Holocaust Remembrance Week and the Chain of Causation

This week is Holocaust Remembrance Week, an eight day observance established by Congress to commemorate the tragic events that transpired in Eastern Europe before and during World War II. This year's theme is Justice and Accountability in the Face of Genocide: What Have We Learned? The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has put together several excellent resources to aid in the exploration of this year's theme that you should definitely take the time to peruse. Over the years I've also developed some of my own activities to address this topic. Here are some lessons that I use in my class to provide students with a better understanding of the chain of causation leading up to the Holocaust.

One theme that is often overlooked, but is imperative for students to fully understand and analyze the Holocaust, are the events that led up to “undesirables” being rounded up and forced into ghettos and concentration camps - “the chain of causation.” To truly get the most out of teaching the Holocaust, you must first provide students with a solid foundation of events leading up to it.

When I first introduce the idea of the chain of causation, as it pertains to the Holocaust, I ask students to write down any and all information they know and associate with the term Holocaust. I ask students do this for two reasons: it acts as an informal and baseline assessment, and it allows students to go back after the unit and better understand their own education on the matter (i.e., “The Holocaust was much more than Jewish people being forced into concentration camps in the early 1940’s”).

The next step in building the chain of causation is to examine the changes in political and social ideology in Germany as it pertains to nationalism and segregation. Now, ideally, you would have just finished a unit on the Weimar Republic and/or the Rise of Nazism and students would already have a strong grasp on the aforementioned changes, but if not, here are some topics I’d invest time in to set the stage (as each had a specific role in the events leading up to the Holocaust). You could discuss the end of World War I and the “stab-in-the-back” theory, delve into a psychological analysis Adolf Hitler and his rise to power, talk about the Treaty of Versailles and subsequent German constraints, teach students about the Great Depression and hyper-inflation, and examine the rise of the Hitler Youth and the Schutzstaffel(SS) and Sturmabteilung(SA).

After telling students the objective of the assignment, I break the class into groups and assign them the following task: they are assigned a year between 1933 and 1938 and asked to create an interactive historical timeline or wiki highlighting the mistreatment of “undesirables.” I personally like xtimeline and PBworks as they are free and user friendly. Each group must then give a detailed description of five specific events from that year and explain how this event affected the chain. Along with a summary and analysis, groups must provide at least two types of media to strengthen their analysis (e.g., audio, video, picture, newspaper article, etc . . .).

Although there are several modifications you can use in order to personalize this assignment, I feel it’s best to use an online approach as opposed to the standard pen and paper method. I find that when students are able to share their work with people outside their classroom, they put a lot more effort into it, and there is a greater sense of ownership and accomplishment, thus creating a better understanding and final product.

The following links provide excellent resources to aid in the assessment of students' understanding of this topic Florida Center for Instructional Technology and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. What follows are more lessons to help your students understand the chain of causation that led up to the Holocaust.

Holocaust Lessons:

Lessons From the Holocaust 

Students examine events leading up to the Holocaust and compare and contrast a democracy and a dictatorship. 

Hidden Children and the Holocaust: A Lesson and Pledge for Action

Students read personal accounts of children during the Holocaust and relate it back to current day global events that affect children.

Bystanders in the Holocaust

Students explore the reasons for indifference and compliance of people not considered undesirables during the Holocaust.

Lesson Plan: The History of the Holocaust From A Personal Perspective

Students understand the ripple effect of the Holocaust as it pertains to future generations.