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The following list of quality books is recommended for parents who wish to teach their children about the Holocaust. While we do not send books about the Holocaust to PJ Library subscribers, we respect the fact that many families will choose to educate their children on this topic in their own way and time.

These books are appropriate for children of varying ages; however, only you will know if they are appropriate for your child(ren). We strongly recommend that you first read any book alone in order to gauge whether it is the right book to spark discussion and questions.

PLEASE NOTE: The descriptions of the books below are offered by their respective publishers. They are not meant to be considered reviews.

Related: Children's Literature Guide from the ADL

Where to Begin

Always Remember Me: How One Family Survived World War II
By Marisabina Russo

Rachel's Oma (grandmother) has two picture albums. In one, the photographs show only happy times following World War II, when she and her daughters had come to America. But the other album includes much sadder times, when their life in Germany was destroyed by the Nazis' rise to power. For as long as Rachel can remember, Oma had closed the second album when she had gotten to the sad parts. Today, however, Oma will share it all. Today, Rachel will hear about what her grandmother, her mother, and her aunts endured.

Using the fictionalized viewpoint of a cat, Benno, it shows what happened to families in one Berlin community. Benno feels welcome in many homes and stores, and he likes following a Jewish girl, Sophie, and her Christian friend to school everyday. Then everything changes, and the neighborhood is no longer friendly. Benno cowers as terrifying men in brown shirts light bonfires, and then there is a night "like no other," during which Benno hears screams and shattering glass, and he watches apartments being ravaged and the synagogue burn. The next day, life continues for some, but Benno never sees others again, including Sophie and her family. The unframed, double-page spreads, created with a mix of collage, drawings, and digital montage, show the warm neighborhood transformed as red flames take over, books fly, and soldiers march in black boots with razor-edged soles. A brief afterword and bibliography add more information and historical context.

Francesco Tirelli's Ice Cream Shop
By Tamar Meir

Francesco Tirelli loved to eat gelato from his uncle's cart. So when he moves from Italy to Hungary, Francesco decides to open his own ice cream store. There young Peter learns to love ice cream as much as Francesco did. But when the war comes and Francesco closes his shop for the winter, he uses the shop for a special purpose—to hide his Jewish friends and neighbors from danger. The winter is long and dark in the ice cream shop, and young Peter longs to celebrate Hanukkah. Will he find a way? Based on a true story.

The story of a young girl who learns her grandfather's experience in Auschwitz and then helps him overcome his sensitivity about the number on his arm, this picture book gives young children just enough information about the Holocaust without overwhelming them.

This book describes the events of the Jewish Holocaust, comparing it to a forest fire that destroys all forms on life. The survivors are the promise of renewal.

In this introduction to the Holocaust, Eve Bunting encourages young children to stand up for what they think is right, without waiting for others to join them.
This book does not contain any images of the Holocaust.

This book, a meditation on a woman's hat displayed inside the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, combines a pensive prose poem with arresting collage artwork.

Biography / Nonfiction

Janusz Korczak was an author, radio personality, teacher, and doctor. But above all else, he was a hero. As the beloved director of a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw, Poland, during the years of the Nazi Party's rise to power, he cared for hundreds of children. The children loved him as a father and affectionately called him their "Old Doctor." Korczak could not save them, but even in the darkest days of the Warsaw ghetto, he strove to protect them. Finally, forced to lead his orphans from the ghetto to the Treblinka death camp, Korczak remained with the children to the end.

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PJ Library is so much more than just books and music.

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Books for Young Adults  - Jewish Book Council

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Books for Young Adults  - Jewish Book Council

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Find the lat­est month­ly picks, dis­cus­sion ques­tions and resource guides, and the lat­est books in paperback.

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Holocaust Resources - Facing History & Ourselves 

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Holocaust Resources - Facing History & Ourselves 

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Some Were Neighbors Teacher Resources - USHMM

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Some Were Neighbors Teacher Resources - USHMM

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Teacher Resources - Some Were Neighbors: Choice, Human Behavior, and the Holocaust - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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Explore resources for teachers and students online.

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The Holocaust (1933-1945) was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum defines the years of the Holocaust as 1933-1945. The Holocaust era began in January 1933 when 1 Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. It ended in May 1945, when the Allied Powers defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. The Holocaust is also sometimes referred to as "the Shoah," the Hebrew word for "catastrophe."

When they came to power in Germany, the Nazis did not immediately start to carry out mass murder. However, they quickly began using the government to target and exclude Jews from German society. Among other antisemitic measures, the Nazi German regime enacted discriminatory laws and organized violence targeting Germany's Jews. The Nazi persecution of Jews became increasingly radical between 1933 and 1945. This radicalization culminated in a plan that Nazi leaders referred to as the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." The "Final Solution" was the organized and systematic mass murder of European Jews. The Nazi German regime implemented this genocide between 1941 and 1945.

Why did the Nazis target Jews?

The Nazis targeted Jews because the Nazis were radically antisemitic. This means that they were prejudiced against and hated Jews. In fact, antisemitism was a basic tenet of their ideology and at the foundation of their worldview.

The Nazis falsely accused Jews of causing Germany's social, economic, political, and cultural problems. In particular, they blamed them for Germany's defeat in World War I (1914-1918). Some Germans were receptive to these Nazi claims. Anger over the loss of the war and the economic and political crises that followed contributed to increasing antisemitism in German society. The instability of Germany under the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), the fear of communism, and the economic shocks of the Great Depression also made many Germans more open to Nazi ideas, including antisemitism.

