The holocaust took place during World War two from 1939 to 1945. This was a devastating time for Jewish people and many others around the world. The impacts and implications of the holocaust can still be felt today, and it is important to educate and enlighten your students properly so that future generations will learn about the horrors and never make the same decisions and mistakes.
These 27 social studies activities, lesson plans, documentaries, and archive collections will engage your students in critical thinking and teach them about the history of antisemitism.
1. Teaching Resources About Anne Frank
When the Holocaust is being discussed, Anne Frank always comes up. That’s because Anne Frank played a monumental role in our understanding of the Holocaust. These resources include primary sources, secondary historical pieces, photographs, maps, film footage, and lesson plans.
Learn More: MCHE KC
2. Activities To Teach The Holocaust Timeline
These lesson plans for grades 6 to 12 will help your students understand the timeline of the Holocaust and how it fits into human history. Each classic timeline activity will help your students create an interactive timeline to understand how the events of the Holocaust happened and their outcomes.
Learn More: Echoes and Reflections
3. Digital Collections
These digitized collections of victim names, photographs, and rescue stories serve as great primary sources to create lesson plans and discussion groups to teach your students about racial antisemitism and individual experiences.
Learn More: Yad Vashem
4. Interactive Lesson Plans
These interactive resources, detailed lesson plans, and virtual manipulatives will help your students answer some difficult questions and learn about concentration camp prisoners, camp inmates, and the concept of racism with these videos and collection of lesson plans.
Learn More: Yad Vashem
5. The Virginia Holocaust Museum
The Virginia Holocaust Memorial Museum has a collection of educational videos and a virtual experience to help your students understand the holocaust a little better.
Learn More: VA Holocaust
6. Lessons About Concentration Camps
These pre-made digital activities and lessons will teach your students about what the Nazi concentration camps were, what happened, and how the German public viewed the concentration camps.
Learn More: Holocaust Education
7. Nazi Antisemitism Explained
These interactive activities explain where Nazi antisemitism began and help your students understand where antisemitism began and why the Jewish people were targeted.
Learn More: Holocaust Education
8. How The British Responded To The Holocaust
There are many misconceptions about how the rest of the world responded to the horrific events of the holocaust. This resource will help your middle school students understand the British people’s role in the Holocaust, and how they responded to the Nazi ideology.
Learn More: Holocaust Education
9. ‘After The War’
After The War is a book by Tom Palmer about 300 Jewish children who survived the war, this book activity comes with lessons and activities for students to complete to help them understand the Holocaust, and see it from the young survivors’ point of view.
Learn More: Holocaust Education
10. Movies About The Holocaust
This list of movies about the Holocaust is all appropriate for your middle school students to watch. Some concepts are hard to convey with mere words, so these movies can help your students understand the events of the holocaust better.
Learn more: B’nai Mitzvah Academy
11. Poster Project
This beautiful poster of Anne Frank will allow your students to make a great tribute to her while they learn more about her with this collaborative poster activity and writing project.
Learn More: Teachers Pay Teacher
12. Bearing Witness
This lesson plan is a critical thinking activity to help your students understand just how horrible the crimes of the Holocaust truly were, and all the people who were affected and involved.
Learn More: Facing History
13. Digital Lesson On Anne Frank
This digital lesson about Anne Frank’s life will help your students understand how Anne Frank’s life fit into the second world war and understand the timeline of her life and the war. This will help your students understand the effect the war had on the people, especially on the children.
Learn More: Anne Frank
14. Anne Frank House
Anne Frank House is a museum that is dedicated to Anne Frank, a young girl who died during the war but left behind a detailed diary of her experience. Anne and her family hid in secret rooms to flee persecution from the Nazis. If you cannot visit the actual house, here is a digital view of the house.
Learn More: Anne Frank
15. Quizlet About The Holocaust
This Quizlet has some great questions and answers about the Holocaust to test your middle school student’s knowledge about the Holocaust. You can use this digital resource as flashcards to review the work, or your students can study them individually to prepare for an assessment or test.
Learn More: Quizlet
16. Novels About The Holocaust
This website features a list of books, both fiction and non-fiction, about the Holocaust. These books feature main characters that lived during World War 2 and played a role in the war or had to make difficult decisions. The amount of violence and graphic images is reduced in these books, making them appropriate for Middle School.
Learn More: The Literary Maven
17. Activities For Teaching World War 2
This fun, hands-on activities will help your students understand the history of antisemitism, pre-war Jewish life, and timelines of World war 2. Your students will also learn about key role players like generals, dictators, and other world leaders and their impact on the war.
Learn More: Students of History
18. Digital Notebook About World War 2
This digital interactive notebook about World War 2 will help your students with their writing and reflecting skills while teaching them all about the Holocaust and war. There is a new, different activity every day to keep your students engaged.
Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers
19. Voices Of The Holocaust
This website features a collection of survivor testimonies from the Holocaust where they share their experience, their life before the war, what it was like living in the ghettos, and their liberation at the end of the war.
Learn More: USHMM
20. The Butterfly Project
This beautiful, heart-warming project will make your students connect with individual survivors and victims of the Holocaust. This project can be done when reading the book ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel. This powerful experience will definitely make your students aware of the horrors and pain experienced during the Holocaust.
Learn More: Johnston’s Ela Gems
21. Number The Stars Project
This project is based on the book Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, about a Jewish family during the Holocaust. This project will teach your students about characterization, biography, and character descriptions.
Learn More: Study All Knight
22. Justice-Centered Approach
This teacher took a different approach to teaching the Holocaust unit. This justice-centered approach will give your students a different perspective and understanding of the Holocaust. This approach teaches students how the antisemitic movement was built upon systematic discrimination that eventually ended in genocide.
Learn More: Ms. Green Class
23. The Holocaust Through Children’s Eyes
These survival stories and discussion questions will allow your students to experience the Holocaust from a child’s perspective. So many children lost their lives in the Holocaust, and the ones who didn’t lose their life lost their childhood. This collection of survivor testimony stories tells us how these brave children eluded persecution.
Learn More: Adl
24. Ladder of Prejudice
This card activity is the perfect introduction to the Holocaust. This ladder activity lets students use their own judgment in determining which type of prejudice is the worse. This introduces the term prejudice and gives examples of different forms of prejudice.
Learn More: Hansen George
25. Holocaust Rescuers
Any curriculum about the Holocaust needs to feature and praise the heroes of the Holocaust. Many people risked their own lives to help and rescue Jewish people who were facing persecution. These 18 stories about rescuers will warm your student’s hearts while they learn more.
Learn More: Learn in Color
26. 8-Week Study Unit
Tell Them We Remember is an 8-Week study unit that teaches topics like Hitler’s rise to power, life and circumstances in the concentration camps, the Jewish resistance, and the righteousness among the nations. This study unit includes many comprehension questions and critical thinking questions to engage your students throughout the unit.
Learn More: Learn in Color
27. Mapping World War II
These great activities will help your students understand the geography surrounding the war. This unit gives your students facts about the war, maps, and worksheets. This unit can be used as an introduction to your Holocaust unit to inform students of everything going on at that time.
Learn More: Kids Connect
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