Guidelines for Teaching the Holocaust

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Guidelines for Teaching the Holocaust
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Why Teach Holocaust History

• One of the most effective, and most
  extensively documented subjects for a pedagogical
  examination of basic moral issues

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Rationale should fit your class

• Why should students learn this history?
• What are the most significant lessons to be
  learned?
• Why is a particular resource appropriate?
• What is the focus of your curriculum?

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What can students learn?

• Responsible Citizenship
• Appreciation for democracy
• Silence and indifference can perpetuate problems.
• History doesnt just happen. It occurs because
  individuals, organizations, and governments made
  choices.

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• Ramifications of prejudice, racism, and
  stereotyping.

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Dangers of apathy and indifference
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Responsibility when others are being denied civil
rights
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Methodological Considerations
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Age Appropriateness
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Define the term Holocaust

• The state-sponsored, systematic persecution
  and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi
  Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and
  1945. Jews were the primary victims 6 million
  were murdered Gypsies, handicapped, Jehovahs
  Witnesses, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and
  homosexuals also suffered grievous oppression and
  death.

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There are no simple answers
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Avoid Comparisons of Pain
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Avoid Generalizations
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The Holocaust was not inevitable

• The Holocaust took place because individuals,
  groups, and nations made decisions to act or not
  to act.

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Strive for precision of language

• Prejudice and discrimination
• Collaborators and bystanders
• Armed and spiritual resistance
• Concentration camps and killing centers
• Guilt and responsibility

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Make careful distinction about sources

• Fact, opinion, fiction
• Primary and secondary sources
• Court testimony, oral history
• Photographs

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Avoid Stereotypical Descriptions

• All experiences of Jews were not the same.
• All Germans were not Nazis.
• Although groups can share common experiences,
  generalization tend to stereotype group behavior.

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Do not romanticize to engage students interest

• The number of non-Jews who helped rescue Jews in
  a small fraction of the population.
• Give a balanced perspective.
• Do not use the worst aspects of human nature to
  hook your students, they will become
  desensitized.

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How many is 6,000,000
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People not Statistics
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If you were to live 6,000,000 hours, how many
years would you be alive?

• 685 Years

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How many times would 9-11 need to occur to equal
6,000,000 deaths?

• Every day for 5.8 years

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Be Sensitive with visual and written content
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Balance of Perspective
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Appropriate Learning Activities
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Why Remember?