Education
Resources for Teachers and Students
Learn proper techniques for doing an oral testimony interview while documenting the story of a member of the student’s community. The interview should be approximately 30 minutes long and cover some sort of local or national historical event. Once the interview is over and recorded, transcribe the interview so that there is a written copy of the interview.
Learn proper methodology in using a historical artifact as a primary source. Understand how to ask questions about historical objects and engage in primary source analyses using the belt buckle depicted in the app.
Learn proper methodology in using a historical artifact as a primary source. Understand how to ask questions about historical objects and engage in primary source analyses using the one of the soldiers’ letters featured in the app.
Dowload Project Ideas
Questions
- Explain the meaning and the intent of the Nazis’ use of the phrases and words on both the front gate and on the top of the buildings at Dachau.
- Lee Berg, in his oral history clip, refers to the Displaced Persons Camp after liberation. How do you think it must have been to work at such a camp, given that these prisoners have been locked up for many years only to be guarded again?
- What types of emotions do you think the American soldier experienced when first coming upon camps such as these?
- Why do you think the Nazis put up little to no resistance during the liberation of Dachau?
- Why do you think these men were unable to speak about the events during liberation for so long afterward?
- What is anti-semitism? How did the Nazis use historical prejudice and racism to convince people to cooperate with the discrimination against the Jewish people and other people they deemed “undesirable”?
- What is lebensraum? Why did the Nazis feel that they needed to expand their territory in order to create more “living space” for the Aryan race?
- When did the Nazis start building concentration camps? What types of camps existed and who was imprisoned in the different camps? What were the conditions of the camps?
- How do the stories, letters, and artifacts of people who experienced the Holocaust help us to understand what happened? and how we can prevent it from happening again?
- Why is it so important that we learn about the Holocaust and we remember the people who died, the people who survived, and the people who lived the experience of liberation?
- Define the term holocaust. Discuss the rise of anti-Semitism and the process by which the Nazi regime enacted their plan to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe. Why did the Nazis build the concentration camps (detention, labor, and death camps)? How did they manipulate the rhetoric surrounding their plans in order to disguise their intent? Who was interned in these camps? How many people died in the camps?
- Describe the liberation of the concentration camps by U.S. troops. What was the reaction of U.S. soldiers when they first arrived at the camps? Were they prepared for what they would witness? What were the difficulties in liberation? What did they see? Who did they talk to? How did the U.S. military cooperate with other organizations, such as the Red Cross, to help those prisoners who survived this horrific experience?
Dowload Questions
Selected films
1945 (2016) – A Hungarian town grapples with recent sins when two Jews unexpectedly pass through. Black and white. Subtitled.
Advisory: Adult situations, language.
Au revoir les enfants [Goodbye, Children] (1987) – Jewish boys live in hiding at a French school during the Holocaust. Subtitled.
Bogdan’s Journey (2016) – A firestorm erupts when a non-Jew seeks to commemorate the notorious Kielce Pogrom of 1946. Documentary. Subtitled.
Advisory: Violence.
Caring Corrupted (2017) – Interviews explore the involvement of nurses in the Nazis’ murderous T4 program; former commissioner on the THGC, Dr. Anna Steinberger, is featured. Documentary.
Advisory: Murder of children described.
Conspiracy (2001) – Nazi leaders meet at the Wansee Conference to plan the Final Solution.
Advisory: Appropriate for most young adults.
Denial (2015) – An American professor is sued for libel in the UK for calling out a Holocaust denier in one of her books. Adapted from Deborah Lipstadt’s memoir.
Europa, Europa (1990)– A Jewish teenager assumes various false identities to survive the Holocaust. Adapted from Solomon Perel’s memoir. Subtitled.
Advisory: Adult situations, language, graphic nudity.
I Have Never Forgotten You: the Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal (2007) – A Jewish man lives to see liberation from Nazi camps and goes on to author books and hunt Nazis. Documentary.
Imaginary Witness (2004) – Hollywood grapples with issues of artistic license, commercialism, and ethics as it looks for ways to portray the Holocaust on the screen. Documentary.
Jakob der Lügner [Jacob the Liar] (1974) – A Jewish man tries to foster hope in a ghetto. Adapted from Jurek Becker’s novel. Subtitled.
