A Teacher's Companion to
Remembering the Holocaust
Voices of the Wisconsin Past
Background | Knowledge | Comprehension | Application | Analysis, Synthesis, and Comprehension | Additional Resources
The organization of categories, questions, and activities in this teacher's guide has been adapted from Benjamin S. Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1984). Bloom believes that the taxonomy can help teachers teach their students the skills needed for the highest levels of thinking.
Background
Children in the Warsaw ghetto.
Courtesy Yad Vashem. Remembering the Holocaust, the fourth volume in the Voices of the Wisconsin Past series, contains selections from fourteen oral history interviews of European Jews who survived Nazi persecution. These are the recollections of individuals who were adolescents and young adults in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Originally from all parts of Europe, each eventually found a new home in Wisconsin.
Edited by State Historian Michael E. Stevens, each volume of the Voices of the Wisconsin Past series features the first-person accounts of ordinary people, the personal stories that rarely make it into history textbooks. The stories in Remembering the Holocaust are powerful and often heart-wrenching. Some include graphic descriptions of abuse and organized terror. Equally moving, however, are the accounts of survival and liberation. Since these are the accounts of survivors, they often describe the personal courage demonstrated by one or more non-Jews, the small minority who risked their lives by offering assistance.
As educators develop curricula that will prepare students for our multicultural society and global community, the history of the Holocaust offers an unparalleled example of institutionalized intolerance. An investigation of the Holocaust can heighten students' awareness of bigotry and prejudice, preparing them for a thoughtful evaluation of how ethnocentrism and racism influences contemporary conflicts. Remembering the Holocaust offers secondary-level instructional opportunities for all ability levels.
Matt Blessing
Office of School Services
Division of Public History
State Historical Society of Wisconsin
Funding for the Teacher's Companion to Remembering the Holocaust was provided by the Wisconsin Society for Jewish Learning.
|