However, the Nazis did not invent antisemitism. Antisemitism is an old and widespread prejudice that has taken many forms throughout history. In Europe, it dates back to ancient times. In the the myth that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. Suspicion and discrimination rooted in religious prejudices continued in legal restrictions on Jews. This, however, did not mean the end of antisemitism. In addition to religious antisemitism, Middle Ages (500-1400), prejudices against Jews were primarily based in early Christian belief and thought, particularly early modern Europe (1400-1800). At that time, leaders in much of Christian Europe isolated Jews from most aspects of economic, social, and political life. This exclusion contributed to stereotypes of Jews as outsiders. As Europe became more secular, many places lifted most other types of antisemitism

The Nazi Party promoted a particularly virulent form of racial antisemitism. It was central to the party's race-based worldview. The Nazis believed that the world was divided into distinct races and that some of these races were superior to others. They considered Germans to be members of the supposedly superior "Aryan" race. They asserted that "Aryans" were locked in a struggle for existence with other, inferior races. Further, the Nazis believed that the so-called "Jewish race" was the most inferior and dangerous of all. According to the Nazis, Jews were a threat that needed to be removed from German society. Otherwise, the Nazis insisted, the "Jewish race" would permanently corrupt and destroy the German people. The Nazis' race-based definition of Jews included many persons who identified as Christians or did not practice Judaism.

Where did the Holocaust take place?

The Holocaust was a Nazi German initiative that took place throughout German- and Axis-controlled Europe. It affected nearly all of Europe's Jewish population, which in 1933 numbered 9 million people.

The Holocaust began in Germany after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933. Almost immediately, the Nazi German regime (which called itself the Third Reich) excluded Jews from German economic, political, social, and cultural life. Throughout the 1930s, the regime increasingly pressured Jews to emigrate.

But the Nazi persecution of Jews spread beyond Germany. Throughout the 1930s, Nazi Germany pursued an aggressive foreign policy. This culminated in World War II, which began in Europe in 1939. Prewar and wartime territorial expansion eventually brought millions more Jewish people under German control.

Nazi Germany's territorial expansion began in 1938-1939. During this time, Germany annexed neighboring Austria and the Sudetenland and occupied the Czech lands. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany began World War II (1939-1945) by attacking Poland. Over the next two years, Germany invaded and occupied much of Europe, including western parts of the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany further extended its control by forming alliances with the governments of Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. It also created puppet states in Slovakia and Croatia. Together these countries made up the European members of the Axis alliance, which also included Japan.

By 1942-as a result of annexations, invasions, occupations, and alliances-Nazi Germany controlled most of Europe and parts of North Africa. Nazi control brought harsh policies and ultimately mass murder to Jewish civilians across Europe.

The Nazis and their allies and collaborators murdered six million Jews.

Geography of the Holocaust

How did Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators persecute Jewish people?

Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators implemented a wide range of anti-Jewish policies and measures. These policies varied from place to place. Thus, not all Jews experienced the Holocaust in the same way. But in all instances, millions of people were persecuted simply because they were identified as Jewish.

Throughout German-controlled and aligned territories, the persecution of Jews took a variety of forms:

Legal discrimination in the form of antisemitic laws. These included the Nuremberg Race Laws and numerous other discriminatory laws.

These included Various forms of public identification and exclusion. antisemitic propaganda, boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, public humiliation, and obligatory markings (such as the Jewish star badge worn as an armband or on clothing).

The most notable example is There were also isolated incidents and other Organized violence. Kristallnacht.pogroms (violent riots).

Physical Displacement. Perpetrators used forced emigration, resettlement, expulsion, deportation, and ghettoization to physically displace Jewish individuals and communities.

in overcrowded Internment. Perpetrators interned Jews ghettos, concentration camps, and forced-labor camps, where many died from starvation, disease, and other inhumane conditions.

Widespread theft and plunder. The confiscation of Jews' property, personal belongings, and valuables was a key part of the Holocaust.

Jews had to perform Forced labor. forced labor in service of the Axis war effort or for the enrichment of Nazi organizations, the military, and/or private businesses.

Many Jews died as a result of these policies. But before 1941, the systematic mass murder of all Jews was not Nazi policy. Beginning in 1941, however, Nazi leaders decided to implement the mass murder of Europe's Jews. They referred to this plan as the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question."

What was the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question"?

The Nazi "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (" Endlösung der Judenfrage ") was the deliberate and systematic mass murder of European Jews. It was the last stage of the Holocaust and took place from 1941 to 1945. Though many Jews were killed before the "Final Solution" began, the vast majority of Jewish victims were murdered during this period.

Nazi Germany committed mass murder on an unprecedented scale. There were two main methods of killing. One method was As part of the "Final Solution," mass shooting. German units carried out mass shootings on the outskirts of villages, towns, and cities throughout eastern Europe. The other method was asphyxiation with poison gas. Gassing operations were conducted at killing centers and with mobile gas vans.

Mass Shootings

The Nazi German regime perpetrated mass shootings of civilians on a scale never seen before. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, German units began to carry out mass shootings of local Jews. At first, these units targeted Jewish men of military age. But by August 1941, they had started massacring entire Jewish communities. These massacres were often conducted in broad daylight and in full view and earshot of local residents.

