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How to Teach Genocide: Secondary Education[edit]

Since the early 1980s, the study of genocide has grown immensely. What was originally made up of an extremely small amount of scholars, has now become exponential. The study of genocide increased during the 1900s, and the teaching of genocide has also grown dramatically since then. While the field of genocide has made leaps and bounds, the area of educating people still has much work to do. Even though there has been a major growth in interest and activity, genocide is still very rarely addressed outside of the small amount of scholars and educators in our nation's schools and universities. Human rights advocates across the globe have an important role to play in educating the young about genocide. However, teaching about genocide is not an easy task. When educators choose to teach about genocide what is needed by them, and more so by their students, is a clear understanding as to how and why genocide is perpetrated. (Totten)

"Genocide has shown me the darkest part of humanity, but I shall strive to be the light that drives back the darkness." -- Student comment on a final exam, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, December 2001.

When teaching about genocide one does not only teach about facts, figures, historical context, recent or age-old ethnic, religious, and national conflicts. Important as all of that may be, one must also raise ethnical questions, explore the human capacity for selfishness as well as the human capacity for compassion. In teaching about genocide, it is important to raise questions of a more personal nature, such as the human capacity to resist evil, yet student developmental stages must be considered before the teaching of such a subject.

Genocide is a deep and powerful topic to cover when teaching in a secondary school setting. Most students in secondary education have some previous Schema about genocide, or at the least the Holocaust. Fifth to twelfth graders are mentally capable of learning and comprehending what they are taught when it comes to genocide, yet as the facilitator of the topic you will have to be aware of what content is appropriate for the grade level. While watching the content used with the students being taught, one will also have to be aware of alerting the parents of the students in the classroom before teaching the topic of genocide to their children. Making parents or legal guardians aware of the upcoming unit planned may seem trifling, but it will help the lesson in the long run. Parents or legal guardians will have more schema than their children, and tend to get them ready for what's coming up in your Genocide lesson. This helps since it will have the parent aware and the student informed instead of both being stressed over the situation. The student will be stressed, due to content; while the parent will be worried about what is being shown to their child if not informed properly before. Covering all the bases before starting is key to a productive unit plan on such a topic as the Holocaust.

Age Appropriateness[edit]

"Students in grades 6 and above demonstrate the ability to empathize with individual eyewitness accounts and to attempt to understand the complexities of this history, including the scope and scale of the events. While elementary students are able to empathize with individual accounts, they often have difficulty placing them in a larger historical context. Such demonstrable developmental differences have traditionally shaped social studies curricula throughout the country; in most states, students are not introduced to European history and geography—the context of the Holocaust—before middle school. Elementary school can be an ideal location to begin discussion of the value of diversity and the danger of bias and prejudice. These critical themes can be addressed through local and national historical events; this will be reinforced during later study of the Holocaust."(USHMM).

The younger your classroom, the gentler one needs to be when presenting them with the information. The students under sixth grade do not have the comprehension abilities to differentiate what has happened to the victims and an event they have just learned about, such as a neighbors pet being run over or a house burning down; Much like their inability to empathize with the victims, which is a skill required for understanding the severity of the atrocities being committed to the peoples over come by a Genocide. The role of the facilitator with such a young class would be to scaffold their learning so that they grasp the understand of empathy and can learn how to sympathize with you over your lost dog. When they graduate from fifth grade and move up into middle school and proceed to high school, the educators there will begin to elaborate on the scaffolding previous educators have already created. Allowing them to easily move into genocide, without having to start from the ground up with the emotions and comprehension of their students.

A picture of The bones of the Victims, would be appropriate for seventh grade and up. They have the capability to empathize and understand what the grotesque picture represents. Those younger than seventh grade, do not have the scaffolding nor the schemata to understand what is being shown to them and without understanding comes fear. When a student does not know what the meaning behind a picture you are showing them, this can end in them being scared of the unknown. For these students who have yet to develop these necessary skills showing them a picture of the Jewish Children from the Holocaust with the star on their clothes would be more fitting for that age bracket.