Jeux interdits [Forbidden Games] (1952) – In occupied, rural France, a young Jewish girl and a Christian boy do their best to make sense of the brutality all around them. Black and white. Subtitled.
Korczak (1990) – The famous doctor and educator cares for 200 orphans in the Warsaw Ghetto. Black and white. Subtitled.
Mephisto (1981) – An actor willingly compromises his principles to achieve success under the Nazis. Subtitled.
Advisory: Adult situations, nudity.
Miejsce urodzenia [Birthplace] (1992) – Decades after his father and baby brother went missing during the Holocaust, a Jewish man returns to Poland to solve the mysteries. Documentary. Subtitled.
No Place on Earth (2012) – Decades after surviving the Holocaust, a Jewish family returns to visit the dark caverns where they hid in Ukraine. Documentary.
Nuit et brouillard [Night and Fog] (1956) – Archival footage and contemporary filming examine Auschwitz and Majdanek. Documentary. Black and white. Subtitled.
Advisory: Footage of emaciated, nude corpses.
Obchod na korze [The Shop on Main Street] (1965) – An elderly Jewish woman in Czechoslovakia is confused when antisemitic policies take away her business. Black and white. Subtitled.
One Survivor Remembers (1995) – A Jewish woman recounts her experiences in concentration camps and on a death march. Documentary.
Advisory: Footage of emaciated, nude corpses.
Playing for Time (1980) – A woman wrestles with ethical dilemmas when she is chosen to be lead vocalist for the women’s orchestra at Auschwitz. Adapted by Arthur Miller from Fania Fénelon’s memoir.
Advisory: Adult situations.
Saul fia [Son of Saul] (2015) – A Jewish man works as a member of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz. Subtitled.
Advisory: Violence, nudity.
Schindler’s List (1993) – A member of the Nazi Party secretly attempts to protect some of Kraków’s Jews during the Holocaust. Adapted from Thomas Keneally’s novel. Black and white.
Shoah (1985) – Numerous interviews feature Holocaust survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators. Documentary.
Sister Rose’s Passion (2004) – An American nun successfully crusades to change the Catholic Church’s longstanding Teaching of Contempt for Jews and Judaism, thus improving relations between the two faith communities. Documentary.
Sorstalanság [Fateless] (2005) – A Jewish teenager from Hungary is sent to Nazi camps. Adapted from Imre Kertész’s novel. Subtitled.
Advisory: Violence, nudity.
Selected filmography
Schindler’s List (1993)
Sophie’s Choice (1982)
Life is Beautiful (1997)
Kapò (1960)
Holocaust (1978 Mini Series)
The Pianist (2002)
Train of Life (1998)
Fateless (2005)
Playing for Time (1980 TV Series)
The Grey Zone (2001)
Seven Beauties (1975)
Europa Europa (1990)
The Counterfeiters (2007)
Amen. (2002)
Angry Harvest (1985)
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)
Divided We Fall (2000)
Conspiracy (2001 TV Movies)
Landscape After Battle (1970)
Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001 Mini Series)
Uprising (2001 TV Movie)
Escape from Sobibor (1987 TV Movie)
Das Boot ist voll (1981)
God on Trial (2008 TV Movie)
Defiance (2008)
Jacob the Liar (1974)
The Ninth Day (2004)
A Love to Hide (2005 TV Movie)
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
The Wall (1982 TV Movie)
Murders Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story (1989 TV Movie)
Triumph of the Spirit (1989)
Bent (1997)
The Island on Bird Street (1997)
Sunshine (1999)
The Shop on Main Street (1965)
The Pawnbroker (1964)
The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009 TV Movie)
The Hiding Place (1975)
Die Wannseekonferenz (1984 TV Movie)
Judgement at Nuremburg (1961)
Rosenstrasse (2003)
Nackt unter Wölfen (1963) [Naked among Wolves]
Gebürtig (2002)
David (1979)
Murders Among Us (1946)
Edges of the Lord (2001)
The Aryan Couple (2004)
The Truce (1997)
The Devil’s Arithmetic (1999 TV Movie)
Nacht und Niebel (1955) [Night and Fog]
The Reader (2008)
Au revoir les enfants (1987) [Goodbye children]
Son of Saul (2015)
Shoah (1985)
Selected bibliography
Abzug, Robert H. GIs Remember: Liberating the Concentration Camps. Washington, DC: National Museum of American Jewish History, 1994.