Mass shooting operations took place in more than 1,500 cities, towns, and villages across eastern Europe. German units tasked with murdering the local Jewish population moved throughout the region committing horrific massacres. Typically, these units would enter a town and round up the Jewish civilians. They would then take the Jewish residents to the outskirts of the town. Next, they would force them to dig a mass grave or take them to mass graves prepared in advance. Finally, German forces and/or local auxiliary units would shoot all of the men, women, and children into these pits. Sometimes, these massacres involved the use of specially designed mobile gas vans. Perpetrators would use these vans to suffocate victims with carbon monoxide exhaust.

at these killing sites. At Maly Trostenets, thousands of victims were also murdered in gas vans.

The German units that perpetrated the mass shootings in eastern Europe included (special task forces of the SS and police), units. The provided logistical support and manpower. Some Wehrmacht units also carried out massacres. In many places, local auxiliary units working with the Einsatzgruppen Order Police battalions, and Waffen-SS German military ( Wehrmacht ) SS and police participated in the mass shootings. These auxiliary units were made up of local civilian, military, and police officials.

As many as 2 million Jews were murdered in mass shootings or gas vans in territories seized from Soviet forces.

Killing Centers

In late 1941, the Nazi regime began building specially designed, stationary killing centers in German-occupied Poland. In English, killing centers are sometimes called "extermination camps" or "death camps." Nazi Germany operated five killing centers: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. They built these killing centers for the sole purpose of efficiently murdering Jews on a mass scale. The primary means of murder at the killing centers was poisonous gas released into sealed gas chambers or vans.

German authorities, with the help of their allies and collaborators, transported Jews from across Europe to these killing centers. They disguised their intentions by calling the transports to the killing centers "resettlement actions" or "evacuation transports." In English, they are often referred to as "deportations." Most of these deportations took place by train. In order to efficiently transport Jews to the killing centers, German authorities used the extensive European railroad system, as well as other means of transportation. In many cases the railcars on the trains were freight cars; in other instances they were passenger cars.

The conditions on deportation transports were horrific. German and collaborating local authorities forced Jews of all ages into overcrowded railcars. They often had to stand, sometimes for days, until the train reached its destination. The perpetrators deprived them of food, water, bathrooms, heat, and medical care. Jews frequently died en route from the inhumane conditions.

The vast majority of Jews deported to killing centers were gassed almost immediately after their arrival. Some Jews whom German officials believed to be healthy and strong enough were selected for forced labor.

My mother ran over to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, and she told me "Leibele, I'm not going to see you no more. Take care of your brother."
- Leo Schneiderman describing arrival at Auschwitz, selection, and separation from his family

At all five killing centers, German officials forced some Jewish prisoners to assist in the killing process. Among other tasks, these prisoners had to sort through victims' belongings and remove victims' bodies from the gas chambers. Special units disposed of the millions of corpses through mass burial, in burning pits, or by burning them in large, specially designed crematoria.

Nearly 2.7 million Jewish men, women, and children were murdered at the five killing centers.

What were ghettos and why did German authorities create them during the Holocaust?

Ghettos were areas of cities or towns where German occupiers forced Jews to live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. German authorities often enclosed these areas by building walls or other barriers. Guards prevented Jews from leaving without permission. Some ghettos existed for years, but others existed only for months, weeks, or even days as holding sites prior to deportation or murder.

German officials first created ghettos in 1939-1940 in German-occupied Poland. The two largest were located in the occupied Polish cities of Warsaw and Lodz (Łódź). Beginning in June 1941, German officials also established them in newly conquered territories in eastern Europe following the German attack on the Soviet Union. German authorities and their allies and collaborators also established ghettos in other parts of Europe. Notably, in 1944, German and Hungarian authorities created temporary ghettos to centralize and control Jews prior to their deportation from Hungary.

The Purpose of the Ghettos

German authorities originally established the ghettos to isolate and control the large local Jewish populations in occupied eastern Europe. Initially, they concentrated Jewish residents from within a city and the surrounding area or region. However, beginning in 1941, German officials also deported Jews from other parts of Europe (including Germany) to some of these ghettos.

Jewish forced labor became a central feature of life in many ghettos. In theory, it was supposed to help pay for the administration of the ghetto as well as support the German war effort. Sometimes, factories and workshops were established nearby in order to exploit the imprisoned Jews for forced labor. The labor was often manual and grueling.

Life in the Ghettos

Life in the ghettos was miserable and dangerous. There was little food and limited sanitation or medical care. Hundreds of thousands of people died by starvation; rampant disease; exposure to extreme temperatures; as well as exhaustion from forced labor. Germans also murdered the imprisoned Jews through brutal beatings, torture, arbitrary shootings, and other forms of arbitrary violence.

Jews in the ghettos sought to maintain a sense of dignity and community. Schools, libraries, communal welfare services, and religious institutions provided some measure of connection among residents. Attempts to document life in the ghettos, such as the Many ghettos also had underground movements that carried out armed resistance. The most famous of these is the Oneg Shabbat archive and clandestine photography, are powerful examples of Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943. spiritual resistance.

Liquidating the Ghettos

Beginning in 1941-1942, Germans and their allies and collaborators murdered ghetto residents en masse and dissolved ghetto administrative structures. They called this process "liquidation." It was part of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." The majority of Jews in the ghettos were murdered either in mass shootings at nearby killing sites or after deportation to killing centers. Most of the killing centers were deliberately located near the large ghettos of German-occupied Poland or on easily-accessible railway routes.