Issues of Rationale[edit]

When teaching about genocide, whether it is at the university, college, or secondary level of schooling, it is essential to establish a sold set of rationales. Lessons and units of study full of controlling principles often lack clean aligned goals and objectives. Which often leads to a lack of sound understanding and historical focus.(Totten)

Regardless if the educator is experienced or not in the art of teaching about genocide, questions of rationale should always be considered. There are many different questions one can ask themselves, but among those are two of the most important one must be able to answer before planning to teach on this subject.

  1. Why am I teaching about genocide in the first place?
  2. Why am I teaching about this particular aspect or case of genocide?

To expand on the above, developing rationale statements can be tricky. Instructors who are planning to teach a genocide often find it helpful to ask themselves a series of questions such as the following:

  • Why is genocide important to study?
  • What do I want my students to walk away with, and why?
  • How deeply do we need to go into the complexities of and debates over the definition of Genocide, and why?
  • Should we focus on a single case of genocide versus a comparative study of two or more genocides - or vice versa?
  • Should we focus on a distant cases versus a more recent case of genocide?
  • How important is it to include information and analyses of issues germane to the intervention and prevention of genocide, including the international community's record of carrying out preventive measures?
  • If I can only plant one seed in my students' minds about genocide for them to ponder over the long haul of their lives, what would it be and why?

When developing rationale statements one should develop them on both the cognitive and affecting levels of the mind, knowledge, and thinking as well as the heart, emotions, and feeling. If you are to address one level and not the other you lesson or unit is likely to result in a lacking curriculum. After designing the rationale statements the instructor finds that he or she has only addressed the what, when, and where they will find that leaving out the essential question of why will result in an inefficient understanding of the essential knowledge about the historical trends. When the why is left out, the educator must reconsider the goals, objectives, and content for the unit of study.(Totten)

An interesting way to get your rationale statements is to directly involved your students. This will get them actively thinking and immediately encourages them to wonder why one would want or need to study a certain subject, and in doing so it begins to personalize the study for them. The instructor can ask students why people should study genocide. After the students record their responses the educator can record a variety of the responses and transfer them to a spot in the classroom for the students to refer to during their studies.

Examples of Rationale Statements for Teaching Genocide[edit]
  • To attempt to ascertain why genocide is perpetrated
  • To teach students why, how, what, when, and where a specific genocide took place: including the key historical trends and preconditions that led up to and culminated in the genocide
  • To examine the incremental nature of prejudice, stereotyping, racism, discrimination and how such can, in certain situations, lead up to and result in genocide
  • To compare and contrast various genocides in order to ascertain the similarities and differences between and among genocides
  • To illustrate the effects of peer pressure, individual responsibility, and the process of decision making under the most extreme conditions
  • To make students more sensitive to ethnic and religious hatred
  • To develop a deeper appreciation of the relationship of rights and duties, and to realize that human rights and the corresponding duties they entail are not the birthright of the few the the birthright of all -- every man, woman, and child in the world today
  • To understand that genocide is not an accident in history and understand that it is not inevitable
  • To come to understand the complexities involved in attempting to intervene in or prevent genocide
  • To gain insights into how international law has evolved over the past century in regard to the crime of genocide
  • To gain an understanding as to why the United Nations and individual states, more often than not, have chosen not to intervene and prevent genocide.

(Totten)

When it comes to writing a rationale statement you must consider the language you are writing it in. The language used to create your statement is critical. The main issue is that whenever written, the statement must not be a comparison of pain and one should not make any assertions in the statements. To make any assertions is to minimize the horror and suffering experienced by humans in other genocides. It is also imperative that one refrains from using the words unimaginable and unbelievable as the image the statement could be sending to the class is that the genocide was so "unreal", and that defeats the purpose of the lesson. Refraining from the use of clichés in rationale statements is imperative as well. Too often educators latch on to the sayings of "never again", "always remember", and "never forget" without giving a thought and consideration as to what the meaning behind those statements are. Spoken by survivors these cliches are powerful and meaningful. Spoken by presenters, politicians, and many others they pose as an empty phrase.

