Americans and the Holocaust: A Traveling Exhibition for Libraries: Educators, Family, and Youth Resources

The Americans and the Holocaust exhibition includes new scholarly research. This overview is meant to assist librarians in answering questions related to the Museum’s research and to identify resources to answer questions related to specific topics covered in the exhibit.

A PowerPoint presentation about Americans and their knowledge of the Holocaust

La historia del Holocausto plantea importantes cuestiones sobre lo que la comunidad internacional, incluido Estados Unidos, podría haber hecho para detener el ascenso del nazismo en Alemania y su ataque a los judíos de Europa.

Welcome to the Americans and the Holocaust exhibition. Today you will step back in history to learn about American responses to the Nazi threat in the 1930s and 1940s. Use this guide to focus on the history of four Americans who lived during this time. How did they respond to the persecution of Jews? What actions did they take?

Today you will step back in history to learn about American responses to the Nazi threat in the 1930s and 1940s. Use this guide to focus on the history of four Americans who lived during this time. How did they respond to the persecution of Jews? What actions did they take?

GRADE LEVEL: Adaptable for grades 7–12
SUBJECT: Multidisciplinary
TIME REQUIRED: Approximately 90 minutes (can be broken up over multiple class periods)
RATIONALE: Students will understand the complex factors that led German Jews to seek to emigrate from Nazi Germany
and the complex factors that impeded their immigration to the United States in the 1930s and 1940s.

Klaus Langer was a teenager in Gleiwitz, Germany. He began his diary after his bar mitzvah and recorded the unfolding discrimination against the Jews of his town in the 1930s. In these excerpts, Klaus writes about his family’s efforts to emigrate following Kristallnacht.

Join Holocaust survivors for live First Person conversations as they share their experiences in their own words. In its 22nd season, this signature program features an hour-long discussion with a survivor and journalist Bill Benson, followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience. This guide provides scaffolding to integrate the First Person conversations into your classroom. By viewing First Person testimony students are exposed to the diversity of experiences of Holocaust survivors.

INSTRUCTIONS: After reading the biography of the survivor you will watch, answer the following: