Echoes & Reflections is a leading provider of free Holocaust education resources and professional development for the middle and high school classroom. We help educators to teach about the Holocaust accurately and with confidence. Our goal is to enhance students' historical knowledge, critical thinking, and personal understanding of this history. GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening This unit introduces students…

Echoes & Reflections GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening In this unit, students learn about the origins of antisemitism and how this hatred was exploited by the Nazis during the 1920s and 1930s as part of their racist ideology. Students define the terms antisemitism and stereotype, review text and video sources, and create a timeline reflecting examples of antisemitism throughout history. Students will…

Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustGRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language The lessons in this unit increase students’ understanding of Jewish people and awareness that antisemitism did not end after the Holocaust, and provide them with opportunities to learn about the persistence of antisemitism in its contemporary forms. Students investigate the ways in which old ideas about Jews and Judaism have…

Echoes & Reflections is a leading provider of free Holocaust education resources and professional development for the middle and high school classroom. We help educators to teach about the Holocaust accurately and with confidence. Our goal is to enhance students' historical knowledge, critical thinking, and personal understanding of this history. GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening This unit provides an opportunity for…

Echoes & Reflections is a leading provider of free Holocaust education resources and professional development for the middle and high school classroom. We help educators to teach about the Holocaust accurately and with confidence. Our goal is to enhance students' historical knowledge, critical thinking, and personal understanding of this history. GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening The purpose of this unit is for students…

GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening This unit provides students with an opportunity to learn about the types of rescue that occurred in Nazi-occupied Europe and to consider the moral and ethical choices that non-Jews made in order to help Jews survive. The unit also outlines the obstacles and dangers that hidden children faced during the Holocaust. Throughout the unit, students have an opportunity to consider the…

GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening This unit provides an opportunity for students to explore Jewish resistance efforts during the Holocaust—focusing on the period from the establishment of the ghettos through the implementation of the “Final Solution.” An opportunity is provided for students to learn about the risks of resisting Nazi domination and the means, scope, and intensity of resistance…

GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening In this unit, students learn about the ghettos established throughout Nazi Europe and understand that the ghettos were one phase in the continuum of Nazi racial policies that sought to solve the so-called “Jewish problem.” Students investigate the conditions in ghettos and how those conditions severely limited Jewish life and led to immense suffering. Using primary source…

GRADE LEVEL: High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Language We see symbols every day in all aspects of our lives. Symbols are used to convey ideas, qualities, emotions, material objects/products, opinions and beliefs. Unfortunately, symbols are also used to convey hate and bias. Lately, we have seen a lot of hate symbol graffiti in public spaces and specifically the swastika, which in most circumstances is understood as an expression of antisemitism. There has reportedly…

GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Speaking and Listening, Language The surge of antisemitic incidents in the United States is alarming to many. Several reported incidents include graffiti using swastikas, bomb threats, vandalism and shootings, bomb threats targeting Jewish Community Centers (JCC) and Jewish institutions across the country. Over the past 10 years, ADL has recorded a record number of antisemitic incidents across the U.S. Since 2015,…

GRADE LEVEL: K-12 Bullying is a major problem in our schools. When it targets aspects of a person’s identity, it is called identity-based bullying, and may include bias about appearance, race, culture, gender and gender expression, language, religion, socioeconomic status, disability and sexual orientation. According to the CDC’s 2024 Youth Violence Prevention study focused on bullying, 1 in 5 high school students report being bullied in school in the past year. That same CDC…

GRADE LEVEL: High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language Since its contrivance at the turn of the twentieth century by the Russian secret police, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) has taken root in bigoted and uneducated minds around the world. The booklet’s twenty-four sections spell out the alleged confidential plans of a Jewish conclave seeking to attain world domination. They represent…

Share and discuss with middle and high school students war-time experiences of three child survivors and how the Holocaust affected them.