As much as one must consider cognitive minds, the emotional effects, and the language used to create the rationale statements there are some important factors that influence the focus of rationale statements. Amount the most important factors influencing the statements are:

  1. One's aim in teaching the concept and/or history of genocide
  2. One's knowledge of the history of a specific genocide
  3. The particular course one is teaching
  4. The levels and abilities of one's students
  5. The available time for study
  6. The instructional resources available

The most important aspect to remember about writing the rationale statements, is that the educators statements direct the content used in the study. The way the instructor has the rationale set up will always be the way the class goes. This is why the rationale statement is so critical, one wrong move and the entire direction of the lesson and meaning behind the unit is lost. One must be sure to carefully align the statement with the objectives and content to ensure maximum cognitive learning for one's students.

Genocide Guidelines[edit]

Before diving head first into the content and sending your classroom into overdrive, one should know the guidelines needed for teaching Genocide.

  1. Define Genocide
  2. Investigate the context and dynamics that have led to Genocide
  3. Be wary of simplistic parallels to other Genocides
  4. Analyze American and World Response
  5. Illustrate positive actions taken by individuals and nations in the face of genocide
Defining Genocide[edit]

"Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."(Audiovisual Library)

The Term Genocide came into general usage only after World War II, when the atrocities committed by the Nazis became known. In 1948, The United Nations declared genocide to be an international crime. The term would later be applied to previous atrocities that had been committed during previous conflicts. The world Genocide owes its existence to Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer who fled the Nazi occupation of Poland and arrived in the United States in 1941.

It is important that the students in the classroom fully comprehend the term Genocide to be able to understand what is going on in the reading they will be completing, the videos they will be viewing, and the pictures that will be shown to them. The vocabulary that goes into the unit is imperative to what is going to be taught. It is the footing students will cling to while discovering about the victims of genocide. Introduce them to the topic gently, by using a picture or video that is age appropriate for the class.

Investigate the Context and Dynamics that had led to a Genocide[edit]

The study of genocide needs to consider every step that took place, an analysis of all the different factors and patterns that may have a place in taking action in genocide. Teachers need to be sure to allow their students to analyze the certain groups that are targeted by the prosecutors who have organized the act. No matter the age group, the students need to be able to understand why an event occurred, and what actions instigated the genocide. As for understanding events and actions that have come to pass for a genocide to take place, students also need to know what the vocabulary is or they will not be able to fully understand what they are discussing or reading. The act of creating situations for students to activate their schema has to be done in a sensitive fashion which does not come easy when you consider the guidelines one has to follow as well as making sure the material brought to the students attention is age appropriate.


A key thought when letting your students have free reign while exploring and trying to understand the events behind genocide is for the educator to remind students that there is no certain path a genocide takes when studying about the event. As the facilitator one has to realize that an open mind is needed, due to the lack of familiarity between genocides. There is no one set path that all genocides take, all steps that are taken must be studied just as much as the conditions that occur allowing such an event to happen. Students are going to ask if those steps and changes could have made a difference one way or another. As an educator you have to be able to manage your class and the facts one has to teach when doing a unit on genocide. When teaching a class on genocide, one must remember that each genocide is different and its own individual event. This aspect along with being mindful that each and every genocide has had its own set of rules, and its own path it took through history will in return help the delivery of the correct context to the class being taught.

Be Wary of Simplistic Parallels to Other Genocides[edit]

Every genocide throughout history has had its own unique characteristics: time, place, people, and methods employed. Students are very likely to get off track with one genocide and start finding comparisons to others they have learned about, most commonly the Holocaust. It is the educator's job to redirect the students into learning about the genocide they and to help them realize that all genocides are different in their own unique way. Teachers cannot allow students to start making assumptions that all genocides are the same. Yes, there are some similarities between genocides, but the connections between those and other genocide need to be made carefully. A student can become easily confused when discussing such a difficult subject and make the mistake of comparing the pain and suffering of one group of people to another which must be avoided at all costs.

