The Holocaust
Teacher Resources
Lesson Guide
Find lesson timing, sample answers, teaching tips, and important teacher instructions.
Community Post: Teaching That Genocide Didn’t End With the Holocaust
While we hoped for “never again,” many of us are responsible for teaching that genocide didn’t end after World War 2. See what strategies other teachers use to address these horrifying events.
Driving Question: How did the world respond to Nazi atrocities?
Learn what happened during the Holocaust and how the world responded. Through powerful stories, sources, and reflection, you’ll consider how individuals and nations made choices in the face of atrocity.
Learning Objectives:
- Use close-reading skills to analyze how the Holocaust unfolded under authoritarian rule.
- Use evidence to reflect on the moral, political, and humanitarian challenges raised by Nazi atrocities.
- Create arguments using historical evidence to support claims and communicate conclusions through formal writing.
Vocab Terms:
Before learning how people responded to the Holocaust, take time to reflect on what it means to be responsible and compassionate in the face of injustice. This activity will help you begin thinking about the moral choices individuals and communities made during one of history’s darkest moments.
The two graphic biographies in this lesson are great ways to provoke a discussion about individual responsibility during times of atrocity and crisis. Paired with the Assessing Responsibility and Conscience activity, they help bring attention to those people who claim that they were “just following orders” or that something “wasn’t their problem.” More important, these two biographies focus on two people who refused to use those excuses.
In this section, you’ll explore what happened during the Holocaust and how individuals tried to make a difference. Through survivor testimony, primary sources, and the story of Manuel Quezon’s efforts to help Jewish refugees, you’ll reflect on the impact of individual choices and what it really means to say “never again.”
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
You’ve just learned about one of the worst atrocities in world history. Use this activity to grapple with the difficult questions you have about who was responsible.
Khanmigo Writing Coach is an AI-powered tool designed specifically for teachers and students in K–12 and secondary classrooms. This tool can help you teach many OER Project: World History writing activities. It can be used to provide individual feedback and revisions on early student work. If you’re interested, check out this Khanmigo Writing Coach Guide.
Examine sources and build a historical argument about the Nazi Party’s rise to power. This assessment asks you to connect causes, perspectives, and consequences using evidence from across the lesson.
Did you know: At Nuremberg, the court used one of the earliest large-scale systems of simultaneous interpretation so the trial could function in English, French, German, and Russian.
Leann how the Nazis used laws to strip away rights—and how the world later responded with the Nuremberg Trials. This article asks you to consider what justice looks like after mass violence.
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Guiding Questions