Who was responsible for carrying out the Holocaust and the Final Solution?

Many people were responsible for carrying out the Holocaust and the Final Solution.

At the highest level, inspired, ordered, approved, and supported the genocide of Europe's Jews. However, Hitler did not act alone. Nor did he lay out an exact plan for the implementation of the Final Solution. Other Nazi leaders were the ones who directly coordinated, planned, and implemented the mass murder. Among them were Adolf Hitler Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Adolf Eichmann.

However, millions of Germans and other Europeans participated in the Holocaust. Without their involvement, the genocide of the Jewish people in Europe would not have been possible. Nazi leaders relied upon German institutions and organizations; other Axis powers; local bureaucracies and institutions; and individuals.

German Institutions, Organizations, and Individuals

(the SD), the the Nazi leaders relied on many German institutions and organizations to help them carry out the Holocaust. Members of Nazi organizations initiated and carried out many anti-Jewish actions before and during World War II. These organizations Schutzstaffel , Protection Squadron). Once the war began, the SS and its police affiliates became especially deadly. Members of the Sicherheitsdienst Gestapo ,Criminal Police (Kripo), and the Order Police played particularly active and deadly roles in the mass murder of Europe's Jews. Other German institutions involved in carrying out the Final Solution included the German military; the German national railway and healthcare systems; the German civil service and criminal justice systems; and German businesses, insurance companies, and banks.

chose to implement the regime's policies. Ordinary Germans also participated in the Holocaust in a variety of ways. Some Germans cheered as Jews were beaten or humiliated. Others denounced Jews for disobeying racist laws and regulations. Many Germans bought, took, or looted their Jewish neighbors' belongings and property. These Germans' participation in the Holocaust was motivated by enthusiasm, careerism, fear, greed, self-interest, antisemitism, and political ideals, among other factors.

Non-German Governments and Institutions

Nazi Germany did not perpetrate the Holocaust alone. It relied on the help of its allies and collaborators. In this context, "allies" refers to Axis countries officially allied with Nazi Germany. "Collaborators" refers to regimes and organizations that cooperated with German authorities in an official or semi-official capacity. Nazi Germany's allies and collaborators included:

The European Axis Powers and other collaborationist regimes (such as Vichy France). These governments passed their own antisemitic legislation and cooperated with German goals.

These organizations helped round up, intern, and deport Jews even in countries not allied with Germany, such as German-backed local bureaucracies, especially local police forces. the Netherlands.

Local auxiliary units made up of military and police officials and civilians. These German-backed units participated in massacres of Jews in eastern Europe (often voluntarily).

The terms "allies" and "collaborators" can also refer to individuals affiliated with these governments and organizations.

Individuals across Europe

Throughout Europe, individuals who had no governmental or institutional affiliation and did not directly participate in murdering Jews also contributed to the Holocaust.

One of the deadliest things that neighbors, acquaintances, colleagues, and even friends could do was denounce Jews to Nazi German authorities. An unknown number chose to do so. They revealed Jews' hiding places, unmasked false Christian identities, and otherwise identified Jews to Nazi officials. In doing so, they brought about their deaths. These individuals' motivations were wide-ranging: fear, self-interest, greed, revenge, antisemitism, and political and ideological beliefs.

Individuals also profited from the Holocaust. Non-Jews sometimes moved into Jews' homes, took over Jewish-owned businesses, and stole Jews' possessions and valuables. This was part of the widespread theft and plunder that accompanied the genocide.

Most often individuals contributed to the Holocaust through inaction and indifference to the plight of their Jewish neighbors. Sometimes these individuals are called bystanders.

Who were the other victims of Nazi persecution and mass murder?

The Holocaust specifically refers to the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews. However, there were also millions of other victims of Nazi persecution and murder. In the 1930s, the regime targeted a variety of alleged domestic enemies within German society. As the Nazis extended their reach during World War II, millions of other Europeans were also subjected to Nazi brutality.

The Nazi regime also targeted Germans whose activities were deemed harmful to German society. These included men accused of homosexuality, persons accused of being professional or habitual criminals, and so-called asocials (such as people identified as vagabonds, beggars, prostitutes, pimps, and alcoholics). Tens of thousands of these victims were incarcerated in prisons and concentration camps. The regime also forcibly sterilized and persecuted Afro-Germans.

People with disabilities were also victimized by the Nazi regime. Before World War II, Germans considered to have supposedly unhealthy hereditary conditions were forcibly sterilized. Once the war began, Nazi policy radicalized. People with disabilities, especially those living in institutions, were considered both a genetic and a financial burden on Germany. These people were targeted for murder in the so-called Euthanasia Program.

The Nazi regime employed extreme measures against groups considered to be racial, civilizational, or ideological enemies. This included Roma (Gypsies),

How did the Holocaust end?

so-called The Holocaust ended in May 1945 when the major Allied Powers (Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union) defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series of offensives, they overran concentration camps. There they liberated the surviving prisoners, many of whom were Jews. The Allies also encountered and liberated the survivors of death marches. These forced marches consisted of groups of Jewish and non-Jewish concentration camp inmates who had been evacuated on foot from camps under SS guard.

But liberation did not bring closure. Many Holocaust survivors faced ongoing threats of violent antisemitism and displacement as they sought to build new lives. Many had lost family members, while others searched for years to locate missing parents, children, and siblings.