Analyze American and World Response[edit]

The goal of this guideline is to make sure that all sides to genocide are studied and that humans need to learn from their mistakes against man kind and enforce what is learned to future situations. To hit this goal students need to understand that they are not only looking for what did happen or what was done, that they are also looking for what was not done, or what did or did not take place. To completely understand, one must first try and see all sides to genocide, from the victims and the one who carried out the actions, to those who deny any possibility that the actions could have ever taken place. One must not be allowed to make a half-formed opinion on something that is not true. Any event in history must be backed by the facts that are necessary to make a correct conclusion about what happened. Choice is what students need to be most wary of when contemplating why genocide happened or took place. They need to be able to understand what the global choices were, starting with America and working their way down to the most influential countries from there. Students also need to know who all the leaders where who were involved: political leaders, religious leaders, and citizens who took part in the creation or any part of dealing with genocide.

“Genocide studies often concentrate on the atrocities that occurred. Students may have an awareness of what happened in Nazi Germany, Camobodia, Bosnia, or Rwanda, but they should also develop an understanding of the political, economic, and social causes that let to these events” (PBS, 2006).

From 1968 to present when colleges, universities, and high schools across the United States began teaching about the Holocaust, years when the states began mandating study of the Holocaust and other genocides in their schools, years erecting monuments commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, years when politicians and religious leaders, teachers, news commentators, and ordinary people alike were proclaiming "Never Again!" as a testament to America's determination never to let something like the Holocaust happen again .(Totten) How is it possible for so many people to find reasons to justify American inaction in the face of genocide committed in the post-Holocaust; "Never Again!" when spoken by those such as speakers and politicians seems like such an empty phrase for so many people such as the survivors, but not for others? This could be one of the most difficult topics for students to grasp.

Illustrate positive actions taken by individuals and nations in the face of genocide[edit]

How did the international countries act or respond to such news as genocide is occurring? Why did the United States not get involved? Why did they ignore what was going on and why did they choose not to stop it? Students understand that America has a huge army, what they don’t understand is all the political process that goes on behind the scenes that helps decide what a country will do. Explaining this process to them before you get into such a tough topic as “why?” you need to lay a solid foundation in their minds that everything is not as quick and simple as they may feel it could have been. One aspect you can do is classifying the positive actions taken by individual and nations in the face of genocide. Every student that sits through a lecture, lesson, or unit on genocide is going to need something positive to look up to once they see something so dark and cruel. One reason that genocide occurs may be due to the complicated system between citizens and political leaders that reside within that country. Fortunately there have always been those few individuals who have always spoken out against the prosecutors and saved the helpless people. If you are going to teach on genocide you need to highlight these courageous people who stand up when all others conform to the monstrosities, without making the frequency of with which the actions took place a big deal. The fact is those people stood their ground and those events happened, and people were brave enough to stand up for what was right. Students need that kind of reinforcement when it comes to so a depressing and deep topic.

“When teaching and learning about genocide, individuals may fall prey to helplessness or acceptance of inevitability because the event is imminent or in progress. The magnitude of the event and seeming inertia in the world community and its policymakers can be daunting, but actions of any size have potential impact. Numerous episodes from the Holocaust and other genocides illustrate this point". (United States)

Teaching Secondary Students About the Holocaust[edit]

Once an educator has the grasp of how to teach genocide in general to secondary students, the class can dive deeper into a specific genocide. The most common genocide taught in secondary setting is the Holocaust. The guidelines that were given when talking about genocide in whole are good to keep in mind, but due to the amount of schools that talk about the Holocaust, it has its own set of guidelines for the teacher to abide by.

Why teach about the Holocaust[edit]

The objective of teaching any subject is to get the students in the classroom engaged in intellectual curiosity in order to result in critical thought and personal growth. It may be helpful when creating your lesson plan on the Holocaust by keeping questions of rationale, or purpose in mind. Teaching about the Holocaust is difficult for educators due to the amount of time that is needed to cover the content correctly, yet most educators do not have a month to devote to teaching this one subject. So one must find the middle ground for time and content placed in a lesson plan. Nonetheless, lessons need to be developed, and difficult content choices will always have to be made. To help out with these difficult decisions, a well thought out rationale is imperative.

Before educators decide what and how to teach, it is recommended that one contemplates the reason behind teaching the history of such subject. Three key questions to consider:

  1. Why should students learn this history?
  2. What are the most significant lessons students should learn from a study of the Holocaust?
  3. Why is a particular reading, image, document, or film an appropriate medium for conveying the topics that you wish to teach?

