BOLMAN.HISTORY
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    • Lesson 1
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The Holocaust.

Stage 1: The Holocaust

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." 
                                                                                                                                                                              -Albert Einstein
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usc: pyramid of hate lesson
friendship and betrayal
We begin the study of the Holocaust by talking about how or what can bring a society to commit these reprehnsible crimes.  What is most important to note is that no nation begins with genocide.  Instead, there is a steady rise in prejudice, discrimination and propaganda within the nation to ready the population for genocide.  So we stop and use the Holocaust as our guide through the various steps of this pyramid.  Used by the ADL and USC Shoah Foundation the "Pyramid of Hate" starts our conversation about the journey we will take to learn about the various time periods within the Holocaust, from the years before the rise of Adolf Hitler to the process of propaganda to the actual Final Solution.  
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Professor Doris Bergen lectures on the Phases of the Holocaust.
step by step
accompanying handout
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Gallery Walk: Jewish Life before the War

The purpose of this Gallery Walk is to showcase the photographic work of Roman Vishniac who documented Jewish life before the Second World War.  The reason I find this unit important is to showcase the richness of Jewish life before the Holocaust to paint an even greater sense of loss of people, community, and Jewish life in an entire geographical region over the course of the upcoming decade.  The students task is to travel around the room - like a museum - to evaluate Jewish life before the war and writing reflections on the feelings that the images elicit.  
Gallery Walk Worksheet
File Size: 324 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Roman Vishniac Downloadable Images
File Size: 46571 kb
File Type: pptx
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yad vashem: jewish life before the war
spielberg video
yad vashem video

Germany before the Rise of Adolf Hitler:
the weimar republic and the fragility of democracy
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Weimar Constitution
File Size: 111 kb
File Type: pdf
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The purpose of studying the Weimar Constitution is to have students decipher what kind of a nation Germans were aiming to create in the aftermath of the First World War.  In assessing the rights and responsibilities ascribed to German citizens we are able to then have a conversation comparing Germany under the Weimar Republic to countries with similar rights today.  The question, then, is what happened in Germany to allow for the rise of the Nazi Party and assessing the critical nature of this short historical period.
the treaty of versailles
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Treaty of Versailles
File Size: 358 kb
File Type: pdf
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​Students read excerpts from the Treaty of Versailles and evaluate whether or not the terms were vindictive and how that might affect political, economic and social life in Germany in the post-WWI era. 
Hyperinflation
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fhao link

Gallery Walk: Nazi Propaganda
Gallery Walk - Nazi Propaganda
File Size: 1085 kb
File Type: pdf
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Hitler's Ideology
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FHAO Video Link
In our discussion of Hitler's rise to power, students will read an excerpt from "Mein Kampf".  After this, we will go back to the "Pyramid of Hate" that we studied (above) and question what stage of the pyramid Germany had reached by the time Hitler writes "Mein Kampf" and then again evaluate what level of the pyramid is reached when Adolf Hitler takes power.

These Yad Vashem videos are quick looks into concentration camps and Nazi ideology.  They're quick ways to get key definitions down.


Milton Mayer: "No Time to Think"
audio reading link
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This is one of my favorite readings in our Holocaust unit because of its depth.  Just like many of my students, I have always questioned how an entire German society just went along, supported and even committed acts of murder and prejudice against the Jews.  At the beginning of our unit we study the Weimar constitution and are able to draw analogies between this German document and many of the key government documents of liberal, democratic nations around the world.  So what happened?  Reading the words of Milton Mayer - a German college professor - speak about how the gradual change happened alongside the caution that educated individuals took to speak up until they realized they couldn't even do that.  What this reading does is bring a human aspect to the history.  Can all Germans be guilty?  So much of myself wanted to (as a young person) to punish all Germans but is that fair?  Mayer writes about the complexity.  You empathize for his situation and simultaneously know the reality of what his words meant for countless individuals - Jews and gypsies and homosexuals and everyone who suffered the ultimate fate in Hitler's Germany.

Kristallnacht

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fhao video link
the story of wilhelm kahle: "thoroughly reprehensible behavior"

Psychology of Genocidal Behavior
This is why we use Facing History.  It is not about studying just the facts of the Holocaust or just reading the diaries of Jewish individuals who suffered through this moment.  We are also studying humanity.  Here we listen to a psychologist explain what makes people make the decisions that they do and how, ultimately, a nation can bring itself to commit genocide against a part of its population. 
fhao video link
police battalion 101
There is one important element to understand as the teacher and make sure that you actively frame with your students.  Talking about what leads to genocide is not being apologetic or provide reasons for this genocide.  There is no excuse.  There is no understanding.  There is nothing we can say to reason with the guilt that Germany deserves for this history, however, we also study history to learn about the elements that we need to be cautious about for the future.  To understand how to prevent history from preventing itself, then we bring psychology into the mix.  We aim to understand - not excuse - human behavior.
Discussing Hard History
There isn't anything "easy" about discussing the Holocaust but when students begin this journey many of them have preconceived notions of the historic details of this time period.  For this it is imperative that our classroom needs to be a space in which every individuals' thoughts and feelings are accepted and respected.
fhao video link
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The Diaries of Young People during the Holocaust: 

yitshok rudashevski
A beautiful, sunny day has risen. The streets are closed off by Lithuanians. The streets are turbulent. Jewish workers are permitted to enter. A ghetto is being created for Vilna Jews."
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anonymous girl
My God, what has happened to me? I [don’t] know how to restrain myself. Then I starve all day. I wish I were different. God, take pity on me. "

It was important to me that our study of the Holocaust wasn't just about facts.  Instead it is about the story of the individuals who lived through this ordeal.  That is why I chose the majority of our study to revolve around diaries.  In particular, we are looking at the diaries of young people whose many ideas or actions resonate with my students who are the same age. 

