Two important institutions, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) and the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, have written guidelines for teaching the Holocaust. These organizations have conducted extensive pedagogical research into creating these guidelines.
The BHEC recommends that all teachers of the Holocaust review these guidelines before beginning their units.
1. Teaching Guidelines of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
4. Why Simulation Activities Should Not Be Used, a publication of the Anti-Defamation League
From Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers by Haim G. Ginott
(Memo written to teachers by a private school principal on the first day of school.)
Dear Teacher,
I am a survivor of a concentration camp.
My eyes saw what no man should witness:
Gas chambers built by learned engineers,
Children poisoned by educated physicians,
Infants killed by trained nurses,
Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates,
So, I am suspicious of education.
My request is: Help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters,
skill psychopaths, educated Eichmanns.
Reading, writing, arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more humane.
Page last updated: January 5, 2012