Click Image. Methodological Considerations Do not teach or imply that the Holocaust was inevitable The Holocaust took place because individuals, groups,

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Methodological Considerations

Do not teach or imply that the Holocaust was inevitable

The Holocaust took place because individuals, groups, and nations made decisions to act or not to act. Focusing on those decisions leads to insights into history and human nature and can better help your students to become critical thinkers.

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Pretend that you are selected to be a judge in the Nuremberg Trials. Using your knowledge of the UN

Declaration of Human Rights and The Genocide Treaty as well as The Pyramid of Hate work as a group to assess the responsibility of particular perpetrators for what happened

during the Holocaust. Categorize their actions as:

*Determine what type of punishment would be appropriate for each category

Avoid simple answers to complex questions

The history of the Holocaust raises difficult questions about human behavior and the context within which individual decisions are made. Be wary of oversimplification. Seek instead to nuance the story. Allow students to think about the many factors and events that contributed to the Holocaust and often made decision-making difficult and uncertain.

Fred WestfieldClick Image

Strive for precision of language

Any study of the Holocaust touches upon nuances of human behavior. Because of the complexity of the history, there is a temptation to generalize and, thus, to distort the facts (e.g., "all concentration camps were killing centers" or "all Germans were collaborators"). Rather, you must strive to help your students clarify the information presented and encourage them to distinguish, for example, the differences between prejudice and discrimination, collaborators and bystanders, armed and spiritual resistance, direct orders and assumed orders, concentration camps and killing centers, and guilt and responsibility. Try to avoid stereotypical descriptions. Though all Jews were targeted for destruction by the Nazis, the experiences of all Jews were not the same.

Mira Rycske KimmelmanClick Image

“Every ghetto and community that experienced the horrors of the Holocaust had its historians, every death camp its chroniclers. Young and old, learned and unlearned, everybody kept a diary, wrote journals, and composed poems and prayers. They wanted to remember and to be remembered. They wanted to defeat the enemy's conspiracy of silence, to communicate a spark of the fire that nearly consumed their generation and, above all, to serve as warning to future generations.”

Elie Wiesel

Discussion Guide Activities

Wallace Carden

Eric Rosenfeld

Leonard Chill

Erica Sigel

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Eric Rosenfeld

Herr UhrigMayor of Seeheim

Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your study of the Holocaust

Most students express empathy for victims of mass murder. However, it is not uncommon for students to assume that the victims may have done something to justify the actions against them and, thus, to place inappropriate blame on the victims themselves.

Contextualize the history

Group portrait of six young Jewish women who are sunbathing in the Warsaw ghetto on the day they finished their high school matriculation exams. July 1942 This image demonstrates the will to continue with life even under extreme circumstances.

Timeline Exercise

Using your timeline sheet locate the following pieces of information:

•What happened to Art in 1940?

•What was going on historically in 1940? •Do you think the historical event impacted Art’s life?

Timeline ExerciseSelect one of the three photographs below, which one best fits next to this date on the timeline?

The Nuremberg Laws Established-“You have no right to live among us as Jews.”

Kovno Ghetto Established Aug. 15, 1941

Auschwitz concentration camp established

The Soviet Union occupies Lithuania on June 15, 1940Germany Attacks Soviet union on June 22, 1941

Kovno Ghetto Established

The Soviet Union occupies Lithuania on June 15, 1940

Timeline Activity – Date: 1940

Historical Event(s):Lodz Ghetto established.Germany invades Holland, Belgium, France.Auschwitz concentration camp established.Warsaw Ghetto established.

1942Jewish underground organizations established in Vilna and Kovno Ghettos. Fighting organizations established in Warsaw Ghetto.

Art’s Event(s):Pushed into the Kovno ghetto after his town was destroyed, Arthur remembered, “German soldiers came in during a workday and took all the children and older people and shot them.“ Those who remained were loaded into boxcars.

Photo of Event(s):

Translate statistics into people

Tennessee Survivors and Witnesses

Dear Teacher,

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness:

Gas chambers built by LEARNED engineers Children poisoned by EDUCATED physiciansInfants killed by TRAINED nurses Women and babies shot and burned by HIGH SCHOOL and COLLEGE graduates.

So I am suspicious of education. My request is: Help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more humane.

Haim Ginott, Child Psychologist and Survivor

Letter To A Teacher By Haim Ginott