The Final Solution

The subject matter of an educational unit on the perpetrators of the Holocaust is fraught with difficulty. The question of how some human beings became the mass murderers of others – men, women and children – makes such a unit unnervingly difficult to approach. This holds true for both subject matter and the issues that the educator might seek to convey. As with any meaningful teaching of events during the Holocaust, the teacher must have a firm general grasp of the events, and in this unit we focus on the major stages that lead to the "Final Solution". This unit includes a teacher's guide on this topic, as well as aids to learn about and teach this tragedy: short videos for the teacher, historical overview articles, video and written testimonies, online exhibitions, photographs and documents, and key words. The material here presented is meant as an overview for teachers on the major stages of the Final Solution, in order to establish the foundational historical knowledge necessary for any educational discussion of the Holocaust.

This unit is part of a series of online educational units on select topics within Holocaust education. In these unique educational environments, we present a variety of teaching aids and auxiliary materials to assist the educator in teaching the subject, offering educators not only the historical information they need, but also the pedagogical tools to facilitate the lesson. The format allows educators to choose from the range of materials offered: lesson plans, presentations, archival materials, filmed testimonies, historical clips, Pages of Testimony and primary source materials (documents, photographs, diaries, maps, etc.), as well as video lectures.