Holocaust Activities for High School

Learning about the Holocaust is part of the curriculum at many American high schools.

As of 2011, only a handful of states require Holocaust education by law. Other states don't mandate it, but encourage teachers to educate students about genocide, racism and other difficult topics in a way that engages them by age. To grasp these concepts fully, students should ask difficult questions as they grapple with the information and their feelings. Engage your students with innovative activities that encourage them to think and question.

Reading

Teaching a difficult subject with historical significance, such as the Holocaust, doesn't mean your class is restricted to history textbooks. Combine the simplicity of reading a comic book with the personal story of Holocaust history by assigning Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning books, "Maus: A Survivor's Tale." Consisting of two books, "My Father Bleeds History" and "And Here My Troubles Began," "Maus" is a biography of Spiegelman's father, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The books are also semi-autobiographical because they explain how Spiegelman felt living, and working, with his father. Discuss with your students Spiegelman's choice to use animals to depict different nationalities, as well as how he made each character nearly identical. Another book option is the classic "Diary of Anne Frank." Frank was a young Jewish girl forced into hiding by the Nazi persecution of Jews. She hid, with her family and friends, for almost two years in a secret room in the Netherlands before the Nazis discovered her. During this time, she wrote a detailed account of her experience, dreams and wishes. Combine reading this book with a journal activity where your students describe a life-changing event.

Visuals

For a visually oriented activity, show the Oscar-winning film "Schindler's List," and then have students compare the movie with eye-witness recordings. The Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has videos from the period available to educators. You can also show the class propaganda posters and art to help students understand the power these images held.

Creative

Art is a huge part of remembering the Holocaust and helping people express the complex emotion the subject unearths. In adhering to your state's curriculum or teaching the Holocaust as a part of history or social studies, have students listen to songs and read poems. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has many creative pieces on the subject, including a song called "Never Again." Remedy, a Jewish rapper, wrote the song, which asks, "Six million died for what?"

Museums

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum features art inspired by the Holocaust, prejudice and discrimination in addition to real artifacts from World War II. Located in Washington D.C., it may not be possible for your class to visit the actual museum. However, the museum has traveling exhibitions that include items and art pertaining to the medical experiments of Nazi Germany, book burnings and the persecution of homosexuals.

References

• Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities: Art Spiegelman's MAUS: Working Through the Trauma of the Holocaust
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: A Holocaust Art Exhibit
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Upcoming Exhibitions
• The Holocaust and Genocide: The Betrayal of Humanity: A Curriculum Guide for Grades 9-12

Resources

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Teaching About the Holocaust: A Resource Book for Educators
• Remember.org: Teaching the Holocaust: Grades 4-12
• Remedy Lyrics: Never Again