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Teaching about the Holocaust can be challenging. The topic is complex and the task may at times seem overwhelming. In order to support effective teaching about the Holocaust using Echoes & Reflections, Yad Vashem’s International School of Holocaust Studies has created the Educator Video Toolbox, specifically aligned with the Echoes & Reflections program.
The Video Toolbox is designed to be exactly what its name suggests: a “toolbox” to provide visual cues and primary source materials edited into short films that help educators teach the Holocaust. The focus is on methodological and pedagogical suggestions that aid with this often daunting task, as well as practical materials and discussion points for classrooms and groups – in other words, the toolbox films cover content, and while doing so they also raise questions and dilemmas that can be discussed with students in the classroom. The films are intended to be used by teachers as helpful refreshers prior to stepping into the classroom, but they are also designed so that they can be used in the classroom with students.
Each film is approximately 15 minutes long, and each is tailored to a specific lesson of Echoes & Reflections. Currently, there are video toolboxes for Lesson 2 on Antisemitism, Lesson 4 on the Ghettos, Lesson 5 on the Final Solution, Lesson 6 on Resistance, and a video toolbox on Pedagogy. Each film addresses key historical context and integrates many of the primary source materials used in the Echoes & Reflections lessons in doing so. All the films include survivor testimonies, archival footage, maps and documentary interviews (with historians and educators).
The next video toolbox film will be aligned with Lesson 8 and will address the first moments after liberation.
- The video toolbox film on Antisemitism answers these important questions: What is antisemitism and what role did it play in Nazi Germany? How can we teach and explain to students the concept of antisemitism? We begin with the premise that antisemitism has very deep roots. It had long been entrenched in Europe, and Jews for many centuries had been victims of widespread hatred and suspicion. As such, antisemitism did not begin when Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933. This video toolbox film explains the historical context of the rise of racial antisemitic ideology, and provides a methodological and pedagogical framework to help teach this subject.
- The video toolbox film on Ghettos focuses on the story of the Lodz ghetto, as explained in the main article in this newsletter, Echoes: Voices of the Survivors. The film discusses the challenges of teaching about the period while making the story of the ghettos relevant to our students. How can we shed light today, decades after the tragic events, on what Jews knew, felt or understood during those terrifying days? What are the sources that can reveal their internal worlds? In addition to examining the Lodz ghetto, the video examines the process of ghettoization throughout Nazi Europe. Offering a teaching pathway of using primary sources to highlight individual experiences during this period, the video reinforces that despite severe overcrowding, starvation, disease, and grief, Jews still did their utmost to conduct their lives and retain their human dignity.
- The video toolbox film “The Final Solution: Jewish Life on the Brink of Death” addresses the complexities of teaching about the Final Solution. Some six million Jews were murdered in the systematic mass murder of the Jews of Europe that was defined by the Germans as the "Final Solution" of what they termed the "Jewish Question." The video focuses on the stories of individual Jewish victims, allowing us to address the Final Solution through a human lens rather than through dry statistics, and to present a multidisciplinary approach to this difficult subject of the struggle for life in the shadow of death during one of humanity's darkest chapters. The video uses testimony, memoir, artifacts and art to explore this topic.
- The video toolbox film "Resistance" addresses a common question when studying about the Holocaust, which is, “Why didn’t the Jews resist?” But they did. This video introduces different forms and types of Jewish resistance, spiritual and armed, to enable you to present them to students with substance and clarity.
- The video toolbox film "Teaching the Holocaust in Today's World" introduces effective approaches to help guide you in making instructional decisions, in order to increase students’ knowledge of the history of the Holocaust, and their understanding of its ongoing relevance to their lives and current society.