Topics to Teach

The Museum has identified topic areas for you to consider while planning a course of study on the Holocaust.

• Welcome and Introduction  • 
• Before you start teaching  • 
• 1. Define the term ‘Holocaust’  • 
• 2. Contextualize the history you are teaching  • 
• 3. Translate statistics into people  • 
• 4. Strive for precision of language  • 
• 5. Avoid simple answers to complex history  • 
• 6. Just because it happened does not mean it was inevitable  • 
• 7. Try to avoid stereotypical descriptions  • 
• 8. Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your study of the Holocaust  • 
• 9. Make careful distinctions about sources of information  • 
• 10. Do not romanticize history to engage students’ interest  • 
• 11. Be sensitive to appropriate written and audiovisual content  • 
• 12. Select appropriate learning activities  • 
• 13. Reinforce the objectives of your lesson plan  • 
• 14. Avoid comparisons of pain  • 
• Topics to Teach  • 
• Sample Lessons  • 
• Conclusion

• Guest Lecture: Dr. William Meinecke Jr. discusses the topic "Nazi Ideology and Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution."

• Personal Testimony: Nesse Godin, a survivor of the Siauliai ghetto in Lithuania, the Stuffhof concentration camp, four labor camps, and a death march, shares her memories.