Possible Applications of a Unit on the Holocaust to the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework
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/>

From Reasoning, Reflection, Research and Content in History and Social Science:
To become well grounded in history and social science, and to continue learning for themselves long after they have finished school, students need to acquire both core knowledge and a firm grasp of reasoning and practice in inquiry and research. The must learn how to frame and test hypotheses, to distinguish logical for illogical reasoning, and to grasp a superiority of reflective thinking and evaluation over the impulsive and uninformed rush to judgment and decision.

From Core knowledge: The World -- 6. The World in the Era of Great Wars (1900 to 1945) . . . k. The human toll of 20th century wars and genocides; the Holocaust.

From Commonly Taught Subtopics related to Core Knowledge in United States and World History, Geography, Economics, and Civics and Government-- Teachers must decide how best to spend the structured learning time dedicated in their schools to study of history and social sciences. Designing curriculum and courses includes deciding which elements of Core Knowledge should be treated in depth and at length and also studied at several grade levels, because it is impossible to study every element of Core Knowledge in depth.

 
A study of the Holocaust is one of the suggested Core Knowledge items. It is a topic that if chosen to be studied is well suited to be studied in depth. It is a topic of study that offers the student the challenge of reasoning, reflection, and research.

A close look at the History Strand and the Learning Standards for History:

1. Chronology and Cause. Students will understand the chronological order of historical events and recognize the complexity of historical cause and effect,, including the interaction of forces from different spheres of human activity, the importance of ideas, and of individual choices, actions, and character.

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 xt 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 Massachusetts. 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 Massachusetts.

2. Historical Understanding. Students will understand the meaning, implications and import of historical events, while recognizing the contingency and unpredictability of history--how events could have taken or direction--by studying past ideas as they were thought, and past events as they were lived, by people of the time.

The teacher who teaches a unit on the Holocaust has an opportunity to make the period of the that time come alive with the real stories of people who survived, who did not survive, who were victims, who were rescuers, who were bystanders. The resources are readily available and multiple. The best is a survivor to speak with students if one willing to present to students is available. Video sources are plentiful. Written sources are plentiful.

3. Research, Evidence, and Point of View. Students will acquire the ability to frame questions that can be answered by historical study and research; to collect, evaluate, and employ information from primary and secondary sources, and to apply it in oral and written presentations. They will understand the many kinds and uses of evidence; and by comparing competing historical narrative, they will differentiate historical fact from historical interpretation and from fiction.

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 memoirs, to the records of the period, to the arts and literature, to historians interpretations.

4. Society, Diversity, Commonality, and the Individual. . ..students should be taught above all the importance of our common citizenship and the imperative to treat all individuals with respect for their dignity called for by the Declaration of Independence.

The study of the Holocaust is closely connected to this standard. A look at the anti-Semetism within this nation and in Europe before 1939 is to be compared and studied. The actions of a government and society that carried out genocide is to be studied. The consequences of the mass murders in the post 1945 world is to be realized: from the founding of the United Nations, to the Declaration of Human Rights, to the center of Jewish culture no longer in East Europe, but now in Israel and the United States.

5. Interdisciplinary Learning: Religion, Ethics, Philosophy, and Literature in History. Students will describe the explain fundamental tenets of major world religions; basic ideals of ethics, including justice, consideration for others, and respect for human rights; differing conceptions of human nature; and influences over time of religion, ethics, and ideas of human nature in the arts, political and economic theories and ideologies, societal norms, education of the public, and the conduct of individual lives.

(See Teaching about the Holocaust: A Resource Book for Educators put out by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. which can be found at the link at the top of this page. In this valuable resource for teachers is an excellent annotated bibliography which can lead the teacher to excellent sources to fulfilled the goals of this standard.)

6. Interdisciplinary Learning: Natural Science, Mathematics, and Technology. Students will describe and explain major advances, discoveries, and inventions over time in natural science, mathematics, and technology; explain some of their effects and influences in the past and present on human life, thought, and health, including the use of natural resources, production and distribution and consumption of goods, exploration, warfare, and communication.

The Holocaust is an example to be compared to the hopes for science, mathematics, and technology. Example: 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.

A broad look at the Geography Strand:

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.

A broad look at the Economic Strand:

Some examples 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 transportationsto death camps are to be faced. The economics of the ghettos and the death camps themselves serves an example of what happens when civilized morals become wrapped. 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 .

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 y 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 bureaucracyin 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.