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Surviving Theresienstadt: The Michael Gruenbaum Collection

Photo archivist Judith Cohen describes how a scrapbook and memory book from Holocaust survivor Michael Gruenbaum provide a rare view into life in the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto.

Video Length

07:12

Subject

History
Social Studies

Language

English — US

Updated

June 6, 2018

The Holocaust

Credit:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Lesson

Students examine the steps the Nazis took to replace democracy with dictatorship and draw conclusions about the values and institutions that make democracy possible.

Germans look on as the Reichstag building burns on February 27, 1933.

Lesson

Students consider the choices and reasoning of individual Germans who stayed quiet or spoke up during the first few years of Nazi rule.

German military recruits swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

Lesson

Students analyze images and film that convey the richness of Jewish life across Europe at the time of the Nazis’ ascension to power.

Shabbtai (Shepske) Sonenson takes one of the shtetl's Hebrew teachers for a ride on his new motorcycle.

Lesson

Students identify the social and cultural factors that help shape our identities by analyzing firsthand reflections and creating personal identity charts.

Hands raised in the air by group of people

Lesson

Students are introduced to the enormity of the crimes committed during the Holocaust and look closely at stories of a few individuals who were targeted by Nazi brutality.

A crowd of women and children, some with Stars of David patches on their clothing.

Lesson

Students both respond to and design Holocaust memorials as they consider the impact that memorials and monuments have on the way we think about history.

In Kassel, Germany, artist Horst Hoheisel created a “counter-memorial” marking the site where a majestic fountain built by a Jewish citizen once stood; it had been destroyed by Nazis in 1939.

Lesson

Students develop a contract establishing a reflective classroom community in preparation for their exploration of this unit's historical case study.

Student writing in class.

Lesson

Students deepen their examination of human behavior during the Holocaust by analyzing and discussing the range of choices available to individuals, groups, and nations.

Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst in June 1942.

Lesson

Students learn about the violent pogroms of Kristallnacht by watching a short documentary and then reflecting on eyewitness testimonies.

Image showing the destruction resulting from Kristallnacht.

Lesson

Students are introduced to the Nazis’ idea of a “national community” and examine how the Nazis used the Nuremberg Laws to define who belonged.

In 1933, Jewish businessman Oskar Danker and his girlfriend, a Christian woman, were forced to carry signs discouraging Jewish-German integration. Intimate relationships between “true Germans” and Jews were outlawed by 1935.

Lesson

Students analyze several examples of Nazi propaganda and consider how the Nazis used media to influence the thoughts, feelings, and actions of individual Germans.

An issue of the antisemitic propaganda newspaper Der Stürmer (The Attacker) is posted on the sidewalk in Worms, Germany, in 1935. The headline above the case says, ""The Jews Are Our Misfortune.""

Lesson

Students think about the responsibilities of governments as they consider how countries around the world responded to the European Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany.

refugees on a large boat

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Using the strategies from Facing History is almost like an awakening.

— Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

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