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This guide offers valuable tips for educators on teaching the Holocaust with precision and sensitivity, including definitions, avoiding oversimplification, and emphasizing the human stories behind statistics. It underscores the importance of critical thinking, source evaluation, and avoiding stereotypes in educational materials. By providing balanced perspectives and meaningful learning activities, educators can effectively engage students while respecting the gravity of Holocaust history.
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Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
GUIDELINES FOR TEACHING ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST: 1. Define “Holocaust.” 2. Avoid comparisons of pain. 3. Avoid simple answers to complex questions. 4. Just because it happened does not mean it was inevitable. 5. Strive for precision of language. 6. Make careful distinctions about sources of information. 7. Try to avoid stereotypical descriptions. 8. Do not romanticize history to engage your students. 9. Contextualize the history you are teaching. 10. Translate statistics into people. 11. Be sensitive to appropriate written and audio-visual content. 12. Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your study. 13.Select appropriate learning activities. 14. Reinforce the objectives of your lesson plan.
What is holocaust? • The holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and anihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933. and 1945. Jews were the primary victims – six million were murdered; Gypsies, the handicapped, and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons.Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah´s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political disidents also suffered grievous opression and death under Nazy tyranny.
Jews were the main targetPage from the anti-Semitic German children's book, "Trau Keinem Fuchs..." (Trust No Fox in the Green Meadow and No Jew on his Oath)
Not only JewsAnnouncement in Romanian issued by the Mayor of Roman, Food Distribution Service on November 28, 1942, regarding the distribution of sugar.
Different propaganda politics“Jews are disease!”Propaganda slide entitled "The Jewish spirit undermines the healthy powers of the German people."
“Because of handicapped you lose your money”Propaganda slide produced by the Reich Propaganda Office showing the opportunity cost of feeding a person with a hereditary disease. The illustration shows that an entire family of healthy Germans can live for one day on the same 5.50 Reichsmarks it costs to support one ill person for the same amount of time.
Why didn´t they leave?Political cartoon entitled, "Will the Evian Conference guide him to freedom?" that was published in the Sunday, July 3, 1938 edition of The New York Times.
War and crimes were not inevitable.Propaganda slide featuring two doctors working at an unidentified asylum for the mentally ill. The caption reads, "Life only as a burden."
Nazi propaganda poster with a picture of a Jewish star and a German caption that reads, "Whoever wears this symbol is an enemy of our Volk."
Are all the Germans Nazis and murderous?This image originates from a film produced by the Reich Propaganda Ministry. It shows patients in an unidentified asylum. Their existence is described as "life without hope." The Nazis sought, through propaganda, to develop public sympathy for the Euthanasia Program.
Resistance against agression1Cover of the underground Yiddish newspaper, Jugend Shtimme [Voice of the Youth] of January-February, 1941, with a graphic of a human fist pounding a swastika. The mimeographed paper was put out by members of Zukunft (the youth wing of the socialist Bund movement) in the Warsaw ghetto. The Yiddish caption at the bottom of the page reads, "Fascism must be smashed!"
Resistance against agression2A display box for the "Der Stuermer" newspaper that has been defaced to read, "The Jews are our fortune" instead of "The Jews are our misfortune".
6. Make careful distinctions about sources of information. Be critical of sources
Be critical. What is on the picture? What does this picture tell you?Slide taken from a Nazi propaganda filmstrip, promoting "euthanasia," prepared for the Hitler Youth. The caption says: "Mentally ill Negro (English) 16 years in an institution costing 35,000 RM [Reichsmarks]." Place and date uncertain.
Who is it ment for? What is its message?A Nazi propaganda poster encourages healthy Germans to raise a large family. The caption, in German, reads: "Healthy Parents have Healthy Children."
Propaganda slide entitled "Nordic heads [faces] from all periods and countries."
Page from the anti-Semitic German children's book, "Der Giftpilz" (The Poisonous Mushroom). The text reads, " The Jewish nose is crooked at its tip. It looks like the number six..."
Propaganda slide which contrasts a person of mixed race (at the left) with a healthy "Aryan" youth (at the right).
Propaganda slide featuring a deformed infant. The caption reads "... because God cannot want the sick and ailing to reproduce."
Propaganda slide produced by the Reich Propaganda Office entitled "The Fearful Legacy of an Alcoholic.“According to the chart, an alcoholic will have 894 descendants in 83 years and of these 40 will live in extreme poverty, 67 will be hardened criminals, 7 will be murderers, 181 will turn to prostitution, and 142 will be beggars. Altogether, these "asocials" and their activities will cost 5 million RM.
Nazi propaganda poster advertising a special issue of "Der Stuermer" on "Rassenschande" [race pollution]. The poster warns of interracial relationships, justifying and explaining the Nuremberg laws. The text reads: "Race Pollution. Since 1923, Julius Streicher has enlightened the public about race pollution. In 1933, the Fuehrer declared race pollution a crime, punishable by imprisonment. Nevertheless, thousands of race crimes continue to be committed in Germany by Jews. What is Race Pollution? Why did the Fuehrer proclaim the Nuremberg Laws? Why do Jews, systematically and in massive numbers, commit racial crimes against the German woman? What are the consequences of race pollution for the German maiden? What are the consequences of race pollution for the German Volk? The new Stuermer special issue."
Propaganda slide featuring a chart produced by the Reich Propaganda Office showing that in 1936 the total cost of caring for 880,000 people ill with hereditary disease was 1200 million Reichsmarks, which was almost double the 713 million RM spent on the administration of the national, state, and local government.
11. Be sensitive to appropriate written and audiovisual content.
Propaganda slide featuring two disabled brothers sitting in the grass. The caption reads, "Brothers-asocial."
12. Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your study of the Holocaust.
Use of powerful pictures in propaganda with traditional motives like family, children..."Mothers! Fight for your children!" Note that the mother portrayed has four children, consistent with the Nazi goal of encouraging as many births as possible.
...use of christian motives and comparison with Christ."Long live Germany!"
Point out issues like antisemitism, euthanasia program, final solution, jewish resistance through photographs and propaganda material
"The eradication of the sick and weak in nature""That which does not satisfy the demands of Being collapses."
