Collection

Recommended Resources for Holocaust and Human Behavior

Find videos, lessons, and additional resources that build on the themes explored in Holocaust and Human Behavior.

Published: February 23, 2017

Collection

Language

English — US

Subject

History

Grade

6–12

The Holocaust

Overview

This collection is designed to support your exploration of Holocaust and Human Behavior. It features over 100 classroom-ready resources, including video documentaries and eyewitness testimony. Use these resources to connect your study of the Holocaust to related histories and ideas.

This collection contains all of the resources recommended in Holocaust and Human Behavior, organized by chapter.

86 videos
13 lessons
1 units
1 collections
5 books

Inside This Collection

Lesson

Students explore the relationship between the individual and society by creating identity charts for a contemporary novelist, a children's book character, and themselves.

Blurred crowd used to illustrate "individual and society" in Holocaust and Human Behavior.

Video

This clip is a video adaptation of the illustrated book, The Bear That Wasn’t.

Video

Third-grade teacher, Jane Elliott meets with her former class to discuss the experiment on discrimination she conducted 15 years earlier and the effects it had on their lives. She also gives the lesson to employees of the Iowa prison system.

Video

Claude Steele describes the idea and effects of stereotype threat in our daily lives.

Video

Facing History student Jonathan Lykes presented his poem "Perception" at a Facing History benefit dinner. The poem, which won a regional poetry contest, is about how prejudice influences our decisions about helping others.

Video

Kwame Anthony Appiah reflects on factors that affect our individual moral decision making.

Video

Binna Kandola delivers a talk as part of the Day of Learning “Reimagining Self and Other.”

Video

Writer Jesús Colón reflects on an incident on a subway ride in New York City.

Video

Eve Shalen reflects on an experience she had in eighth grade.

Lesson

Students are introduced to the concept of "universe of obligation" and prompted to illustrate circle of individuals who they feel a responsibility to care for and protect.

Picture of universe of obligation drawn on a chalkboard.

Book

Use this resource on the Eugenics movement of the early 1900s to deepen students' understanding of the history of racism in the United States.

Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement Cover

Video

Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses how and why humans create a “we and they” distinction.

Video

The second episode in the three-part series Race: The Power of an Illusion questions the belief that race has always been with us.

Video

Scholar David Jones describes the history of the eugenics movement in the United States.

Video

Scholars trace anti-Jewish myths, hatred, and violence back to the time of the Roman Empire in this historical overview of anti-Judaism’s roots.

Video

Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses why people categorize the world to make meaning of it.

Video

Scholars describe the persistence of antisemitism in Europe from the Enlightenment through World War I and explain how new social, political, and pseudo-scientific justifications were created to perpetuate old prejudices.

Lesson

Students use maps of the world before and after World War I to make inferences and predictions about the ways the war changed the world.

Painting title Gassed by John Singer Sargent. Shows World War I soldiers with bandaged eyes being led by other soldiers. Many dead and injured soldiers laying at the base of the painting.

Book

This resource examines the choices that individuals, groups, and nations made before, during, and after the Armenian Genocide.

Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians

Video

Journalist, lecturer, and author Adam Hochschild discusses the role African and Asian troops from European colonies played in World War I.

Video

Journalist, lecturer, and author Adam Hochschild discusses the use of propaganda during World War I.

Video

Scholar Richard G. Hovannisian gives an overview of the Armenian Genocide.

Video

Professor Peter Balakian describes the American response to the Armenian Genocide during World War I.

Chapter

Explore the efforts to build a democracy in Germany in the 1920s, and examine the misunderstandings, myths, and fears that often undercut those efforts.

In addition to his depictions of World War I, Otto Dix was also known for his ruthless criticism of German society during the Weimar years.

Lesson

Students read fictional biographies of German citizens and make hypotheses about the citizens' voting choices in the Weimar elections.

Video

Professor Paul Bookbinder describes the “noble experiment” of democracy in the Weimar Republic.

Video

Scholars Wendy Lower, Peter Hayes, Michael Berenbaum, Jonathan Petropoulos, and Deborah Dwork describe how Adolf Hitler became a powerful political figure in Weimar Germany in the aftermath of World War I.

Lesson

Students investigate the messages in Adolf Hitler's speeches by performing a close read of the transcript of his first radio address as chancellor.

The Parade of the Political Administrators in Nuremberg, Germany.

Video

In this video, Dr. Paul Bookbinder describes how the Nazis assumed power in 1930s Germany.