The Holocaust provides one of the most effective subjects for an examination of basic moral issues. An inquiry into the history yields critical lessons for an investigation of human behavior. Study of the event also addresses one of the central mandates of education in the United States, which is to examine what it means to be a responsible citizen. Through a student of these topics, Students come to realize that:

  • Democratic institutions and values are not automatically sustained, but need to be appreciated, nurtured, and protected;
  • Silence and indifference to the suffering of others, or to the infringement of civil rights in any society can—however unintentionally—perpetuate the problems;
  • The Holocaust was not an accident in history—it occurred because individuals, organizations, and governments made choices that not only legalized discrimination but also allowed prejudice, hatred, and ultimately mass murder to occur.
  • The Holocaust was a watershed event, not only in the twentieth century but also in the course of human history.
  • Study of the Holocaust assists students in developing an understanding of the roots and ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping in any society.
  • Thinking about these events can help students to develop an awareness of the value of pluralism and encourages acceptance of diversity in a pluralistic society.
  • The Holocaust provides a context for exploring the dangers of remaining silent, apathetic, and indifferent in the face of the oppression of others.
  • Holocaust history demonstrates how a modern nation can utilize its technological expertise and bureaucratic infrastructure to implement destructive policies ranging from social engineering to genocide.
  • A study of these topics helps students to think about the use and abuse of power, and the roles and responsibilities of individuals, organizations, and nations when confronted with civil rights violations and/or policies of genocide.
  • As students gain insight into the many historical, social, religious, political, and economic factors that cumulatively resulted in the Holocaust, they gain awareness of the complexity of the subject and a perspective on how a convergence of factors can contribute to the disintegration of democratic values. Students come to understand that it is the responsibility of citizens in any society to learn to identify danger signals, and to know when to react.(USHMM)

When educators take the time to seek out an important rationale, the content taught is more likely to be clearer to your students and spark more interest and provide a better understanding to the complex history, than those who choose not to have a clear rational. Many students tend to be highly interested in this subject due to the fact that this subject raises questions of fairness, justice, individual identity, peer pressure, conformity, indifference, and obedience-issues that adolescents confront in their daily lives. Students are also affected by and challenged to comprehend the magnitude of the Holocaust; they are particularly struck by the fact that so many people allowed this or any genocide to occur by failing either to resist or to protest.

Educators should avoid tailoring their Holocaust course or lesson in any degree to the particular makeup of their student population. Failing to contextualize the groups targeted by the Nazis as well as actions of those who resisted or rescued can result in misunderstanding or trivializing the history. Relevant connections for all learners often surface as the history is analyzed.(USHMM)

Methodological Considerations: Guidelines for Teaching the Holocaust[edit]

The teaching of Holocaust history demands a high level of sensitivity and keen awareness of the complexity of the subject matter from the educator presenting the information to students. The following recommendations, while reflecting approaches that would be appropriate for effective teaching in general, are particularly relevant to the Holocaust education:

  • Define the term "Holocaust"
  • Do not teach or imply that the Holocaust was inevitable
  • Avoid simple answer to complex questions
  • Strive for precision of Language
  • Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your study of the Holocaust
  • Avoid comparisons of pain
  • Do not romanticize history
  • Contextualize the history
  • Translate statistics into people
  • Make responsible methodological choices

Define the term Holocaust[edit]

"The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community."(USHMM)

Make sure students understand that the Holocaust was a state-sponsored event, in that they understand that the government and the army of Germany was in agreement that the Jews, as well as other victims, were to be wiped out completely from the German state. The second aspect of the Holocaust that students need to understand is that it was not only the Jews who were targeted. The Jews of Europe were the main victims of the Holocaust in what the Nazis called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is six million, so much so that the phrase "six million" is now almost universally interpreted as referring to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, though estimates by historians using, among other sources, records from the Nazi regime itself, range from five million to seven million.

