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Lesson Plans

10 Results

Studying the Holocaust

Lesson Plan
Jews Forcibly Pulled Out of Dugouts, 1943
Echoes & Reflections GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening This unit introduces students to the Holocaust by providing a vocabulary for studying the Holocaust and establishing a rationale for the importance of learning about instances of mass atrocity and genocide. Students explore the value of examining different types of source material when studying the Holocaust, with a special emphasis on visual…
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The Children and Legacies Beyond the Holocaust

Lesson Plan
Children Playing in the Lodz Ghetto, 1940
Echoes & Reflections GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening The purpose of this unit is for students to understand the effects of the Holocaust on its most innocent victims—children—since targeting babies and children was an important step in the attempt by the Nazis to erase the Jews and their future. Students will also research post-Holocaust genocides and analyze children’s rights…
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The "Final Solution"

Lesson Plan
Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustThe purpose of this unit is for students to learn about one of humanity’s darkest chapters—the systematic mass murder of the Jews that came to be known as the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” This includes learning about the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads), the Nazi extermination camps, and the perpetrators and collaborators who took part in the murder. Students also learn how Jews attempted to maintain…
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Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Bystanders during the Holocaust

Lesson Plan
Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustThis unit provides an opportunity for students to examine the complex issues of responsibility and guilt within the context of the Nazi occupation of Europe. Students will also learn about the war crimes trials following World War II and consider the responsibility of the free world to provide a safe haven for refugees attempting to escape Europe. This unit also provides students with an introduction to Holocaust denial as a contemporary form of…
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Holocaust Survivors and Liberators

Lesson Plan
Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustThe purpose of this unit is to provide students with an understanding of the political, legal, social, and emotional status of the Jewish survivors. This unit also examines the role of the liberators following the defeat of the Nazis at the end of World War II. Learning Objectives: Describe the complex emotional ramifications of liberation for Jews at the end of World War II. Describe the complex emotional ramifications of liberation…
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Nazi Germany

Lesson Plan
Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustThe purpose of this unit is for students to learn about the Weimar Republic’s fragile democracy between 1918 and 1933 and to examine historical events that allowed for the complete breakdown of democracy in Germany between 1933 and 1939, which led to the unfolding of anti-Jewish policies. Students will investigate primary source materials in order to understand how legislation, terror, and propaganda isolated German Jewry from German…
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Rescuers and Non-Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust

Lesson Plan
Boat with Jews Sailing from Falster Denmark to Ystad in Sweden, 1943
Echoes & Reflections 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…
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The Ghettos in Nazi Europe

Lesson Plan
Echoes & Reflections: Teaching the HolocaustIn 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 material, students discover that despite severe overcrowding,…
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On the Rise: Antisemitism in Europe

Lesson Plan
Swastika In School
GRADE LEVEL: High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening Reports Show an Alarming Rise of Antisemitism in Europe Several reports over the past few years have pointed to an increase in antisemitism in Europe, both in terms of hate incidents and anti-Jewish attitudes. Human Rights First (based in the U.S.), the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) (based in Vienna) and ADL all report higher levels of antisemitism compared to previous years;…
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Antisemitism Around the World: Global 100

Lesson Plan
g100
GRADE LEVEL: High School COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Speaking and Listening Antisemitism: Surging in the 21st Century  The ADL Global 100: An Index of Antisemitism™ is the most extensive poll on antisemitic attitudes and opinions toward Jewish people ever conducted. It consists of surveys of the general public in over 100 countries and territories gauging levels of antisemitic attitudes and adherence to traditional antisemitic stereotypes. First conducted in 2014, ADL…
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