Video

Alfred Wolf, a Holocaust survivor from Eberbach, Germany, recalls the changes he noticed in Germany after the election of Adolf Hitler.

Video

Scholars Timothy Ryback, Wendy Lower, Jonathan Petropoulos, Michael Berenbaum, and Peter Hayes discuss Adolf Hitler’s final steps in securing total power in Germany.

Video

Author Timothy Ryback explains how, in 1933, four Jewish political prisoners at Dachau concentration camp became some of the first victims of Hitler and the Nazis.

Video

Ellen Kerry Davis, a Jewish woman originally from Hoof, Germany, describes how her family’s friendships were impacted by Nazi rule.

Video

Dr. Victoria Barnett speaks about German Protestant churches during the rise of the Nazis.

Video

Dr. Victoria Barnett speaks about German pastor and Nazi opponent Martin Niemoeller.

Video

Dr. Victoria Barnett speaks about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who took a stand against the Nazis.

Video

Jonathan Petropoulos discusses the importance of the 1934 violent purge in the Nazi party.

Lesson

Students define propaganda and practice an image-analysis activity on a piece of propaganda from Nazi Germany.

A crowd salutes Nazi Leader Adolf Hitler outside the Reich Chancellery in Berlin after a plebiscite, which gave Hitler absolute power as German Fuhrer. August 19, 1934.

Video

Jonathan Petropoulos discusses the importance of the German 1937 Degenerate Art exhibit.

Video

Jonathan Petropoulos discusses the choices four German artists made under Nazi rule.

Video

Triumph of the Will is a Nazi propaganda film made by Leni Riefenstahl.

Video

Kurt Klein, who emigrated from Walldorf, Germany, to the United States in 1937, recalls how Nazi policies and propaganda affected his life at school.

Lesson

Students analyze a variety of firsthand accounts of Kristallnacht in order to piece together a story of what happened on that night.

Pedestrians in front of the demolished businesses of Jewish residents on Potsdamer St., Berlin. November 10, 1938.

Video

Scholars discuss the events of Kristallnacht, a series of violent attacks against Jews in Germany, Austria, and part of Czechoslovakia in November, 1938.

Video

Dr. Paul Bookbinder describes Kristallnacht and explains what it meant for German Jews.

Video

Vera Gissing, a Holocaust survivor from Czechoslovakia, recalls how her family prepared her for the Kindertransport, a rescue mission that brought thousands of Jewish refugee children to Great Britain.

Video

Edith Reiss, from Bolton, England, describes witnessing antisemitic violence on the streets of Göttingen, Germany, when she was a visitor there in 1939.

Video

Holocaust survivor Sol Messinger describes his experiences attempting to emigrate from Germany to Cuba in 1939 aboard the ship the M.S. St. Louis.

Video

Joshua Rubenstein, author and associate at Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian studies, details the relationship between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the decade before World War II.

Lesson

Students use journaling and group discussion to respond to emotionally-challenging diary entries of a Jewish teenager confined in a Nazi ghetto.

The Jewish population in Poland being "resettled" by German soldiers, circa 1940-41.

Video

Scholar Margareta Matache explains significant moments in the history of the Roma people.

Video

Scholar Margareta Matache discusses the discrimination Roma people face in schools and classrooms.

Video

Scholar Doris Bergen discusses Bishop von Galen and his opposition to the Nazi T4 euthanasia program.

Video

Scholar Doris Bergen discusses the ideologies of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

Video

Former Jewish partisans discuss the goals, challenges, and personal motives of the Jews who resisted the Germans.

Video

Scholar Aliza Luft discusses the changes that took place in France when the Nazis invaded in 1940.

Video

In his testimony for USC Shoah Foundation, Holocaust survivor Jack Arnel describes what he saw as a 12-year-old when the Nazis occupied Vilna, Lithuania in 1941.

Video

Lesson

Students create a "found poem" drawing on words from the testimony of a survivor of the Holocaust.

A memorial at Auschwitz of shoes taken from prisoners of the camp.

Video

Scholar Doris Bergen describes the phases of events that led to the Holocaust.

Video

In this video, Dr. Paul Bookbinder gives a short overview of the Holocaust.

Video

In this graphic testimony, Holocaust survivor Zvi Michaeli describes realizing that he survived after the Jewish community of Eishyshok, Lithuania was murdered by the Nazis.

Video

Joshua Rubenstein, associate at Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian studies, describes the gradual evolution of Hitler's master plan for the "Jews of Europe" and how this unfolded within German-occupied Soviet territory.

