Rescue and Survival in Hiding
This lesson focuses on the role that everyday objects play in our understanding of historical events.
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US Holocaust Memorial Museum educators and historians created these lesson plans for use in secondary classrooms. Click on a lesson plan to see its recommended grade level, subjects covered, and time required to complete. To explore lessons organized by theme, visit Teaching Materials by Topic.
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Hoecker/Auschwitz Albums Photo Analysis
Students will examine photographs taken in and around the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and killing center in 1944 and engage in photo analysis techniques to deconstruct the photographs.
Holocaust Narrative through Historical Photos
This lesson provides a method of assessing what students know and how they think about the Holocaust. Through interacting with a range of historical photographs and images, students generate questions that can then lead to more productive lesson planning.
First Person, Conversations with a Holocaust Survivor
Join Holocaust survivors for live First Person conversations as they share their experiences in their own words. This guide provides scaffolding to integrate the First Person conversations into your classroom. By viewing First Person testimony, students are exposed to the diversity of experiences of Holocaust survivors.
Diaries as Historical Sources
Students study examples of diaries written by young people during the Holocaust, particularly examining the ways in which Anne Frank, the most famous diarist of the Holocaust, thought about her audience while writing.
Guide to The World Must Know
The book The World Must Know provides a narrative of the Holocaust “as told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.” Its structure mirrors that of the Museum’s Permanent Exhibition: The Holocaust.
Exploring Holocaust-era Diaries
Students will examine Holocaust-era diaries as both historical and as deliberately-created literary texts, and will understand how the Holocaust affected the lives of the individuals.
Exploring Anne Frank’s Diary
Students will examine Anne Frank’s diary as both a historical and a deliberately-created literary text, and will understand how the Holocaust affected the lives of the Frank family.
Exploring Night as Literature, Bearing Witness to History
Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, has become a standard text used in many classes to both teach about the history and human impact of the Holocaust. This lesson will help teachers and students understand the fuller historical context of the events described in Wiesel’s writing.
Racial “Science” and Law in Nazi Germany and the United States
This lesson is a case study examining Nazi Germany and the United States during the 1930s, at a time when racism and eugenics were enshrined in law and practice. Students will examine the national and historical contexts in which racism manifested in the two countries, and explore how the pseudoscience of eugenics as well as concerns about "racial purity" found its way into the laws of the United States and Nazi Germany.
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Teaching Materials by Topic
Explore lesson plans and training materials organized by theme to use in your classroom.