About 220,000 Sinti and Roma were killed in the Holocaust (some estimates are as high as 800,000), between a quarter to a half of the European population. Other groups deemed "racially inferior" or "undesirable", Soviet military prisoners of war including Russians and other Slavs, Poles, the mentally or physically disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists and political dissidents and criminals, were also persecuted and killed. Many scholars do not include the Nazi persecution of all of these groups in the definition of the Holocaust, with some scholars limiting the Holocaust to the genocide of the Jews; some to genocide of the Jews, Roma, and disabled; and some to all groups targeted by Nazi racism. Taking all these other groups into account, however, the total death toll rises considerably, estimates generally place the total number of Holocaust victims at 9 to 11 million, though some estimates have been as high as 26 million.(Frost)

The importance of students to understand that the Holocaust was a persecution of many different peoples is just as important as understanding the vocabulary for what they are going to read. Students need background schema activated before diving into a topic that is so complex and deep in knowledge. To get the full understanding students must first be taught what it is they are going to be learning about.

Do not teach or imply that the Holocaust was inevitable[edit]

Today's students tend to get the idea in their head that the Holocaust was an inevitable event that took place. The unfortunate truth is that educators often have to prove and reteach students that this is not true. The Holocaust was a horrifying event that took place, yes, but it was not inevitable. The fact that it is written in textbooks, on film, and is often talked about as one of the most horrific historical events does not make it and event that had to happen.

This concept is often over looked my students and by teachers alike. The Holocaust was an event that took place because of individuals and groups of people who organized it, and made it happen. The nation state of Germany was behind those who wanted the "final solution" to occur and as an educator you must have your students focus on that. Focusing on those decisions just may lead students to insights into history and human nature. Having the class dive head first into what made people organize an event like this will relay back and result in them becoming better critical thinkers.

Avoid simple answers to complex questions[edit]

The history of the Holocaust raises difficult questions about human behavior and the context within which individual decisions are made. Be wary of oversimplification. Seek instead to nuance the story. Allow students to think about the many factors and events that contributed to the Holocaust and often made decision-making difficult and uncertain.

Students are going to ask questions about what, why, who, when, how it happened, and most of the time the questions are going to be more difficult to answer. This does not mean you can give them a simple answer and expect them to be satisfied. If you do not want to try and answer their question, have them research it and try to figure it out on their own, and then bring it back to the class for discussion. Students are more apt to remember the answer if they find it out for themselves.

Strive for precision of language[edit]

Any study of the Holocaust touches upon nuances of human behavior. Because of the complexity of the history, there is a temptation to generalize and, thus, to distort the facts (e.g., "all concentration camps were killing centers" or "all Germans were collaborators"). Rather, you must strive to help your students clarify the information presented and encourage them to distinguish, for example, the differences between prejudice and discrimination, collaborators and bystanders, armed and spiritual resistance, direct orders and assumed orders, concentration camps and killing centers, and guilt and responsibility.

Words that describe human behavior often have multiple meanings. Resistance, for example, usually refers to a physical act of armed revolt. During the Holocaust, it also encompassed partisan activity; the smuggling of messages, food, and weapons; sabotage; and actual military engagement. Resistance may also be thought of as willful disobedience such as continuing to practice religious and cultural traditions in defiance of the rules or creating fine art, music, and poetry inside ghettos and concentration camps. For many, simply maintaining the will to remain alive in the face of abject brutality was an act of spiritual resistance.

Try to avoid stereotypical descriptions. Though all Jews were targeted for destruction by the Nazis, the experiences of all Jews were not the same. Remind your students that, although members of a group may share common experiences and beliefs, generalizations about them, without benefit of modifying or qualifying terms (e.g., "sometimes," "usually," "in many cases but not all") tend to stereotype group behavior and distort historical reality. Thus, all Germans cannot be characterized as Nazis nor should any nationality be reduced to a singular or one-dimensional description.(USHMM)

Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your study of the Holocaust[edit]

Most students express empathy for victims of mass murder. However, it is not uncommon for students to assume that the victims may have done something to justify the actions against them and, thus, to place inappropriate blame on the victims themselves. One helpful technique for engaging students in a discussion of the Holocaust is to think of the participants involved as belonging to one of four categories: victims, perpetrators, rescuers, and bystanders. Examine the actions, motives, and decisions of each group. Portray all individuals, including victims and perpetrators, as human beings who are capable of moral judgment and independent decision making.

