What is the Holocaust?

The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. This resource introduces students to how a modern, cultured society descended into genocide, why escape was nearly impossible, and how Jewish communities and individuals resisted in both spiritual and armed ways.

This video and the accompanying curriculum guides students through the chronological unfolding of the Holocaust: from the isolation of Jews in 1930s Germany, through the implementation of the “Final Solution”, to liberation and its aftermath. By understanding the Holocaust, students confront fundamental questions about human nature, the dangers of unchecked hatred and propaganda, the consequences of indifference, and the resilience of the human spirit.

How to use the guide
This guide is designed to support student engagement with the video “What is the Holocaust?” and can be adapted for various classroom settings. The curriculum provides multiple entry points: pre-learning activities to activate prior knowledge, discussion questions that encourage critical thinking and empathy, and summative activities that allow students to demonstrate understanding in diverse ways.

Discussion Questions

1. Humanity as Resistance: What does resistance mean in the context of the Holocaust? Why would teaching children or keeping a diary be acts of resistance? How does each form of resistance assert humanity against dehumanization? Why resist when survival or victory seems impossible? How do we honor both those who resisted and those who couldn’t?
2. Loss Beyond the Numbers: When you consider what was destroyed: individual lives, whole communities , languages and cultures, knowledge and traditions, future generations , and the basic sense of safety and belonging–how do we comprehend numbers like six million while honoring each individual person? What does it mean for an entire world—not just people, but communities, languages, traditions, knowledge—to be lost? When a community that existed for centuries is nearly completely destroyed, what’s lost that can never be rebuilt?

Learning Activities

1. Jewish Life in the Ghettos Case Study
   The video describes how Jews were forced into ghettos in cities such as Warsaw, Lodz, and Krakow, where “overcrowding, hunger, and disease claimed thousands of lives even before deportations began”. In small groups, ask students to create a 5-7 minute presentation on daily life and resistance in different ghettos. Students should examine:
   • Population, size, establishment and liquidation timeline of each ghetto
   • Living conditions
   • Examples of spiritual/cultural and armed resistance
   • 2-3 examples of individual stories illustrating life in the ghetto
2. Interactive Timeline Exhibition
   Using 10-15 events from the timeline, students will create a digital “exhibit” that focuses on pairing events from the timeline with primary sources such as photographs, artifacts, newspapers, or diaries. Students should explain how their artifact connects to their event and focus on highlighting individual stories whenever possible. Students should use the following databases and resources to gather artifacts:
   • USHMM
   • Yad Vashem
   • YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

1. ConnectED:
   • World War II and the Holocaust
   • Faces of the Holocaust 
2. USHMM: Introduction to the Holocaust
3. Lesson Plan: Yad Vashem “These Are My Last Words” 
4. Yad Vashem (Podcast): Inside The Wannsee Conference
5. Book: Who Will Write Our History? Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto
6. Facing History: An Overview of the Nuremberg Trials