Abzug, Robert H. Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Abzug, Robert H., Leonard Dinnerstein, Kevin A. Mahoney, Sybil Milton, Abraham J. Peck, and James J. Weingartner. Liberation 1945. Washington D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1995.
Ast, Theresa Lynn. “Confronting the Holocaust: American Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps.” Ph.D. Diss. Emory University, 2000.
Bardgett, Suzanne, and David Cesarani, editors. Belsen 1945: New Historical Perspectives. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006.
Bernard, Jean. Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau. Bethesda, Maryland: Zaccheus Press, 2007.
Bourke-White, Margaret. “Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly”: A Report on the Collapse of Hitler’s “Thousand Years.” New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946.
Bridgman, Jon. The End of the Holocaust: The Liberation of the Camps. Portland, OR: Areopagitica Press, 1990.
Chamberlin, Brewster S., and Marcia Feldman, editors. The Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945: Eyewitness Accounts of the Liberators. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 1987.
Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
Dann, Sam. Dachau 29 April 1945: The Rainbow Liberation Memoirs. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1998.
Davidson, Eugene. The Trial of the Germans: An Account of the Twenty-two Defendants before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. New York: Macmillan, 1966.
Dinnerstein, Leonard. America and the Survivors of the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
Distel, Barbara. “The Liberation of the Concentration Camp at Dachau.” In Dachau and the Nazi Terror 1933-1945, edited by Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel, 9-17. Dachau: Dachauer Hefte, 2002.
Eliach, Yaffa, and Brana Gurewitsch, editors. The Liberators: Eyewitness Accounts of the Liberation of Concentration Camps: Oral History Testimonies of American Liberators From the Archives of the Center for Holocaust Studies. Brooklyn: Center for Holocaust Studies, Documentation and Research, 1981.
Flanagan, Ben, and Donald Bloxham, editors. Remembering Belsen: Eyewitnesses Record the Liberation. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2005.
Goodell, Stephen, and Kevin Mahoney. 1945: The Year of Liberation. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1995.
Gun, Nerin. Day of the Americans. New York: Fleet Publishing Co., 1966.
Hirsh, Michael. The Liberators: America’s Witnesses to the Holocaust. New York: Bantam Books, 2010.
Imperial War Museum. The Relief of Belsen, April 1945: Eyewitness Accounts. London: Imperial War Museum, 1991.
Kershaw, Alex. The Liberator: One World War II Soldier’s 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau. New York: Broadway Books, 2012.
Law, C. E. Kamp Westerbork, Transit Camp to Eternity: The Liberation Story. Clementsport, NS: Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 2000.
Peck, Abraham J., ed. The Landsberg DP Camp Letters of Major Irving Heymont, United States Army. Cincinnati: American Jewish Archives, 1982.
Penrose, Anthony, ed. Lee Miller’s War: Photographer and Correspondent with the Allies in Europe, 1944-1945. Boston, Toronto, and London: Little, Brown, and Co., Bullfinch Press, 1992.
Perry, Michael W., editor. Dachau Liberated: The Official Report by the U.S. Seventh Army. Seattle: Inkling Books, 2000.
Potter, Lou, William Miles, and Nina Rosenblum. Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.
Pronay, Nicholas, and Keith Wilson, eds. The Political Re-education of Germany and Her Allies Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1985.
Proudfoot, Malcolm J. European Refugees, 1939-52: A Study in Forced Population Movement. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1956.
Reilly, Joanne. Belsen: The Liberation of a Concentration Camp. London: Routledge, 1998.
Reilly, Joanne, editor. Belsen in History and Memory. London: F. Cass, 1997.
Roeder, George H., Jr. The Censored War: American Visual Experience during World War Two. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
Sacco, Jack. Where the Birds Never Sing: The True Story of the 92nd Signal Battalion and the Liberation of Dachau. New York: ReganBooks, 2003.
Schwarz, Leo. The Redeemers: A Saga of the Years 1945-1952. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Young, 1953.