How did some Jews survive the Holocaust?

Despite Nazi Germany's efforts to murder all the Jews of Europe, some Jews survived the Holocaust. Survival took a variety of forms. But, in every case, survival was only possible because of an extraordinary confluence of circumstances, choices, help from others (both Jewish and non-Jewish), and sheer luck.

Survival outside of German-Controlled Europe

Some Jews survived the Holocaust by escaping German-controlled Europe. Before World War II began, hundreds of thousands of Jews emigrated from Nazi Germany despite significant immigration barriers. Those who immigrated to the United States, Great Britain, and other areas that remained beyond German control were safe from Nazi violence. Even after World War II began, some Jews managed to escape German-controlled Europe. For example, approximately 200,000 Polish Jews fled the German occupation of Poland. These Jews survived the war under harsh conditions after Soviet authorities deported them further east into the interior of the Soviet Union.

Survival in German-Controlled Europe

A smaller number of Jews survived inside German-controlled Europe. They often did so with the help of rescuers. Rescue efforts ranged from the isolated actions of individuals to organized networks, both small and large. Throughout Europe, there were non-Jews who took grave risks to help their Jewish neighbors, friends, and strangers survive. For example, they found hiding places for Jews, procured false papers that offered protective Christian identities, or provided them with food and supplies. Other Jews survived as members of partisan resistance movements. Finally, some Jews managed, against enormous odds, to survive imprisonment in concentration camps, ghettos, and even killing centers.

Aftermath

While the Holocaust ended with the war, the legacy of terror and genocide did not. By the end of World War II, six million Jews and millions of others were dead. Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators had devastated or completely destroyed thousands of Jewish communities across Europe.

In the those Jews who survived were often confronted with the traumatic reality of having lost their entire families and communities. Some were able to go home and chose to rebuild their lives in Europe. Many others were afraid to do so because of aftermath of the Holocaust, postwar violence and antisemitism. In the immediate postwar period, those who could not or would not return home often found themselves living in displaced persons camps. There, many had to wait years before they were able to immigrate to new homes.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the world has struggled to come to terms with the horrors of the genocide, to remember the victims, and to hold perpetrators responsible. These important efforts remain ongoing.

Last Edited: Nov 5, 2021

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

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Introduction to the Holocaust: What was the Holocaust?

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Learn about the Holocaust, the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

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Everyday Life - Roles, Motives & Choices - USHMM

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Everyday Life - Roles, Motives & Choices - USHMM

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8 collections containing 110 items

Everyday Life: Roles, Motives, and Choices During the Holocaust

The rise of Nazi Germany, the outbreak of World War II, and the onset of the Holocaust changed the conditions of everyday life for millions of people. In an era of violence and upheaval, individuals confronted difficult choices and new social and political pressures. How did they respond to these challenges? What values, roles, and loyalties influenced their decisions? Sources in this section explore the complex and intersecting motivations and behaviors within everyday life during the Holocaust.

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Everyday Life: Roles, Motives, and Choices During the Holocaust

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8 collections containing 110 items The rise of Nazi Germany, the outbreak of World War II, and the onset of the Holocaust changed the conditions of everyday life for millions of people. In an era of violence and upheaval, individuals confronted difficult choices and new social and political pressures.

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Explore this series of animated videos based on first-hand accounts from the Museum's collection. Each video tells a personal story of a Holocaust victim, survivor, rescuer, or eyewitness using recorded testimony, diaries, memoirs, letters, and photographs. Learn about the challenges Jews faced while escaping Nazi persecution in the late 1930s and the individual Americans who tried to help.
This page is available in Spanish.

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Animated Video Series: Behind Every Name - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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Explore this series of animated videos based on first-hand accounts from the Museum's collection.

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The U.S. and the Holocaust | Ken Burns | PBS

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A new documentary by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein

Premieres September 18 at 8/7c

The U.S. and the Holocaust is a three-part, six hour series that examines America's response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Americans consider themselves a "nation of immigrants," but as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the United States proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge. Through riveting firsthand testimony of witnesses and survivors who as children endured persecution, violence and flight as their families tried to escape Hitler, this series delves deeply into the tragic human consequences of public indifference, bureaucratic red tape and restrictive quota laws in America. Did the nation fail to live up to its ideals? This is a history to be reckoned with.

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The U.S. and the Holocaust Premieres Sept. 18 | PBS

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The U.S. and the Holocaust is a three-part, six hour series that examines America's response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Americans consider themselves a "nation of immigrants," but as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the United States proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge.

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Trailer - "Disaster is My Muse" - Documentary of "Maus" Author/Illustrator Art Spiegelman

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Trailer - "Disaster is My Muse" - Documentary of "Maus" Author/Illustrator Art Spiegelman

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Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse | Official Trailer | PBS

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Unsilence - Interactive Online Lessons & Resources 

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Unsilence - Interactive Online Lessons & Resources 

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Unsilence fills a critical gap in civics education. Through storytelling, the arts, and serious games, we unsilence hidden injustices and marginalized voices. We spark dialogue, support critical thinking, and build empathy to inspire healing and social change.

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Unsilence fills a critical gap in civics education. Through storytelling, the arts, and serious games, we unsilence hidden injustices and marginalized voices. We spark dialogue, support critical thinking, and build empathy to inspire healing and social change.