Video

Social psychologist James Edward Waller describes the importance of studying perpetrator behavior.

Video

Psychologist James Edward Waller brings a psychological lens to understanding why people commit genocidal acts.

Video

This documentary describes the social science experiment known as The Milgram Experiment.

Video

Scholars Peter Hayes, Deborah Dwork, Wendy Lower, Joshua Rubenstein, Michael Berenbaum, and Jonathan Petropoulos describe the steps that Nazi Germany took in deciding to murder the Jews of Europe.

Video

Scholar James Edward Waller discusses how perpetrators of atrocities dehumanize their victims.

Video

Holocaust survivor Esther Bem describes the people in Northern Italy who protected her and her family during World War II.

Video

Holocaust survivor Vera Laska describes her teenage experience as part of the resistance against the Nazis in Czechoslovakia.

Video

Former Jewish partisans discuss the goals, challenges, and personal motives of the Jews who resisted the Germans.

Video

Marion Pritchard, a member of the Dutch resistance who hid a Jewish family during the Nazi occupation of Holland, describes what happened when a Dutch Nazi policeman investigated her house.

Video

This film tells the story of the people of Le Chambon, who saved 5,000 Jews during WWII.

Video

Jan Karski, a diplomat and member of the Polish resistance during World War II, describes his experience in the Warsaw Ghetto and his meeting with U.S. President Roosevelt.

Video

Leon Bass, an African-American soldier, describes his experiences entering the Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945.

Video

Bernhard Storch, a soldier in the Soviet Army during World War II, describes what he saw as he and his fellow soldiers liberated the Majdanek concentration camp in 1944.

Lesson

Students contemplate the challenges the Allies faced when seeking justice after the Holocaust through an interactive, discussion-based activity.

On the right two benches of the accused leaders stretch away from the foreground to the centre of the painting. Behind the defendants stands a line of white-helmeted military police who guard the benches and separate them from the court beyond....

Book

This resource details the events that unfolded in China and Japan in the years leading up to World War II and the war crimes known today as the Nanjing Atrocities.

The Nanjing Atrocities: Crimes of War Cover.

Video

This film explores the Nuremberg Trials using both archival footage and recent interviews.

Video

Scholar Beth Van Schaack discusses the origins of the international justice system.

Video

Social psychologist James Edward Waller uses the stories of the Nazis at Nuremburg to discuss human capacity for evil.

Video

Benjamin Ferencz, International Law Scholar and Former Nuremberg Prosecutor, shares his experience as Chief Prosecutor at the trial of the Einsatzgruppen commanders.

Video

Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China Rana Mitter explains the Nanjing atrocities.

Video

Scholar Beth Van Schaack explains the Tokyo Trial.

Lesson

Students learn about several Holocaust memorials around the world in preparation to design their own memorial.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, or Holocaust Memorial, is a memorial in Berlin, Germany to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Guide

This guide provides those viewing paintings by Holocaust survivor Samuel Bak with a framework for analyzing the art's profound symbolism about memory, justice, and identity.

Illuminations: The Art of Samuel Bak Cover

Collection

This collection features powerful accounts of the Holocaust, told by survivors, rescuers, and witnesses, selected from USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.

Nate Leipciger shares testimony with students.

Book

This resource challenges students to consider how individuals, groups, and nations can take up Raphael Lemkin’s challenge to eliminate genocide.

Totally Unofficial: Raphael Lemkin and the Genocide Convention Cover

Video

Romana Farrington, whose Jewish parents arranged for her to be raised by a Polish Catholic family during the Holocaust, describes how her wartime experience impacts her identity.

Video

Vera Gissing, who survived the Holocaust as part of the Kindertransport, describes the importance of her non-Jewish friends to her and her parents throughout World War II.

Video

Isaac Levy, a Rabbi who served as a chaplain in the British army during World War II, recalls the challenges he faced trying to assist survivors after the Holocaust.

Video

Howard Cwick, an American soldier during World War II, recalls a confrontation with a US Army sergeant over antisemitic slurs directed toward a recently liberated concentration camp survivor.

Video

Scholar Donna-Lee Frieze chronicles the life and work of Raphael Lemkin.

Video

This film, from the feature length film 'Watchers of the Sky,' focuses on Raphael Lemkin and some of his personal story as well as what became the focus of his life’s work.

Video

This film, created in partnership between Propeller Films and Facing History & Ourselves from the feature length film Watchers of the Sky, focuses on lawyer Raphael Lemkin’s efforts to develop an international law.

