These readings are used in various lessons from the Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior unit.
These readings are used in various lessons from the Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior unit.
Read aloud this letter with your class before you embark on the unit Teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior (Spanish available).
A young woman describes her journey overcoming an inner bully and a fear of being different as she accepted herself as gay (Spanish available).
Julius Lester describes finding his identity in an unexpected place as an African American teenager living in the segregated South (Spanish available).
Read the personal reflections of a mother whose young son has challenged her assumptions and expectations about gender identity (Spanish available).
Reflect on the power of the words that we attach to people through an Anishinaabe woman’s memory of being called an “Indian” while growing up in Canada (Spanish available).
Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie challenges us to consider the power of stories to influence identity, shape stereotypes, and build paths to empathy (Spanish available).
Reflect on how individuals, communities, and nations decide who has rights that are worthy of respect and protection with this introduction to the concept of the "universe of obligation" (Spanish available).
A young Jewish woman shares a time when she encountered someone with a false stereotype about Jews (Spanish available).
A young Jewish person reflects on the impact of antisemitic myths on attitudes today (Spanish available).
Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug reflects on why she gets asked the question “You’re Jewish?” (Spanish available).
Learn about the concessions that the Treaty of Versailles required from Germany after its defeat in World War I (Spanish available).
Consider the motivations and expectations of Paul von Hindenburg when he appointed Hitler to chancellor of Germany (Spanish available).
Explore the provisions Hitler proposed at the National Socialist German Workers' Party’s first large party gathering 1920 (Spanish available).
Read a letter exchange between Adolf Hitler and President Paul von Hindenburg regarding a law that suspended Jews from positions of civil service in Nazi Germany (Spanish available).
Find out how Hitler strengthened enforcement of Paragraph 155, a law that made homosexuality a crime in Germany (Spanish available).
Read about the far-reaching efforts of Joseph Goebbels and the Ministry of Propaganda to generate enthusiasm for the Nazi party (Spanish available).
Learn about the Nazis' boycott of Jewish-owned businesses, including a firsthand account from a German Jew (Spanish available).
Consider the significance of the public burning of books deemed in Nazi Germany in 1933 (Spanish available).
Compare the text of Germany's original military oath with Hitler’s new oath, and consider the implications of the oath's promise of allegiance to a single leader (Spanish available).
Read about two men's refusals to pledge their allegiance to the Nazis and the consequences they faced (Spanish available).
Find out how one family's lives changed when Hitler passed the Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany (Spanish available).
Consider a Swiss merchant’s account of how his German colleagues responded to the events of Kristallnacht (Spanish available).
Examine firsthand reports of the theft committed against Jews during the chaos and violence of Kristallnacht (Spanish available).
Read a report from the disciplinary hearing of a German college student who chose to help his Jewish neighbors after Kristallnacht (Spanish available).
Consider how leaders like FDR, clergy members, and ordinary people around the world responded to the news of Kristallnacht (Spanish available).
Learn about the Nazis’ plan to rearrange the population of Poland, which resulted in the displacement of more than a million ethnic Poles and Jews (Spanish available).
Consider what German citizens thought of Hitler's plan to colonize Poland through these reflections from a member of the League of German Girls and two German soldiers (Spanish available).
Diary entries from a Jewish woman imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen shed light on how prisoners in camps and ghettos were deprived of dignity (Spanish available).
Begin your study of the Holocaust with a poem by Holocaust survivor Sonia Weitz (Spanish available).
Get insight into how a commander at a Nazi death camp viewed his victims and coped with his actions (Spanish available).
Consider why the residents of Hartheim kept silent about the evidence of mass murder they witnessed in their town throughout World War II (Spanish available).
Learn about the people of Denmark’s collective effort to hide and rescue Jews from deportation during the Holocaust (Spanish available).
Explore rescue during the Holocaust with the story of a community in Southern France that sheltered and hid thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution (Spanish available).
Investigate different examples of protest and resistance by Germans against the Nazi regime in the 1940s, including the White Rose resistance group (Spanish available).