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Why Teach the Holocaust? - TN Holocaust Commission  

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Why Teach the Holocaust? - TN Holocaust Commission  

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Why Teach The Holocaust - Tennessee Holocaust Commission

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Why Teach the Holocaust The following considerations may encourage reflection on the reasons for teaching about the Holocaust: The Holocaust was a watershed event, not only for the twentieth century but in the entire history of humanity. It was an unprecedented attempt to murder a whole people and to extinguish its culture.

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Teaching Holocaust history requires a high level of sensitivity and keen awareness of the complexity of the subject matter. The following guidelines reflect approaches appropriate for effective teaching in general and are particularly relevant to Holocaust education.

Define the Term "Holocaust"

A historically accurate and precise definition of the Holocaust is essential as part of a successful lesson or unit. Defining the Holocaust at the beginning of a unit provides students with a foundation from which they can further explore the history and its lasting influence, identifying who was involved and placing the history into geographical and temporal context. It provides students with sound footing as they confront the question, "What was the Holocaust?"

The Holocaust Was Not Inevitable

The Holocaust took place because individuals, groups, and nations made decisions to act or not to act. Focusing on those decisions leads to insights into history and human nature and fosters critical thinking. Just because a historical event took place, and it is documented in textbooks and on film, does not mean that it had to happen.

Avoid Simple Answers to Complex Questions

The history of the Holocaust raises difficult questions about human behavior and the context within which individual decisions are made. Be wary of simplification. Seek instead to convey the nuances of this history. Allow students to think about the many factors and events that contributed to the Holocaust and that often made decision making difficult and uncertain.

Strive for Precision of Language

Because of the complexity of the history, there is a temptation to generalize and, thus, to distort the facts (e.g., "all concentration camps were killing centers" or "all Germans were collaborators"). Avoid this by helping your students clarify the information presented and encourage them to distinguish, for example, the differences between prejudice and discrimination, armed and spiritual resistance, direct and assumed orders, concentration camps and killing centers, and guilt and responsibility.

Words that describe human behavior often have multiple meanings. Resistance, for example, usually refers to a physical act of armed revolt. During the Holocaust, it also encompassed partisan activity; the smuggling of messages, food, and weapons; sabotage; and actual military engagement. Resistance may also be thought of as willful disobedience, such as continuing to practice religious and cultural traditions in defiance of the rules or creating art, music, and poetry inside ghettos and concentration camps. For many, simply maintaining the will to live in the face of abject brutality was an act of spiritual resistance.

Try to avoid stereotypical descriptions. Though all Jews were targeted for destruction by the Nazis, the experiences of all Jews were not the same. Remind your students that, although members of a group may share common experiences and beliefs, generalizations about them without benefit of modifying or qualifying terms (e.g., "sometimes," "usually," "in many cases but not all") tend to stereotype group behavior and distort historical reality. Thus, all Germans cannot be characterized as Nazis, nor should any nationality be reduced to a singular or one-dimensional description.

Strive to Balance the Perspectives that Inform Your Study of the Holocaust

Make careful distinctions about sources of information. Encourage students to consider why a source was created, who created it, who the intended audience was, whether any biases were inherent in the information, whether any gaps occurred in discussion, whether omissions were inadvertent or not, and how the information has been used to interpret various events.

Most documentation about the Holocaust comes from the perspective of the perpetrators. In contrast, survivor testimonies and collections humanize individuals in the richness and fullness of their lives.

Strongly encourage your students to investigate carefully the origin and authorship of all material, particularly anything found on the internet.

Avoid Comparisons of Pain

A study of the Holocaust should always highlight the different policies carried out by the Nazi regime toward various groups of people; however, these distinctions should not be presented as a basis for comparison of the level of suffering between those groups during the Holocaust. One cannot presume that the horror of an individual, family, or community destroyed by the Nazis was any greater than that experienced by victims of other genocides. Avoid generalizations that suggest otherwise.

Similarly, students may gravitate toward comparisons between aspects of the Holocaust and other historical or contemporary events. Historical events, policies, and human behaviors can and should be carefully analyzed for areas where there may be similarities and differences, but this should be done always with careful consideration of evidence and contextual factors, differentiating between fact, opinion, and belief.

Avoid Romanticizing History

Portray all individuals, including victims and perpetrators, as human beings who are capable of moral judgment and independent decision making. People who risked their lives to rescue victims of Nazi oppression provide compelling role models for students. But given that only a small fraction of non-Jews under Nazi occupation helped rescue Jews, an overemphasis on heroic actions can result in an inaccurate and unbalanced account of the history. Similarly, in exposing students to the worst aspects of human nature as revealed in the history of the Holocaust, you run the risk of fostering cynicism in your students. Accuracy of fact, together with a balanced perspective on the history, is necessary.

Contextualize the History

Events of the Holocaust, and particularly how individuals and organizations behaved at that time, should be placed in historical context. The Holocaust should be studied in the context of European history as a whole to give students a perspective on the precedents and circumstances that may have contributed to it.

Similarly, the Holocaust should be studied within its contemporaneous context so students can begin to comprehend the circumstances that encouraged or discouraged particular actions or events. For example, when thinking about resistance, consider when and where an act took place; the immediate consequences of one's actions to self and family; the degree of control the Nazis had on a country or local population; the cultural attitudes of particular native populations toward different victim groups historically; and the availability and risk of potential hiding places.

