Apr 19 2009
The Best Sites For Learning About The Holocaust
Thanks to Mary-Kay Goindi (via Twitter) I learned that Holocaust Remembrance Day is this Tuesday. It marks the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. There will be a National Ceremony in Capital Rotunda on Thursday with President Obama speaking.
In light of these events, I thought I’d quickly put together a “The Best…” list of sites I’ve used with my students to help them learn about the Holocaust.
You might also find The Best Web Resources On Darfur useful.
Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About The Holocaust (and are accessible to English Language Learners):
Here’s a very accessible short history of the Holocaust.
How Stuff Works has an excellent collection of short and accessible online videos about the Holocaust.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is actually recognized internationally on January 27th. Here is a Breaking News English lesson that provides audio support for the text on that day.
That lesson, designed for English Language Learners, is followed by an online exercise.
The United States Memorial Holocaust Museum has many resources. Life In The Shadows: Hidden Children and the Holocaust and Life After The Holocaust are multimedia presentations that are particularly accessible to English Language Learners. You can find all their online exhibitions here.
Flight and Rescue is another multimedia (including closed captions) online exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It describes the flight of 2,000 Polish Jews to safety.
Encountering Auschwitz is a closed-captioned movie on that concentration camp.
Give Me Your Children: Voices From The Lodz Ghetto is another accessible presentation from the Holocaust Museum.
The Story Of Anne Frank is a “talking book” created by students.
Hilter’s Rage is another student-created site about the Holocaust.
Kristallnacht In Words and Photographs is a slideshow from TIME Magazine about “the day the Holocaust began.”
The History Channel has an excellent site on the Holocaust.
The BBC has a good animation about concentration camps, particularly Auschwitz, but it’s probably only accessible to advanced ELL’s.
Darfur is not the only place in the world where genocide is happening today. Genocide in the Congo also comes from the Holocaust Museum and has, among other elements, a journal written by Angelina Jolie. She also provides audio of the text.
Buchenwald: Horror and Liberation, 1945 is a slideshow from LIFE.
Remembering The Holocaust is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.
Brainpop has two good movies –one on the Holocaust and the other on Anne Frank. Unfortunately, you have to purchase a subscription to view them, but they do offer a free trial.
Here are some materials on non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust:
Irena Sendler was a Pole who is credited with saving 2,500 Jewish children.
The Teachers Guide to the Holocaust has materials on many “rescuers.”
I’ve also shown clips from movies portraying Jewish resistance to the Holocaust. Here are some Youtube links to them, though I’d encourage you to get the movies and show lengthier segments:
Defiance is the recent movie starring Daniel Craig.
Uprising, about resistance in the Warsaw ghetto.
Grey Zone, about an uprising at a concentration camp.
If you don’t want to rent the movies, and your school blocks YouTube, you can learn other ways to show these clips at school at The Best Ways To Access Educational YouTube Videos At School.
And here is one last teacher resource — The Museum of Tolerance has a lot of resources on the Holocaust for teachers.
Also, David Truss left a comment to both share a post from his blog reflecting on his visit to the Holocaust Museum in Israel, and to suggest a poem be added to this list:
“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
Pastor Martin Niemöller
Another suggestion in the comments section came from Edna, who recommended I include the Educational Materials from the Holocaust Museum in Israel.
The New York Times Learning Network also has several good lessons on the Holocaust.
As always, feedback is welcome.
If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.
3 responses so far
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Hi Larry,
I’ve just gone to a few links so far and WOW- once again you’ve done a fantastic job collecting resources and creating a very worthy ‘best of’.
On Remembrance Day last year I wrote a blog post with my reflection on visiting the Holocaust Museum in Israel, and I’ve shared it with the link to my name above.
I think this poem is a great conversation starter for students:
“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
Pastor Martin Niemöller
Thanks again!
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I’m reading Number the Stars with two of my sixth-grade classes. Some of these resources will be wonderful additions to our study of life during the Holocaust. Thank you!
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Hi Larry
Thanks for that!
You might like to add a link to the educational resources page at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Israel www1.yadvashem.org/education/educational_materials.html
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