Possible Applications of a Unit on the Holocaust to the Illinois Social Science Learning Standards
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/>

Economic Learning Standards: As a result of their schooling students will be able to:
A. Understand how different economic systems operate in the exchange, production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.

In studying the Holocaust and Europe of World War II, students are faced with the economics of the Nazi regime and their wartime production. This included mass use of slave labor. Questions of transportation of war supplies and human transportations to death camps are to be faced. The economics of the death camps themselves serves an example of what happens when civilized morals become warped.
B. Understand that scarcity necessitates choices by consumers.
C. Understand that scarcity necessitates choices by producers.
D. Understand trade as an exchange of goods or services.
Students can look into the economics of ghettos and camps to come to an understanding of these three standards.
E. Understand the impact of government policies and decisions on production and consumption in the economy.
The policies of governments in the post World War I, Versailles Treaty era can show students how the economy in Germany led to the rise of Hitler.
History Learning Standard: As a result of their schooling students will be able to:
A. Apply the skills of historical analysis and interpretation.
B. Understand the development of significant political events.
C. Understand the development of economic systems.
(see Economic Learning Standards)
D. Understand Illinois, United States, and world social history.
E. Understand Illinois, United States, and world environmental history.
(ravages of war)
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 memoir's, to the records of the period, 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 it's effects on world, United States, and Connecticut.

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 state of Illinois.

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 Connecticut.

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.

Geography Learning Standards: As a result of their schooling students will be able to:
A. Locate, describe, and explain regions and features on the Earth.
B. Analyze and explain characteristics and interactions on the Earth's physical systems.
C. Understand relationships between geographic factors and society.
D. Understand the historical significance of geography.
Holocaust studies require the knowledge of and use of maps: The chronology of war fronts, the location of the various types of camps, the transportation systems, etc. The maps of camps are needed to understand how they operated and for what purpose. The maps of ghettos are needed to understand the events that occurred in the ghettos.

The Holocaust created unnatural environments. Students will become aware of how humans modified and responded to the horrors they faced: racial laws, ghettos, camps.

Culture/Social Systems Learning Standards: As a result of their schooling student will be able to:
A. Compare characteristics of culture as reflected in language, literature, the arts, traditions and institutions.
B. Understand the roles and interactions of individuals and groups in society.
C. Understand how social systems form and develop over time.
A study of the Jewish culture from the time of the Diaspora to its centering in East Europe can reinforce all three of these standards. The culture that endured within ghettos and camps can be studied.
Civics/Government Learning Standards: As a result of their schooling students will be able to:
A. Understand and explain basic principles of the United States Government.
B. Understand the structures and functions of the political systems of Illinois, the United States, and other nations.
C. Understand election processes and responsibilities of citizens.
D. Understand the roles and influences of individuals and interest groups in the political systems of Illinois, the United States, and other nations.
E. Understand United States foreign policy as it relates to other nations and international issues.
F. Understand the development of United States political ideas and traditions.
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 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.

Including 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.