Encourage your students not to categorize groups of people only on the basis of their experiences during the Holocaust; contextualization is critical so that victims are not perceived only as victims. By exposing students to some of the cultural contributions and achievements of 2,000 years of European Jewish life, for example, you help them to balance their perception of Jews as victims and to appreciate more fully the traumatic disruption in Jewish history caused by the Holocaust.

Translate Statistics Into People

In any study of the Holocaust, the sheer number of victims challenges comprehension. Show that individual people-grandparents, parents, and children-are behind the statistics and emphasize the diversity of personal experiences within the larger historical narrative. Precisely because they portray people in the fullness of their lives and not just as victims, first-person accounts and memoir literature add individual voices to a collective experience and help students make meaning out of the statistics.

Make Responsible Methodological Choices

Educators who teach about the Holocaust seek to honestly and accurately investigate a history in which millions of people were dehumanized, brutalized and killed while ensuring a safe classroom environment in which their students can engage in learning and critical thinking. Graphic material should be used judiciously and only to the extent necessary to achieve the lesson objective. Try to select images and texts that do not exploit the students' emotional vulnerability or that might be construed as disrespectful to the victims themselves. Instead of avoiding important topics because the visual images are graphic, use other approaches to address the material.

In studying complex human behavior, some teachers rely upon simulation exercises meant to help students "experience" unfamiliar situations. Even when great care is taken to prepare a class for such an activity, simulating experiences from the Holocaust remains pedagogically unsound. The activity may engage students, but they often forget the purpose of the lesson and, even worse, they are left with the impression that they now know what it was like to suffer or even to participate during the Holocaust. It is best to draw upon a variety of primary sources, provide survivor testimony, and refrain from simulations or games that lead to a trivialization of the subject matter.

Art projects featuring Nazi imagery, word scrambles, crossword puzzles, counting objects, model building, and gimmicky exercises tend not to encourage critical analysis but lead instead to low-level types of thinking and, in the case of Holocaust curricula, trivialization of the history. If the effects of a particular activity run counter to the rationale for studying the history, then that activity should not be used.

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Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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Teaching Holocaust history requires a high level of sensitivity and keen awareness of the complexity of the subject matter.

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Our Mission

The Holocaust may be receding into the past, but its lessons have and will continue to be timely. Headlines continue to report incidents of anti-Semitism and genocide. Holocaust deniers are a constant challenge. The Memorial site has two goals. The Survivor population is aging. They want to be assured that concrete evidence of their existence and what they endured is chronicled. They want a place for themselves and their loved ones to be remembered. Many have waited for years to have a place to recognize and mourn their loved ones. The Memorial site includes educational opportunities for visitors. The goal is to tell the history of the Holocaust through the personal stories of the Nashvillians who are represented there. The name of each European hometown of the Survivors is presented at the pathway leading up to the Memorial. Visitors may pick up an educational brochure as they enter the Memorial. A self-guided audio tour is available. Secondly, the Memorial is conceptualized to be a Living Memorial with a significant role for the general Middle Tennessee community. Non-Jewish individuals and groups like churches, as well as communal and youth groups, are encouraged to visit the site, which serves as the only location that makes this history and its lessons available to the general public in Middle Tennessee. Through public awareness and school outreach, those who have never met a Jewish person or been on the campus have the opportunity to interface with the Jewish community. Educational programs are planned for the public. The opportunity to have a role in transmitting the lessons of the Holocaust is significant. Students indicate that learning this history has an impact on their lives and some of the future decisions they make. There are also limited opportunities for the adult population to deal with the history or confront the important issues it raises.

It has been almost seventy-five years since the liberation of the death camps, and World War II. The number of eyewitnesses declines each day. As each year passes, the ability to sustain the important lessons learned becomes more challenging. The Holocaust has a unique role in history. Elie Wiesel has said, "While every victim was not a Jew, every Jew was a victim." The Holocaust has a pivotal place in Jewish history but just as important for the future, a universal message for humanity. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum greets 2 million visitors a year. Not everyone is able to travel to Washington and so it is important to have local contact and impact. The Memorial's goal is to sustain a significant physical reminder while creating an environment for learning and reflection.

Above image via Manuel Zeitlin Architects

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The Holocaust may be receding into the past, but its lessons have and will continue to be timely. Headlines continue to report incidents of anti-Semitism and genocide. Holocaust deniers are a constant challenge. The Memorial site has two goals. The Survivor population is aging.

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One Clip at a Time - The Paper Clip Project - Whitwell Middle School, TN

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One Clip at a Time - The Paper Clip Project - Whitwell Middle School, TN

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Stereotypes and myths are often at the heart of hatred. Stereotypes evolve over time and can be used to motivate and justify prejudice and discrimination. Antisemitism can be understood as a convenient hatred. Ideas about Jews have been impacted by the societies in which they live.

In the ancient world, it was not easy to tell who was a Jew and who was not Jewish. They did similar jobs and lived in houses that weren't all that different from their neighbors. One difference, however, was that in a time when most people prayed to many gods, Jews were monotheists, praying to only one god.

The Jews' religious differences were seen by some as a challenge. Could they be trusted? When Greek and Roman rulers conquered Israel, the center of Jewish religious life, Jews began to move and form communities across the ancient world. As they did, they had to adapt to life as newcomers.

