USHMM Guidelines for Teaching about the Holocaust Methodological Considerations

1 Define the term “Holocaust.” Define the term “Holocaust.”

The Holocaust The Holocaust refers to a specific genocidal event in twentieth-century history: the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and Jews were the primary victims— 6 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 dissidents, also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny.

Systematic Arrival of trains carrying Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau (May 1944)

European Jewry

... and their collaborators Hungary’s Arrow Cross, late 1944 Croatian Ustasa, French police round up foreign Jews, 1941 Lithuanians, Ponary Forest, June 1941

2 Avoid comparisons of pain. Avoid comparisons of pain.

Roma Nomadic Roma (Gypsies). Czechoslovakia, 1939

Jehovah’s Witnesses Helene Gotthold, German Jehovah’s Witness, and her children, 1936

Levels of suffering? Rwanda American slavery Armenia Trail of Tears

3 Avoid simple answers to complex history. Avoid simple answers to complex history.

Why didn’t they just leave? The voyage of the St. Louis, May – June 1939

Evian Conference

4 Just because it happened does not mean it was inevitable. Just because it happened does not mean it was inevitable.

People made conscious choices Close-up of Richard Jenne, the last child killed by the head nurse at the Kaufbeuren-Irsee euthanasia facility. 1945

James Grover McDonald McDonald’s (on the left) accusation in December, 1935, that the German government was pursuing a policy of racial extermination, made the front page of the NY Times. What if the League of Nations or the US had taken him seriously?

5 Strive for precision of language. Strive for precision of language.

RESISTANCE ARMEDSPIRITUAL

What do these terms have in common? Kristallnacht Final Solution Jewish question Resettlement in the East Euthanasia Treated appropriately

6 Make careful distinctions about sources of information. Make careful distinctions about sources of information.

Court Transcripts Chief prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz presents his case at the Einsatzgruppen Trial in Would the defendants be expected to tell the “whole truth, and nothing but the truth”?

Military Reports Image from the Stroop Report prepared for Heinrich Himmler to celebrate victory in the Warsaw ghetto uprising (May 1943). Might the writer have changed the facts to please his superior?

Secret archives One of the milk cans that held the Ringelblum archives, a record of life in the Warsaw ghetto including descriptive reports, summaries of oral testimony, minutes of meetings, diary entries, newspaper articles, and German proclamations. How much of the bigger picture would ghetto residents have known?

7 Try to avoid stereotypical descriptions. Try to avoid stereotypical descriptions.

Jews didn’t resist. A group of Jewish partisans in the Rudniki forest, near Vilna, between 1942 and 1944.

8 Do not romanticize history to engage students’ interest. Do not romanticize history to engage students’ interest.

Schindler Krakow, Poland (1943)

Eliezer Zilber, a member of the Kovno ghetto resistance, poses in the forested area where he fought as a partisan. (Lithuania, wartime)

9 Contextualize the history you are teaching. Contextualize the history you are teaching.

“The Fearful Legacy of an Alcoholic” 1936 In 83 years this woman will have 894 offspring. Of those: 40 poverty-stricken 67 hardened criminals 7 murderers 181 prostitutes 142 beggars These asocials and their activities will cost the state 5 million RM.

Stories provide context Yona Dickmann fashioned this aluminum comb from airplane parts after the SS transferred her from Auschwitz to forced labor in an airplane factory in Freiburg, Germany, in November She used the comb as her hair, shaven in Auschwitz, began to grow back.

10 Translate statistics into people. Translate statistics into people.

Ejszyszki Tower, USHMM

Nina Kaleska (Grodno, Poland 1941)

Testimony personalizes events They had two ghettos in in Grodno. The upper ghetto and the ghetto in..not very far from where we lived. And very shortly the entire, the entire Jewish population of Grodno was being uprooted from their home. And that I remember very distinctly and with great pain. We had some beautiful china. We had a very lovely home. Wasn't rich but it was beautiful. The Germans would come in and simply at the whim of a wisp, just like that [snaps fingers], remove the most beautiful china and just throw it against a wall to break it, for fun, and started to taunt and tease. And you didn't really have to be old or young to recognize that this was the devil in the flesh. (1941)

11 Be sensitive to appropriate written and audiovisual content. Be sensitive to appropriate written and audiovisual content.

Members of an unidentified Einsatzkommando look on as a young Jew prepares to be shot. The corpses in front of him are those of his murdered family and the men to the left are ethnic Germans aiding the kommando. July 4, 1941

"Long live Germany!"

12 Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your study of the Holocaust. Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your study of the Holocaust.

Perpetrators “The work of the execution units was carried out smoothly…The total number of Jews liquidated in Lithuania is 71,105.” (Report Einsatzgruppe A, 15 October 1941)

Victims “There were screams to heaven – it was something terrible, that one cannot forget. And there was nothing to be done…And when they shot me, I fell on the dead” (Dina Beitler, survivor)

Bystanders A group of German actors parodies Jewish farmers in a Shrove Tuesday parade in February, 1939.

13 Select appropriate learning activities. Select appropriate learning activities.

“live through the pain and hardship”

“put them into the shoes of the Jews”

14 Reinforce the objectives of your lesson plan. Reinforce the objectives of your lesson plan.

What is our responsibility to others? Darfur

Democracy doesn’t work on its own

Literature

FILM