The Holocaust

The works of art in this collection offer a useful resource for Holocaust education, especially when combined with the accompanying biographical and historical material.

How do educators use a variety of forms of representation to teach the complexities of genocide? What were the experiences of student-participants and participant-educators engaged in this curriculum? What types of meaning can be gleaned about genocide education by employing a variety of forms of representation? What meanings can students demonstrate about genocide by using a variety of forms of representation?

Liz Elsby discusses various approaches to utilizing Holocaust art in teaching the Holocaust to your students.

These lesson plans explore how propaganda and hate speech were used by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Lessons encourage critical thinking about the effects of propaganda on people and society.

Despite the long history and enormity of the subject, the number of courses on comparative genocide remains small. It is our belief that educating about genocide not only enhances causal explanation and understanding but will help to create individuals I societies committed to detect and prevent future genocidal atrocities.

This lesson from Facing History and Ourselves allows students to learn about the transformation of Germany into a dictatorship in 1933–1934 and draw conclusions, based on this history, about the values and institutions that might serve as a bulwark against dictatorship and make democracy possible.

Our Lesson Plans provide a unique experience for educators to teach about the Holocaust effectively and interactively. Lessons are organized by topics that represent major themes associated with the Holocaust in an order that is roughly chronological; the modular design of the Lessons allows for adaption and customization to specific grade levels and subject areas.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum educators and historians created these lesson plans for use in secondary classrooms.

This Resource Page provides information to help educators enhance their instruction with this difficult but necessary subject. Resources for instruction include our archival materials.

How do educators use a variety of forms of representation to teach the complexities of genocide? What were the experiences of student-participants and participant-educators engaged in this curriculum? What types of meaning can be gleaned about genocide education by employing a variety of forms of representation? What meanings can students demonstrate about genocide by using a variety of forms of representation?

Lesson Plans

This article, written by Norman Solkoff and William Allen, outlines an interdisciplinary university course, which dealt with the Nazi treatment of Jews during World War II. The course examines psychological and socio-historical principles which could result in mass murder.

The series comprises 7 volumes that will document approximately 6,000 sites in narrative format. Each volume provides foundational information on a particular subset of camps organized according to type, subordination, or distinct inmate population. Entries also describe the camps' evolution and their links to other sites to illuminate the persecutory system as a whole. Photographs, charts, and maps supplement the text. A forthcoming database will contain data about an estimated additional 38,000 forced labor camps.

The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect provides information and educational materials about Anne Frank, the history of the Holocaust, and discrimination today. This section includes downloadable material, teacher’s material and required reading.

Inflammatory hate speech catalyzes mass killings including genocide, according to scholars, survivors and, notably, some former perpetrators. By teaching people to view other human beings as less than human, and as mortal threats, thought leaders can make atrocities seem acceptable – and even necessary, as a form of collective self defense.

This paper draws together the authors’ independent past work on dangerous speech and the ideological dynamics of mass atrocities by offering a new integrated model to help identify the sorts of speech and ideology that raise the risk of atrocities and genocides

This part of the exhibit explores the theme of mass media, in particular, print, radio and film.Because media is so diverse, it is impossible to generalize its impact, its role or its intent. However, the people behind the media (journalists, publishers and editors, photographers, documentary filmmakers, etc.) always interact with power.

This unit consists of 23 lessons and an assessment designed to lead middle or high school students through an examination of the catastrophic period in the twentieth century when Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews and millions of other civilians, in the midst of the most destructive war in human history.

Political leaders in Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and other pre-genocidal societies prepared civilian populations to condone genocide, by using certain techniques to make mass killing seem first acceptable, and then necessary. This article describes those techniques, and includes them in a new six-prong model for incitement to genocide.