Teacher Resources

Find information about teaching with Some Were Neighbors and explore related resources.

GETTING STARTED

What Was the Holocaust?

The Holocaust was the persecution and murder of European Jews by the Nazi regime, its allies, and its collaborators. The Holocaust was an evolving process that took place throughout Europe between 1933 and 1945.

After the Nazis rose to power in 1933, they began to target and exclude Jews from German society. The regime’s persecution of Jews in Germany grew more radical over the course of the 1930s. After conquering much of Europe in World War II, Nazi leaders formed a plan to murder all European Jews. Most of the six million victims were killed through brutal mistreatment, starvation, mass shootings, and gassing at specialized killing centers. The Holocaust ended when the Allied powers defeated Nazi Germany in 1945.

Key Messages of the Exhibition

• The Nazis could not have carried out the Holocaust alone. Ordinary people played a key role in the persecution and murder of Europe’s Jews.

• People across Europe weighed a variety of motives, pressures, and choices in responding to the plight of the victims.

• Only rarely did individuals decide to help or rescue their Jewish neighbors, friends, and coworkers.

RESOURCES

Lesson Plans and Guides

Teacher Guide to Some Were Neighbors This lesson explores the online exhibition Some Were Neighbors. In this lesson, students will examine examples of choices of ordinary people during the Holocaust and think critically about the fears, pressures, and motivations that might have shaped their behaviors.

• Lesson Plan (PDF)

Deconstructing the Familiar This photo activity has students examine photographs from the exhibition. By examining the photographs, first without a caption and then with a caption, students see the behaviors of ordinary individuals and think about the pressures and motives that might have shaped the behaviors.

• Lesson Plan (PDF)

• Photographs (PDF)

• Worksheet (PDF)

• Activity Chart (PDF)

Transcripts

Download a PDF with full transcripts of all oral histories and other videos in the exhibition.

Poster Set

This set of posters is based on the Some Were Neighbors museum exhibition and is available to download in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Kiswahili, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Holocaust Encyclopedia

This online encyclopedia contains articles, film, photographs, individual histories, survivor testimony, timelines, maps, artifacts, music, and links to resources. The following articles provide further context to the themes of the exhibition.

• Bystanders

• Collaboration

• The Role of Civil Servants

• The Role of Academics and Teachers

• The Role of the German Police

• How and why did ordinary people across Europe contribute to the persecution of their Jewish neighbors?

Exhibition Video

This video was originally created as an introduction to the Museum exhibition. It features testimonies, photographs, and historical footage that provides an introduction to the key themes of the exhibition (5:30 min).

Experiencing History

This online platform offers curated collections of digital primary sources on the Holocaust for educators and their students. Several collections in Experiencing History address the theme of Everyday Life: Roles, Motives, and Choices during the Holocaust.

Teaching Module on Ethical Leadership

Developed for university professors and their students, these educational modules explore how challenges to ethical behavior and leadership played out in the context of the Holocaust. The modules pose larger questions about how these challenges confront us today.