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Teaching the Holocaust and other Genocides

Five-Period Pacing Guide

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Day 1: Antisemitism, the Rise of the Nazi Party,
and Consolidation of Power

Guiding Questions:

  • How did antisemitism evolve in Europe?
  • What conditions allowed the Nazi Party to gain power?
  • How did the Nazis consolidate power and use indoctrination to control German society?

Learning Objectives:

  • Identify historical roots of antisemitism
  • Understand how post-WWI conditions in Germany enabled the Nazi rise



     

Activities:

Day 2: Legalized Oppression —
Policies, Propaganda, and Dehumanization

Guiding Questions:

  • What tools did the Nazi regime use to isolate and dehumanize Jews and other groups?
  • What was life like under increasing Nazi control?
  • How did propaganda support government policy?

Learning Objectives:

  • Analyze the Nuremberg Laws and supplemental laws and their effects
  • Understand the relationship between state policy and public opinion


     

Activities:

Day 3: Escalation — Ghettos, Deportations, and Daily Life

Guiding Questions:

  • What role did ghettos and deportation play in the Nazi plan?
  • What was life like for Jewish families in ghettos?

Learning Objectives:

  • Locate major ghettos and understand their function
  • Analyze conditions of daily life under confinement and starvation

Activities:

Day 4: The Final Solution — Camps and Mass Murder

Guiding Questions:

  • What was “Holocaust by Bullets”?
  • What was the “Final Solution”?
  • How did the Nazis organize mass murder?

     

Learning Objectives:

  • Describe how the Holocaust was carried out through camps and killing centers
  • Differentiate between concentration camps, labor camps, and extermination camps

Activities:
  • Mini-Lecture & Diagram
    • The structure of the “Final Solution” (Wannsee Conference, transportation, gas chambers, etc.)
  • Testimony Analysis
    • Survivor excerpts or short video clips
  • Primary Source Analysis
    • Excerpts from Elie Wiesel’s Night
    • Liberation reports
    • Letters from camp survivors
  • Timeline Activity
    • Trace the expansion of the “Final Solution” from 1941-1945
  • Student Response
    • What does systematic genocide look like, based on this evidence?

Day 5: Resistance, Bystanders, and the End of the Holocaust

Guiding Questions:

  • How did people resist Nazi persecution?
  • What roles did rescuers, collaborators, and bystanders play?
  • How did governments and the international community react to news of the genocide?
  • How was justice pursued after the Holocaust?

Learning Objectives:

  • Identify various forms of resistance (armed, cultural, spiritual)
  • Evaluate the moral and practical choices people made during the Holocaust
  • Examine the liberation of the camps
  • Discuss the outcomes of the Nuremberg Trials
     

Activities:
End of Unit Reflection:

How did ordinary people shape the course of the Holocaust?