Video

This film focuses on the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

Video

This documentary tells four stories of Apartheid in South Africa, as seen through the eyes of the Truth and Reconciliation commission.

Video

Taner Akçam discusses the importance of learning about the Armenian Genocide today.

Video

Scholar Richard G. Hovannisian gives an overview of the Armenian Genocide.

Video

This film focuses on Benjamin Ferencz, a former prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials who is dedicated to preventing mass atrocities.

Lesson

Students use a "levers of power" framework to analyze examples of civic participation and identify ways they can bring about a positive change in their communities.

Image of an arpillera, a tapestry that documents abuses that took place during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, 1973-1990.

Reading

Learn about how the residents of Billings, Montana, responded to a wave of racist and antisemitic violence in their town.

Volunteers from AmeriCorps carry a floor joist at a Habitat for Humanity home site in New Orleans.

Unit

Help students become informed and effective civic participants in today's digital landscape. This unit is designed to develop students' critical thinking, news literacy, civic engagement, and social-emotional skills and competencies.

Peaceful protestor speaks to police officer in Ferguson.

Book

This resource helps students explore the courageous stories of the women in Chile who challenged the silence and terror imposed by Pinochet's dictatorship from 1973–1990.

Stitching Truth: Women's Protest Art in Pinochet's Chile Cover

Video

This short excerpt from the film “Not In Our Town” shows how ordinary citizens in Billings, Montana joined together to stand up to hate when their neighbors were under attack by white supremacists.

Video

Marjorie Agosin discusses women’s artistic response to Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile.

Video

Memphis Students present on the lynching of Ell Persons and their goal to create a memorial garden in his honor so their community can reflect on the past

Video

U.S. Representative John Lewis tells a story about his past to highlight citizens’ efforts to unite the U.S.

Collection

A curation of educational resources for school groups visiting the New England Holocaust Memorial.

A stone sign on the right reads Holocaust, with three glass pillars in view at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, MA.

Collection

Lead students in an examination of identity, membership and belonging, and civic participation through an analysis of historical case studies and literature.

An educator points with a white board marker while speaking with students.

Mini-Lesson

Use this mini-lesson to introduce students to contemporary examples of Holocaust trivialization and prompt reflection on the question “What are the implications of comparing current events to the Holocaust?”

Jewish badge in the hands of a man stock photo.

Lesson

Help students develop a larger understanding and appreciation of the Jewish resistance movement during the Holocaust.

Black and white photograph of six Jewish partisans standing in a forest clearing

Lesson

Explore the choices of Jewish partisan Sonia Orban, and gain a deeper understanding of the complexities that young people faced during the German occupation of Poland.

Sonia Orbuch, a Jewish partisan in Poland during the Holocaust, and her husband on their wedding day in 1945.

Lesson

Explore the choices of Vitka Kempner, a Jewish partisan who chose to resist the Nazis.

Lesson

In this lesson, students explore moral and ethical frameworks in relation to teh actions of Frank Blaichman

A young, white, mustachioed man wearing a uniform and a hat tilted to the side

Lesson

Understand the many forms that Jewish resistance to fascism, antisemitism, and Nazism took.

Russian partisans, one of them photographer Faye Schulman, gathering together in the forest, Naliboki Forest, Belarus, December 1944. The Molotava Brigade was a partisan group made up mostly of escaped Soviet Army POWs. The woman pictured is Faye Schulman, a Jewish woman who fled into the Naliboki forest with her camera equipment and joined the Molotova Brigade. For two years in the forest she photographed the partisan's activities, worked as medical aid and participated in the partisans raid's.

Unit

Help your students be thoughtful, engaged viewers of Schindler's List with these lesson plans that foster reflection and make contemporary connections to the history.

Picture of a little girl in a red coat standing in front of people.

Collection

Find interview transcripts, historical overviews, and primary source documents about a particular Jewish partisan or country.

Unit

Explore the stories of Jewish partisans that stood against Nazi oppression, genocide, and antisemitism during World War II.

Lesson

Students prepare for their study of Schindler's List by creating a contract establishing a thoughtful, respectful, and caring classroom community.

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Facing History & Ourselves is designed for educators who want to help students explore identity, think critically, grow emotionally, act ethically, and participate in civic life. It’s hard work, so we’ve developed some go-to professional learning opportunities to help you along the way.

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Listen to #DisruptTexts founder Julia Torres about taking a critical lens to text selection in ELA classrooms.

