Possible Applications of a Unit on the Holocaust to the Michigan Social Studies Content 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/>

From the Overview of Social Studies Content Standards: The social studies curriculum should be designed so that students meet 25 standards that are indicators of responsible citizenship.

   A study of the Holocaust can help meet this overall goal of the Michigan Social Studies Content Standards in several ways as seen below. Specific Standards are correlated to Holocaust studies in the History and Geography. General correlation is made in Economics and Civics/Government.

Strand I. Historical Perspective: Students use knowledge of the past to construct meaningful understanding of diverse cultural heritage and to inform their civic judgments.

   The Holocaust is a story that grows out of the Great Depression, and it is central in the story of World War II. Examples: The chronology of American connections to the depression that hit Europe. The chronology of the events from 1039 to 1945 that led to the murder of millions. The chronology of American reaction and action to the Holocaust.

Standard 1.2 Comprehending the Past
All students will understand narratives about major eras of American and world history by identifying the people involved, describing the setting, and sequencing the events.

   The Holocaust is a major era, a defining era, in world and American history. Narratives of perpetrators and victims on an individual basis can be studied to help the student understand the the overall picture of the Holocaust.

Standard 1.3 Analyzing and Interpreting the Past
All students will reconstruct the past by comparing interpretations written by others from a variety of perspectives and creating narratives from evidence.

   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.

Standard 1.4 Judging Decisions from the Past
All students will evaluate key decisions made at critical turning points in history by assessing their implications and long-term consequences.

   One story out of the Holocaust that would fulfill this standard is the voyage of the St. Louis. Many others are there for the teacher to offer to students.

Strand II. Geographic Perspective

Students will use knowledge of spatial patterns on earth to understand processes that shape human environments and to make decisions about society.

   To fulfill this standard with a study of the Holocaust, students could study the cultures that were targeted for extermination: The simulated Jews of West Europe, the Jewish culture of East Europe, the Roma, etc.

Standard II.2 Human/Environment Interaction
All students will describe, compare, and explain the locations and characteristics of ecosystems, resources, human adaptation, environmental impact, and the interrelationships among them.
Standard II.3 Location, Movement, and Connections
All students will describe, compare, and explain the locations and characteristics of economic act ivies, migration, information flow, and the interrelationships among them.
Standard II.4 Regions, Patterns, and Processes
All students will describe and compare characteristics of ecosystems, states, regions, countries, major world regions, and patterns and explain the processes that created them.
Standard II.5 Global Issues and Events
All students will describe and explain the causes, consequences, and geographic context of major global issues and events.

   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.

Strand III. Civic Perspective

Students will use knowledge of American government and politics to make informed decisions about governing their communities.

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Strand VI. Public Discourse and Decision Making

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Strand VII. Citizen Involvement

   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.

Strand IV Economic Perspective

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 transportations to 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 .

Strand V Inquiry

(See History Strand and Standards above)