Sarah Brady | December 19, 2017
On January 27th the world commemorates the Holocaust. It’s a relatively new day of international remembrance – the UN designated it in 2005 – and it falls on the date of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945.
It’s also a learning opportunity. Through teaching about the Holocaust, educators can help students examine questions of morality, democracy, human rights, prejudice and racism, diversity, power and genocide.
Though the Holocaust is one of the most well-known examples of genocide, don’t assume that students have factual information. A global study from the Anti-Defamation League revealed that only 54 percent of people have heard of the Holocaust, and many respondents thought the death count was exaggerated or that death camps weren’t real. Students also have heard persistent Holocaust myths, like that all Germans were perpetrators or that Jews didn’t resist in any way. And as the years go on and the Holocaust becomes deeper rooted in history, educators will need to make the lessons from the Holocaust even more salient in order to fight revisionism and denial.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum lays out three things to consider when teaching the Holocaust:
- Why should students learn about the Holocaust?
- What are the most significant lessons gleaned from the Holocaust?
- And what are appropriate readings, images and films to convey these lessons?
Consider these questions before taking a look at some of the available resources:
- The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has tips for teaching about the Holocaust – including the valuable advice to “translate statistics into people” to help students understand the human impact of the Holocaust – as well as lessons and curricular resources
- Facing History has a searchable (by topic, subject or resource type) database of resources, which includes video testimony from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive to help students align peoples’ personal experiences with history
- More testimonies, like the Behind Every Name a Story web project and First Person, expand on the different experiences of the Holocaust
- The New York Times has compiled a list of lesson plans and resources for teaching and learning about the Holocaust
- Scholastic also has a collection of resources for teaching the Holocaust, divided by grade level
- Centropa has a searchable (by author, country, film, grade or subject) database of teaching materials dedicated to learning more about Jewish history and the Holocaust , as well as a searchable film database
- The NC Council on the Holocaust provides teacher workshops, traveling exhibits and plays and educational resources (their free workshops in 2018 serve Wayne County/Goldsboro, Iredell County/Statesville, Onslow County/Jacksonville and Northampton County/Jackson)
Locally:
World View was lucky to have two Holocaust survivors, Shelly Weiner and Raya Kizhnerman, come to our K-12 symposium in October and speak about their experiences. They live in Greensboro and often give educational talks. They will also be speaking at the 2018 State of North Carolina Holocaust Commemoration on April 8, 2018 at Meredith College in Raleigh. If you aren’t able to attend or have them visit your school, Centropa created a documentary about their lives (with an accompanying study guide and film script).
The Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Education of North Carolina Holocaust Speakers Bureau is holding a poster competition about “DEFIANCE: Unarmed Resistance During the Holocaust” that is open to all NC middle and high school students. The deadline is January 15, 2018. Read more about the contest here. The Speakers Bureau also has vetted speakers who travel to schools and present on topics related to the Holocaust. You can find out more and read speaker biographies here.
The Durham–Chapel Hill Jewish Community Foundation is holding a Holocaust Remembrance Essay Contest on “Understanding the Holocaust: Why Is it Relevant Today?” for local high school students. The deadline is February 1, 2018. Read more about the contest here.
The Carolina Center for Jewish Studies is holding a Holocaust Remembrance Day lecture. Find out more here.
The yearly Martin and Doris Rosen Summer Symposium will be held July 21-26, 2018 on Appalachian State’s campus. It’s geared toward educators, students and community members, includes workshops, discussions, lectures, testimony and credits for teachers. It is free and open to the public. The Symposium is part of the ASU Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies, which seeks to strengthen tolerance, understanding and remembrance by increasing the knowledge of Jewish culture and history and teaching the meaning of the Holocaust.