Gallery Walk: The Lodz Ghetto
Gallery Walk Worksheet
File Size: 324 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

The surprising photographs that emerged from the Lodz Ghetto help students get a feeling for what life was like within the ghetto walls.  For myself - as I'm sure it was for my students as well - the images are eerie as we know the fate of so many of the individuals within the photos.

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Concentration Camps
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Resistance and the Partisans

lesson ideas for studying partisans
They Shall Not Take Us Like Sheep to the Slaughter!
Jewish youth, do not be led astray. Of the 80,000 Jews in the “Jerusalem of Lithuania” [Vilna] only 20,000 have remained. Before our eyes they tore from us our parents, our brothers and sisters. Where are the hundreds of men who were taken away for work by the Lithuanian “snatchers”? Where are the naked women and children who were taken from us in the night of terror of the provokatzia?
Where are the Jews [who were taken away on] the Day of Atonement?
Where are our brothers from the second ghetto?
All those who were taken away from the ghetto never came back.
All the roads of the Gestapo lead to Ponary.
And Ponary is death!
Doubters! Cast off all illusions. Your children, your husbands, and your wives are no longer alive.
Ponary is not a camp—all are shot there.
Hitler aims to destroy all the Jews of Europe. The Jews of Lithuania are fated to be the first in line.
Let us not go as sheep to slaughter!
It is true that we are weak and defenseless, but resistance is the only reply to the enemy!
Brothers! It is better to fall as free fighters than to live by the grace of the murderers.
Resist! To the last breath.
January 1, 1942, Vilna Ghetto.

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the righteous among the nations
“Both evil and goodness evolve.  Heroes are not born; their evolution often begins with small steps.  People learn by doing, change as a result of their own actions.  Very often rescuers agreed to hide a person or family, expecting this to be for a short time.  But once people begin to help, their concern for the welfare of those they helped increases.  They begin to see themselves as caring people.  Some rescuers would take in more people to hide, or if they succeeded to move people to a safer place, they looked for more opportunities to help.  What sometimes began as limited commitment often became intense involvement.”
​Ervin Staub, a psychologist and a Holocaust survivor who was born in Hungary
In pairs students are tasked with creating an oral presentation (the visual is up to them) to tell the class the story of one of the Righteous among the Nations.  Each pair is assigned one of the following individuals: Regina Rotenberg Wolbrom, Teresa Zabinski, Chiune Sugihara, Georg Duckwitz, Moshe Beyski, Rauol Wallenberg, Hiram Bingham and Selahattin Ulkumen.

America during the Holocaust
America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference
The question of what America was doing during the Holocaust is something that has always resonated with me but has been overlooked by many units of study on the Holocaust.  We naturally focus so much on what was happening in Europe that we don't stop to discuss what is happening in other areas of the world.  Who can or will step up to do something in reaction to what is happening in Europe?  To study this we use the case of the St Louis and the documentary above. 
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survivor circles
our keynote project

Stage 2: Memory and Legacy

“Should such memorials be literal or abstract?  Should they honor the dead or disturb the very possibility of honor in atrocity?  Should they be monumental, or instead disavow the monumental image, itself so associated with Nazism?  Preserve memories or challenge as pretense the notion that memories ever exist outside the process of constructing them?” - Martha Minow
Questions to Consider:
  • What is justice?
  • What is revenge?
  • Are justice and revenge the same?
  • How do we keep history alive in our communities?
  • Which events and people are worth remembering, and why?
  • How do we remember the Holocaust?  How should we?
  • Who has the responsibility or obligation for remembering the Holocaust?
  • Who will remember when there are no survivors left?
students read: "facing the past in poland"
students read: "why did god allow the holocaust?"
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Stage 3: Judgment 

The Nuremberg Trials:
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watch "monsters and men"

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"Defendant Oskar Gröning, a former SS member, at a courtroom in Lüneburg, Germany, April 21, 2015. Gröning, age 93, was found guilty of aiding in the murder of 300,000 Jews at Auschwitz and sentenced to four years in prison."
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Click the photo above to watch Professor Steve Cohen discuss judgment of the Holocaust.

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Click the photo above to watch Eleanor Roosevelt's work with Displaced Persons camps following WWII
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  • Home
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  • US History
    • US HISTORY 1 >
      • Unit 1: 1491 - 1607
      • Unit 2: 1607 - 1754 >
        • Colonial Regions
        • Puritan Life
        • Thirteen Colonies
        • Metacom's War
        • Pueblo Revolt
        • Great Awakening
        • Mercantilism
        • Slave Trade
      • Unit 3: 1754 - 1800
      • Unit 4: 1800 - 1848
      • Unit 5: 1844 - 1877 >
        • Mexican-American War
        • Know Nothing Party
        • The West
      • Final Test - US1
    • US HISTORY 2
    • APUSH >
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      • Thesis Statements
      • Chapter Outlines
      • Primary Source Guide
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      • PERIOD 1 (1491-1607)
      • PERIOD 2 (1607-1754) >
        • Jamestown
        • Model of Christian Charity
        • Salem Witch Trials
        • Great Awakening
        • Slavery + The Atlantic World
        • Bacon's Rebellion
        • DBQ Assignments
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