Revised in 2018, this one-week curriculum introduces students to the history of the Holocaust and the choices of individuals, groups, and nations that contributed to genocide.
Arch Oboler’s 1938 radio play, performed by Katharine Hepburn, pleaded with American audiences to offer more aid to Jewish refugee children. It aired as the country debated over the Wagner-Rogers Bill (Joint Resolution 64).
Sociologist Nechama Tec explores the story of one woman, Stefa Dworek - a Polish Christian - and her motivation to shelter a Jewish woman during the Holocaust. If caught rescuing a Jew during this time, Stefa would have faced imprisonment or worse. Yet about 2 percent of the Polish Christian population chose to hide Jews in a nation known for its long history of antisemitism.
The letter exchange between George Washington and the Hebrew congregation of Newport was not the only landmark event in the early history of America that dealt with issues of religious freedom and identity. Seixas’ letter and Washington’s subsequent response exist within a timeline of many other events during which the newly formed country faced those issues. Continue reading below for information about some of those events.
Two Jews meet with a Polish courier during the Grossaktion Warsaw in summer 1942, imploring him to tell the world what was happening to Jews.
Rapper Ruby Ibarra reflects on her Filipino-American experience and the role of language in this spoken-word poem.
This is an audio recording of President Lincoln's second inaugural address (March 4, 1865).
Listen to the introduction from day one of the UDHR Workshop.
The horrors of World War II, the new and frightening power of the atomic bomb, and the Nazi genocide of Jews and of others deemed unworthy to live shocked the consciences of people all over the world in 1945. This capacity and desire to destroy whole populations of humanity prompted First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to warn that "In the end...we are 'One World' and that which injures any one of us, injures all of us."
Welcome to Day 3. Today we’ll focus on reasons human rights was controversial in the post-war United States and why “civil” rights, instead, became the focus. This session will also model a literacy strategy known as close read activity.
Welcome to Day 4. The end of the first meeting of the Human Rights Commission in February of 1947 marked the drafting of the document first referred to as the International Bill of Rights, later known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Welcome to Day 5, our final session of the week. Today we’ll focus on the legacies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that was not given the rule of law over the laws of individual sovereign states but nonetheless holds a great deal of influence over human rights legislation and promotion since its inception.