What does it say about how broadly participation in the genocide must have been, not only by the government but also by those working for different departments and the military?
4. Did the planned size and location of the Holocaust, such as inclusion of Irish or UK Jews within their planned genocide, surprise them?
5. Did they expect that things such as distinctions for decorated WWI soldiers or Jews of “mixed descent” to come up?
6. What kind of subtle language did Heydrich use to hide their plans, and why?
7. What are some outcomes that we can see from this conference taking place, such as the implementation of Zyklon B gassing as the primary method of murdering people during the Holocaust?

Give a short background of events leading up to the Wannsee conference. Make sure to mention that mass killing of European Jews had already begun, but it was not as widespread or organized. Give a list of the different people attending the conference, found here, as well as their jobs, to show the variety of different governmental agencies who were brought together to cooperate in genocide.

Divide the class into groups of 4 or 5. Provide each group with a copy of the Wannsee conference minutes. Give the groups 15 minutes to read through the minutes and ask them to highlight words or phrases used in relation to the fate of Jewish populations (i.e. “evacuation to the East”). If students are unsure, a good example would be the phrase “Jewish question” itself as it is not readily apparent that the “Jewish question” means “How do we get rid of European Jews?”

Lead the class in a discussion following the words and phrases that students highlighted. Explain these terms and phrases, and what they really meant (i.e. “evacuation to the East” meaning “being sent to a concentration or death camp”). Make sure to point out phrases that may have been overlooked.

Finish the discussion with an overview of what we can learn from this document, including relevant questions; this document shows that numerous government authorities were in cooperation in an effort to carry out this genocide:

1. Did any of the participants surprise or confuse the students? If so, why or why not?
2. How does this document show that Nazi leadership felt the necessity to tread carefully?
3. What does this mean? For example, could this indicate that the leadership knew what they were doing would be met with criticism? Criticism from whom? The German population, international groups? Both?
4. Point out the succinct, unemotional nature of the discussion and how it directly contrasts with the subject matter. Does it strike you as odd that someone could so emotionlessly discuss the genocide of an entire group of people?
5. What does this say about how Nazis felt about Jewish people?

Begin by telling students that between 1941 and 1943 underground resistance movements began popping up in over 100 ghettos in Nazi-occupied countries. Triggered by the deportations and liquidation of the ghettos, many of these resistance groups staged uprisings in order to fight the Nazis or escape.

Ask students if they can list any ghetto uprisings that they have heard of before. Then explain that you will be taking a closer look at the uprising from the Warsaw ghetto.

Direct students to the resource, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Play the animated map video for the class before diving into the reading. Divide the class into groups of three or four and provide them with the instructions below.

1. Go through the reading with your group. You may switch off reading sections, designate one person to read through, or all read over it silently.
2. As a group, take notes using the 3Ps method, writing down something you find a) Profound b) Puzzling and c) Propelling.
3. Go over the list of critical thinking questions and write down your answers.
   1. What pressures and motivations influenced some of the ghetto residents to join the resistance and fight back?
   2. What factors and conditions might delay a persecuted group from resisting?
   3. What risks might a group or individual face when resisting the actions of government or society?

In order to familiarize yourself, and your class with this model, please look over this guide: 3Ps: A Critical Reading Guide.

Come back together as a class and ask the groups to share what they had written down. Begin by asking groups to share what they found puzzling about the reading, is there anything that still needs to be cleared up?

Ask students to think of  forms of resistance they have participated in or have seen or heard others do. Can they come up with any examples or instances where people took part in resisting, either violently or non-violently?

Ask students how they define the term citizenship.
Then, ask them how they would define the term refugee. What is the difference between someone who is a citizen, and someone who is a refugee? Is the distinction meaningful in terms of their status as a human being? If not, why are they treated so differently?

Read through the resource, The Expulsion of Polish Jews From Germany by holocaust.cz as a class. Ask students to write down any questions they have about the text.

Divide the class into groups of three and provide them with the following instructions:

1. Go through all members’ questions about the text and help one another understand the document.
2. Address the discussion questions below. Have group members take notes on their responses.
3. Lastly, come up with an additional question that comes out of your reflections. This question should attempt to generate conversation between you and your classmates.

Discussion Questions:

1. What was the significance of what Herschel did?
2. Germany first tried to expel the Jews from Germany. A devastating amount of countries closed their borders to Jewish refugees, forcing them to fall victim to Nazi Germany’s next move: The Final Solution. Do you think the Holocaust could have been avoided if countries opened their borders to allow for Jewish refuge?
3. Should nations have an obligation to take in refugees fleeing violence?
4. What message did closing their borders send to the Jews?
5. Does the refugee crisis the Jews faced make you think of connections that resonate in today’s world?