Scrase, David, and Wolfgang Mieder, editors. The Holocaust: Personal Accounts. Burlington, VT: The Center for Holocaust Studies at The University of Vermont, 2001.
Selzer, Michael. Deliverance Day: The Last Hours at Dachau. London: Sphere Books, Ltd., 1980.
Shephard, Ben. After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005.
Sington, Derrick. Belsen Uncovered. London: Duckworth, 1946.
Smith, Marcus J. Harrowing of Hell: Dachau. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1972.
Stern, Kenneth S. Liberators: A Background Report. New York: American Jewish Committee, 1993.
Strzelecki, Andrzej. The Evacuation, Dismantling and Liberation of KL Auschwitz. Oświęcim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2001.
Taylor, Telford. The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir. New York: Knopf, 1992.
Wyman, Mark. DP: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945-1951. Philadelphia: The Balch Institute Press, 1989.
Archives & Libraries
USC Shoah Foundation
https://sfi.usc.edu/
Jewish Virtual Library
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/
Yad Vashem Collections http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/through-the-lens/liberation.asp
Holocaust History Animated Maps
https://www.ushmm.org/learn/mapping-initiatives/holocaust-history-animated-maps
Museums
Texas
Dallas Holocaust Museum
211 N. Record St. Suite 100 Dallas, TX 75202-3361
http://www.dallasholocaustmuseum.org/
El Paso Holocaust Museum
715 N. Oregon St., El Paso, TX 79902
http://www.elpasoholocaustmuseum.org/
Houston Holocaust Museum
5401 Caroline St., Houston, TX 77004-6804
Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio
12500 NW Military Hwy, San Antonio, TX 78231
12th Armored Division Memorial Museum
1289 N. 2nd St., Abilene, Texas 79601
http://www.12tharmoredmuseum.com/
Texas Military Forces Museum
2200 W 35th St, Austin, TX 78703
http://texasmilitaryforcesmuseum.org/
Museum of the American G.I.
19124 Hwy 6, College Station, TX 77845
United States
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
The National WWII Museum
945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
http://www.nationalww2museum.org/
45th Infantry Division Museum
2145 N.E. 36th Street
Oklahoma City, OK 73111
http://45thdivisionmuseum.com/
Worldwide
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial
Pater-Roth-Str. 2a
D – 85221 Dachau
Germany
http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/
Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp Memorial
https://www.mauthausen-memorial.org/en
Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial
https://www.buchenwald.de/en/69/
Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial
https://www.buchenwald.de/en/29/
Nuremberg Trials Memorial
Museums
Texas
Dallas Holocaust Museum
211 N. Record St. Suite 100 Dallas, TX 75202-3361
http://www.dallasholocaustmuseum.org/
El Paso Holocaust Museum
715 N. Oregon St., El Paso, TX 79902
http://www.elpasoholocaustmuseum.org/
Houston Holocaust Museum
5401 Caroline St., Houston, TX 77004-6804
Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio
12500 NW Military Hwy, San Antonio, TX 78231
12th Armored Division Memorial Museum
1289 N. 2nd St., Abilene, Texas 79601
http://www.12tharmoredmuseum.com/
Texas Military Forces Museum
2200 W 35th St, Austin, TX 78703
http://texasmilitaryforcesmuseum.org/
Museum of the American G.I.
19124 Hwy 6, College Station, TX 77845
United States
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
The National WWII Museum
945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
http://www.nationalww2museum.org/
45th Infantry Division Museum
2145 N.E. 36th Street
Oklahoma City, OK 73111
http://45thdivisionmuseum.com/
Worldwide
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial
Pater-Roth-Str. 2a
D – 85221 Dachau
Germany
http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/
Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp Memorial
https://www.mauthausen-memorial.org/en
Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial
https://www.buchenwald.de/en/69/
Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial
https://www.buchenwald.de/en/29/
Nuremberg Trials Memorial
The Story Behind
Other Educational Resources
The Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission frequently holds workshops for teachers throughout the state of Texas to help educators understand how to approach the difficult dialogues of the Holocaust and modern genocide. As well, the Commission also runs activities and contests for students. For more information, please visit the THGC website at: http://thgc.texas.gov.