As with any topic, students should make careful distinctions about sources of information Students should be encouraged to consider why a particular text was written, who wrote it, who the intended audience was, whether there were any biases inherent in the information, whether any gaps occurred in discussion, whether omissions in certain passages were inadvertent or not, and how the information has been used to interpret various events. Because scholars often base their research on different bodies of information, varying interpretations of history can emerge. Consequently, all interpretations are subject to analytical evaluation. Strongly encourage your students to investigate carefully the origin and authorship of all material, particularly anything found on the Internet.(USHMM)

Avoid comparisons of pain[edit]

A study of the Holocaust should always highlight the different policies carried out by the Nazi regime toward various groups of people; however, these distinctions should not be presented as a basis for comparison of the level of suffering between those groups during the Holocaust. One cannot presume that the horror of an individual, family, or community destroyed by the Nazis was any greater than that experienced by victims of other genocides. Avoid generalizations that suggest exclusivity such as "the victims of the Holocaust suffered the most cruelty ever faced by a people in the history of humanity."

Students will try and identify with the pain of the victims of genocide. The struggle is that they truly have no idea what went on, with that said do not role play with your students. Do not allow half the class to be Nazis and half the class to be the victims, this will give them a false sense of what happened to those affected by the genocide. This also tends to make them believe that "ah now i know what they went through". It gives them a false sense of security and can also lead to them feeling that what happened was not so bad.

Contextualize the history[edit]

Events of the Holocaust and, particularly, how individuals and organizations behaved at that time, should be placed in historical context. The occurrence of the Holocaust must be studied in the context of European history as a whole to give students a perspective on the precedents and circumstances that may have contributed to it.

Similarly, study of the Holocaust should be viewed within a contemporaneous context, so students can begin to comprehend the circumstances that encouraged or discouraged particular actions or events. For example, when thinking about resistance, consider when and where an act took place; the immediate consequences to one's actions to self and family; the degree of control the Nazis had on a country or local population; the cultural attitudes of particular native populations historically toward different victim groups; and the availability and risk of potential hiding places.

Encourage your students not to categorize groups of people only on the basis of their experiences during the Holocaust: contextualization is critical so that victims are not perceived only as victims. By exposing students to some of the cultural contributions and achievements of 2,000 years of European Jewish life, for example, you help them to balance their perception of Jews as victims and to better appreciate the traumatic disruption in Jewish history caused by the Holocaust.(USHMM)

Translate Statistics into people[edit]

In any study of the Holocaust, the sheer number of victims challenges easy comprehension. Show that individual people—families of grandparents, parents, and children—are behind the statistics and emphasize that within the larger historical narrative is a diversity of personal experience. Precisely because they portray people in the fullness of their lives and not just as victims, first-person accounts and memoir literature provide students with a way of making meaning out of collective numbers and add individual voices to a collective experience.

Make responsible Methodological choices[edit]

One of the primary concerns of educators teaching the history of the Holocaust is how to present horrific, historical images in a sensitive and appropriate manner. Graphic material should be used judiciously and only to the extent necessary to achieve the objective of the lesson. Try to select images and texts that do not exploit the students' emotional vulnerability or that might be construed as disrespectful of the victims themselves. Do not skip any of the suggested topics for study of the Holocaust because the visual images are too graphic. Use other approaches to address the material.

In studying complex human behavior, many teachers rely upon simulation exercises meant to help students "experience" unfamiliar situations. Even when great care is taken to prepare a class for such an activity, simulating experiences from the Holocaust remains pedagogically unsound. The activity may engage students, but they often forget the purpose of the lesson and, even worse, they are left with the impression that they now know what it was like to suffer or even to participate during the Holocaust. It is best to draw upon numerous primary sources, provide survivor testimony, and refrain from simulation games that lead to a trivialization of the subject matter.

Furthermore, word scrambles, crossword puzzles, counting objects, model building, and other gimmicky exercises tend not to encourage critical analysis but lead instead to low-level types of thinking and, in the case of Holocaust curricula, trivialization of the history. If the effects of a particular activity, even when popular with you and your students, run counter to the rationale for studying the history, then that activity should not be used. (USHMM)

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