Three students at table, working on a project

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Issues of equity and education have long existed in our country and continue to manifest today. How can writing and the power of one's voice help us respond to these disparities? Listen to writer and educator, Dr. Clint Smith, where we hear his poetry and reflections on working for justice, equity, and civic agency in our schools.

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Explore approaches to centering student voice, building authentic relationships and cultivating community with Molly Josephs, the creator of This Teenage Life, a youth-driven, story-sharing podcast that started as a school club.

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— Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

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Recommended Resources for Holocaust and Human Behavior

At a Glance

Language

Subject

Grade

Overview

About This Collection

Inside This Collection

You might also be interested in…

Educator Resources for New England Holocaust Memorial

Developing Student Voice, Character, and Civic Agency

Holocaust Trivialization and Distortion: What Are the Implications of Comparing Current Events to the Holocaust?

Creating Student Projects

Sonia Orbuch: Becoming a Partisan

Vitka Kempner: Identity and Resistance

Frank Blaichman: Ethics in a Time of Genocide

Understanding Resistance

Teaching Schindler's List

Explore the Partisans

Resistance during the Holocaust: An Exploration of the Jewish Partisans

Pre-Viewing: “Take This Giant Leap”: Preparing to Teach Schindler’s List

Recommended Resources for Holocaust and Human Behavior

At a Glance

Language

Subject

Grade

Overview

About This Collection

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Inside This Collection

Chapter 1: The Individual and Society

The Complexity of Identity

The Bear That Wasn't

A Class Divided

How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do

Jonathan Lykes Performs "Perception"

How Social Environments Shape Behavior

Day of Learning 2013 - Binna Kandola: Diffusing Bias

Little Things Are Big: Jesús Colón

Eve Shalen: The "In" Group

Chapter 2: We and They

Understanding Universe of Obligation

Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement

Creating "We and They": Kwame Anthony Appiah

Race: The Power of an Illusion (The Story We Tell)

Genetics, Eugenics, and Ethics

The Ancient Roots of Anti-Judaism

When Does "Us" Turn against "Them”?: Kwame Anthony Appiah

Antisemitism from the Enlightenment to World War I

Chapter 3: World War: Choices and Consequences

Analyzing the Effects of World War I

Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians

Combat and the Colonies: the Role of Race in World War I

Propaganda during World War I: An Appeal to You!

Introducing the Armenian Genocide

The American Response to the Armenian Genocide

Chapter 4: The Weimar Republic: The Fragility of Democracy

The Weimar Republic: The Fragility of Democracy

Choices in Weimar Republic Elections

Facing History Scholar Reflections: The Weimar Republic

Hitler's Rise to Power: 1918-1933

Chapter 5: The National Socialist Revolution

Examining Hitler's First Radio Address

Facing History Scholar Reflections: The Nazi Rise to Power

From Democracy to Dictatorship

Hitler's Rise to Power: 1933-1934

Hitler's First Victims

Friendship and Betrayal

The Confessing Church: Early German Protestant Responses to National Socialism - Victoria Barnett

Awakening Conscience: The Pastor Martin Niemoller Story - Victoria Barnett

Acting on Faith: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Protest Against National Socialism - Victoria Barnett

Night of the Long Knives: Jonathan Petropoulos

Chapter 6: Conformity and Consent in the National Community

Analyzing Nazi Propaganda

Art as Propaganda: The Nazi Degenerate Art Exhibit

Complicity and Cultural Figures in the Third Reich: Navigating the Grey Zone

Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens)

Changes at School under the Nazis

Chapter 7: Open Aggression and World Responses

Understanding Kristallnacht

"Kristallnacht": The November 1938 Pogroms

Facing History Scholar Reflections: Kristallnacht

Preparing for the Kindertransport

Witnessing Antisemitic Violence

Turned Away on the M.S. St. Louis

A Sinister Alliance: Soviet-German Relations 1939–1941

Chapter 8: A War For Race and Space

Confronting the Suffering Caused by the Nazis

We Call Ourselves "Roma"

Tackling Discrimination against Roma in Schools

Bishop von Galen and the War against the Disabled

Hitler's Ideology: Race, Land, and Conquest

Introduction to the Jewish Partisans

Questions of Complicity: France and the Nazi Occupation

The Nazis in Vilna

A Sinister Alliance: Soviet-German Relations 1939–1941

Chapter 9: The Holocaust

Responding to the Stories of Holocaust Survivors

Step By Step: Phases of the Holocaust

Facing History Scholar Reflections: The Holocaust

Surviving a Massacre