Handout
Phases of the Holocaust
Help students understand the four major stages of the Holocaust according to scholar Doris Bergen.
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Watching Who Will Write Our History
Students view the film, analyze a primary source from the Oyneg Shabes archive, and consider why it matters who tells the stories of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
For Educators in Jewish Settings: Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior
Developed specifically for educators in Jewish settings, these lessons lead middle and high school students through an examination of the Holocaust from a historical perspective and consider what this particular history has to do with what it means to be Jewish.
Teaching with Testimony
Engage students in personal accounts from survivors with this collection of video testimony, survivor profiles, and a lesson plan.
Survivors and Witnesses: Video Testimony
This collection features powerful accounts of the Holocaust, told by survivors, rescuers, and witnesses, selected from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.
Teaching with Video Testimony
Students watch video testimony from a Holocaust survivor and engage in purposeful reflection about the survivor’s important story.
Choosing to Participate
Students use the “levers of power” framework to identify ways they can bring about positive change in their communities.
The Concept of Race
Students analyze the socially constructed meaning of race and examine how it has been used to justify exclusion, inequality, and violence throughout history.
Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior
Use this 23-lesson unit to lead middle or high school students through a study of the Holocaust that asks what this history can teach us about the power and impact of choices.
Introducing the Writing Prompt
In step 1 of the unit assessment, students develop an initial position for an argumentative essay in response to a question about the importance and impact of choices in history.
Dismantling Democracy
Students examine the steps the Nazis took to replace democracy with dictatorship and draw conclusions about the values and institutions that make democracy possible.
Do You Take the Oath?
Students consider the choices and reasoning of individual Germans who stayed quiet or spoke up during the first few years of Nazi rule.
Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools.
—
Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY
