Possible Applications of a Unit on the Holocaust to the District of Columbia Contenct Standards for History by the End of Grade 11.
A Color Key:
Blue:  A link to the USHMM teacher’s guide web page.
Black: Directly quoting a state’s social studies standard.
Red:  The correlation of studying the Holocaust to the standards.
Brown:  Other information. 		If a secondary teacher would decide to teach a unit on the Holocaust, it would be highly recommended to first read "Guidelines for Teaching about the Holocaust" created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum which can be found at <http://www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/>

The grade 11 History Benchmarks for History are used. Those that apply to the Holocaust appear below.

Chronology and Space in Human History
Content Standard 1: Students understand chronological order and spatial patterns of human experiences, by placing the stories of people and events in the context of their own time and place.
The student will:
•explain the immediate and long term causes of historical turning points.

    The Holocaust is an important turning point in human history. Immediate and long term causes can be gone into in depth: From the roots of anti-Semitism traced through the Middle Ages, to the anti-Semitism of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century on both sides of the Atlantic, to the economic and social causes of the rise of Hitler, to the racial laws leading to the "final solution" during the Nazi rule of Germany.
    The reaction to the Holocaust in the post World War II world results in the establishment of the United Nations, the Declaration of Human Rights. the establishment of the state of Israel.
•explain the impact that inventions have had on history.
    The mind set of the Industrial Age has as a consequence in the Holocaust the factory murders in the death camps. indentify the occasions on which the collaboration of different kinds of people, often with different motives, has accomplished important changes.
Historical Inquiry, Analysis and Judgement
Content Standard 2: Student use varied methods and sources in research and writing.
The student will:
•analyze historical events or ideas by uncovering the social, political, and economic context in which they were created.
explain how historical interpretations can vary according to prevailing orthodoxy of a period of time.
•write a research paper using conflictin primary sources.
•obtain historical data from a variety of sources.
    In the study of the Holocaust, multiple sources are available for the teacher to direct students toward. Questions of how and why, questions of interpretation such as who did what, who knew what when, questions of reactions of victims, etc . all can be formulated with the vast availability of primary sources and secondary sources that range from personal testimony of survivors, to photographic archives, to diaries and memoriors, to the records of the period, to the arts and literature, to historians interpretations.

   In Holocaust Studies a complete understanding of the chronology of events is an absolute must. One must take the student back to the origins of anti-Semitism, the development of racial theories in all corners of the world including the United States. The time line of events in the 1930s and 1940s is to be completely understood.

   If a teacher centers in on an individual's story in the Holocaust, the context of that story in time is a must. If a teacher assigns research to a specific person or event, the context of the time is to be understood. The Holocaust is one of the major events of the modern period that has its effects on world, United States, and The District of Columbia.

   The event must be fully analyzed to comprehend that effect from what it did to the culture of the Jewish peoples, to the culture of Europe, to the impact on the United States and the District of Columbia.

   The study of the Holocaust includes complete understanding of the geography of Europe, of the chronology of events from the first racial laws of the Nazi regime to the implementation of the death camps; a chronology of events from racial attitudes in the United States as the war broke out, to the inaction of the United States Government, to the immigration of survivors to the United States including the District of Columbia.

   In a study of the Holocaust the basic tenants of Christianity and Judaism should be understood. These both come into the story as a student studies the issue of anti-Semitism.

   Music and the arts of the perpetrators and victims can help students understand the cultures of the people of Europe at the time of the Holocaust. Analysis of Nazi racial doctrine and how it moved to the "final solution" is to be made.

   Analysis of Nazi economic practices and its use of slave labor is to be understood. The technological, industrial mind set of the Nazis is to be viewed by the student as it led to the industrialized murder factories located in eastern Europe. The shift of the center of Jewish culture from eastern Europe to Israel and the United States as a result of the Holocaust is to be understood.

Scientific, Technological, and Economic Change
Contant Standard 3: Students recognize scientific, technological, and economic changes and understand how they have affected societies, culture, and politics throughout history.
The student will:
•explain how the scarcity of productive resources requires edconomic systems to make decisions decisions agbout how goods and services are to be produced and distributed.
    A student can look into the economics of one of the ghettos set up in Eastern Europe after 1939. apply economic concepts and reasoning when evaluating historical and contemporary social developments and issues.
Opportunity to study the economic and social situation in Germany and internationally in the 1920s and early 1930s that led to the rise of Hitler. identify current and historical examples of how science and technology interact with society.

   The technology of mass murder can be looked at in its developing stages from roaming Einsatzgruppen units to the factory methods at Birkenau. explain the role of economics on the rise of dictators following WWI and the impact on present and future events in American history. The rise of Hitler. explain and evaluate the role of scientic and technological developments and how they encourage or discourage war.

   Again--the technology of mass murder.

Social Diversity and Social Change
Content Standard 4: Students understand how the origins, evolution, and diversity of societies, social classes and groups have been affected and changed by forces of georgaphy, ideology, and economics.
evaluate and discuss why individuals and groups in the United States have interpreted and reinterpreted history in different ways.
   A study of the historical interpretations of the Holocaust by historians in the United States can be looked into. Also, a contrast to the interpretations by historians in Israel can be made to American historians. explain the concept of institutional discrimination and its relevance to particlar groups in the United States.

   Anti-Semitism in the United States can be studied in various periods of American history. Examples: Pre 1939, during WWII, and post 1945.


 

Religious, Ethical, and Philosophical Forces in History
Content Standard 5: Students explain the beliefs, and principles of the major religions, ethical systems, philosophies and ideologies that have guided individual lives, shaped economic, social and political institutions, and influenced the course of history.
The student will:
•analyze, evaluate, and explain conditions, actions, and motivations that contribute to conflict and cooperation within and among nations.

   Any and all aspects of the Holocaust and the study of the Holocaust would fit the above.


Cultural History: Tradition, Creativity, and Diversity
Content Standard 6: Students undedrstand the different way individuals have expressed experiences, beliefs, and aspirations in art, architecture, music, and literature.

   A look at the Jewish culture of East Europe before 1939 in all its artistic endevors can help meet this standard. Also the art, literature, etc. of the camps can be found.
Political Ideas, Turning Points, and Institutions
Content Standard 7: Students understand and historical evolution of politcal ideas, ideologoies, and institutions. They see how different politcal instutions have affected human life and how technological, economic, social, cultural, religious, an philosophical forces in history have shaped politics.
    The Holocaust can be incorporated into a study of government in order to demonstrate how the development of public policy can become directed to genocidal ends when dissent and debate are silenced. Inclusion of Holocaust studies in a government or a history course helps students: compare governmental systems; study the process of how a state can degenerate from a democracy into a totalitarian state; examine how the development of public policy can lead to genocidal ends; examine the role of Nazi bureaucracy in implementing policies of murder and annihilation; examine the role of various individuals in the rise and fall of a totalitarian government; recognize that among the legacies of the Holocaust have been the creation of Human Rights organizations and declarations.

   Inclusion a study of the Holocaust into a U.S. history or a U.S. government course can encourage students to: •examine the dilemmas that arise when foreign policy goals are narrowly defined, as solely in terms of the national interest, denying the validity of universal moral and human priorities.
•understand what happens when parliamentary democratic institutions fail.
•examine the responses of governmental and non-governmental organizations in the United States to the plight of Holocaust victims.
•explore the role of American soldiers in liberating victims from Nazi concentration camps and killing centers.
•examine the key role played by the U.S. in bringing Nazi perpetrators to trial at Nuremberg and in other war crimes trials.
•understand the consequences of mass murder. Example: The attitude of the United States government to the anti-Semitism before 1939; the inaction and actions of the United States government during the war; the immigration of survivors to the United States in the post war period.