Resource Library
Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.
We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.
Introducing Our US History Curriculum Collection
Draw from this flexible curriculum collection as you plan any middle or high school US history course. Featuring units, C3-style inquiries, and case studies, the collection will help you explore themes of democracy and freedom with your students throughout the year.
Witness to a Massacre
Barbara Turkeltaub, a Jewish girl who was hidden by Catholic nuns during the war, describes witnessing a Nazi massacre.
The Nanjing Atrocities: Crimes of War
This resource details the events that unfolded in China and Japan in the years leading up to World War II and the war crimes known today as the Nanjing Atrocities.
The Artist and His Mother by Arshile Gorky
This image, which is on the cover of Facing History's publication Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians was painted by the artist Arshile Gorky. It is based on a photograph of Gorky and his mother, Sushan der Marderosian, taken in 1912. Although Gorky is generally identified as an American artist, he was born Vosdanig Adoian near the city of Van in what was then the Ottoman Empire. A few years after the photograph was taken, Gorky and his mother were victims of the Armenian Genocide. While he survived, Gorky remembers his mother dying in his arms. As an artist Gorky returned to the subject of the 1912 photograph many times throughout his career.
Main Nazi Camps and Killing Sites
Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis established more than 40,000 camps for the imprisonment, forced labor, or mass killing of Jews, Sinti and Roma, Communists, and other so-called “enemies of the state."
The French Bishops' Protest Against the Nazi Occupation in France and the Vel' d'Hiv Police Roundup
Scholar Aliza Luft discusses how French bishops reacted to the growing hostility towards Jews in occupied France during World War II.
Holocaust Memorials and Monuments
Explore images of memorials and monuments to the Holocaust located in Europe and the United States.
United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Crime of Genocide
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition.
Negotiating the Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide
Lemkin proved himself a relentless activist. He worked tirelessly as a lobbyist, a strategist, and an agitator, in order to establish the Genocide Convention with the help of the United Nations on December 9, 1948.
International Law in the Age of Genocide
While Lemkin was able to convince diplomats at the United Nations to pass the Genocide Convention, his work was not complete upon his death. The job of lobbying governments across the world to ratify the convention was left to ordinary people.