And then, in a time when the Romans ruled Israel and brutally suppressed challenges to their power, a new religion emerged-- Christianity. Jesus was born and lived as a Jew, and the earliest Christians thought of themselves as Jews as well. But eventually, in order to win new followers and protect themselves from Roman persecution, Christians began to try to separate themselves from Judaism. This changing attitude toward Jews and Judaism is reflected in the gospels included in the New Testament, written one to two generations after Jesus' death.

With the emergence of Christianity and in the sacred texts of Christianity when they became canonized, what we end up finding in that literature are key images that end up having an enormous afterlife. One is Matthew 27:25, repeated differently in John, in which you have standing before Pontius Pilate a group of Jews who call for the death of Jesus, bay for the blood of Jesus, and then in Matthew 27:25 say, as a group, "His blood be upon us and upon our children." That line becomes fateful because it seems to implicate not only those Jews who were there at that time, but the inheritors of that entire tradition over time.

The charge that the Jews were responsible for killing Christ has been refuted by historians, because crucifixion was a Roman punishment, not a Jewish punishment. And Jews would almost certainly not have had the power to impose the death penalty in the way it was described in Christian texts. However, the myth that the Jews were Christ killers was impactful, because Christians believed if a people were capable of killing their god, they were capable of anything.

So there's the image of John 8:44, in which you have in the mouth of Jesus, speaking to a group of Pharisees and other Jews around him, Jesus saying, "You are of your father, the devil." That one-liner will later be picked up in terms of associating Jews with the devil. This is the single most important association in the history of Judeophobia. That set of images becomes very powerful, deeply toxic, a well water out of which Christian civilization comes to define itself and its values and its institutions in opposition to Judaism.

Within a span of a few hundred years, and with the support of Emperor Constantine and other Roman leaders, Christianity grew to become the dominant religion in the Roman Empire.

As Christianity becomes more powerful, its vilification is more powerful. And thus you have a pattern in Christianity, which is developed as early as the end of the fourth century by St. Augustine, of trying to explain how Christians should behave towards Jews.

St. Augustine developed the notion of Jews as a witness people. And he said in the end of days, when Jesus returns to Earth as the Christ, the Jews must survive as Jews in order to bear witness to the fact that Jesus is the Christ. In other words, they who denied Jesus must be around in the end of days in order to bear witness to the fact that they have been wrong.

So what Christianity does is it declares that Jews must suffer, but Jews must also survive. And that is the reigning doctrine in Christianity. This is what produces, on the one hand, all of the restrictions on Jews that are instituted by medieval society and so forth-- the restrictions to certain trades, the restrictions to certain residences, and so on.

On the other hand, they are not to be killed. They are to survive. And they are, for hundreds of years, the only religiously tolerated minority in Europe.

In the Middle Ages, the Crusades, a series of wars fought to regain holy territories and further Christian interests, disrupted this already vulnerable coexistence. In 1096, Pope Urban II's call for the First Crusade led to the first mass murder of thousands of Jewish people in parts of France and Germany, carried out by Christian peasants. This Judeophobic violence would become increasingly common as old myths about Jews continued to develop and spread.

In the medieval period, the key frame is to understand that between the 12th and 13th centuries, the association of Jews with the devil becomes deep and fixed within Christendom. It's recounted in sermons. It has been included into the liturgy. It has been included into the folk tales that parents tell their children. And it ends up resulting in new myths in the medieval period.

The first of these is the myth of ritual murder, or the myth of blood libel. That emerges in the 12th century in England, this idea that Jews are using the blood of Christians for ritual purposes or that Jews are so committed to the destruction of Christianity that they are reenacting the killing of Jesus in an ongoing way.

And then in the 14th century, in the context of the Black Death, in which you have anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the population decimated by this plague that no one has any idea what the cause of it actually is, the idea that Jews are poisoning the wells and that this is the source of contagion that's leading to this mass death.

Many of these myths speak to core emotions that animate people experiencing fear and anxiety. They're a sort of one stop shop story to provide an account for what ails you when you don't have a language to be able to name what the cause of your problem is. What causes the Black Plague? No idea. One stop shop answer? Well, poisoning by evil people committed to the destruction of your way of life-- the Jews.

By the 16th century, Jews were now mostly confined to ghettos or Jewish quarters, areas of cities or villages in which they were forced to live in isolation. Although Jews were granted the right to live in certain towns in Western Europe in return for taxes and services, occasionally they were attacked, killed, and expelled to neighboring countries. And then a massive shift in Christian belief changed the social and political landscape in Europe once again.

In 1517, a German monk named Martin Luther disseminated a critique of the Roman Catholic Church called the 95 Theses. Within 40 years, half of Europe had broken from the Catholic Church and formed new sects of Christianity in what was known as the Protestant Reformation. Luther initially appealed to the Jews, because he thought his ideas would convince them to convert to his new form of Christianity. When they failed to convert, he, like others before him, used the power of old myths against them.

20 years later, in a text, On the Jews and their Lies, we find Luther articulating every single canard that had been developed in the course of the medieval period in the most hideous language, in which he calls for things like burning down synagogues and ultimately forcing Jews to toil on the land like all other good Christians, not as the usurers that he deemed them to be.

As new Christian ideologies began to take root, wars broke out across Europe. Once again, Jews were forced to adapt to changing circumstances, and their beliefs and loyalties were again called into question. Old stereotypes would be adapted to meet the anxieties of the new day.

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Scholars trace anti-Jewish myths, hatred, and violence back to the time of the Roman Empire in this historical overview of anti-Judaism's roots.