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If you would like to add an event or resource to this page, please contact Professor Robert Franciosi, Ph.D. or (616) 331-3069.

Why teach about the Holocaust?

Why indeed? What should you teach?  Are training materials and opportunities available?  These and many other questions are answered by one of the foremost institutions devoted to the Holocaust in the United States: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Find a wealth of information and teaching resources here. 

USC Shoah Foundation: Institute for Visual History and Education

The Institute for Visual History and Education is dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides a compelling voice for education and action.  The Institute currently has over 53,000 testimonies, each one a unique source of insight and knowledge that offer powerful stories from history that demand to be explored and shared. In this way, we will be able to see the faces and hear the voices of those who witnessed history, allowing them to teach and inspire action against intolerance. A fact sheet is available here or connect to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education website.

IWitness: An online resource for teachers and students

"Imagine if there was a voice that spoke for a generation and could guide us through the dark chapters of human history.  Imagine if that voice could help us think about our values, our society, and our own behaviors.  Imagine if we could take that voice of human conscience and transform the way a generation learns.  Well, we do have that voice; in fact we have 51,696 voices.  And with IWitness, our educational website for secondary-school teachers and their students, we have made more than 1,300 of those voices available to inspire students to act to overcome prejudice, intolerance and bigotry - and the suffering they cause."  Dr. Stephen D. Smith, Executive Director, USC Shoah Foundation, The Institute for Visual History and Education. For more information, link to a fact sheet here or to the IWitness website.

Echoes and Reflections is a multimedia program that provides US secondary educators with professional development and print and online resources to teach about the Holocaust in today's classrooms. 

Echoes and Reflections:

• Promotes an interdisciplinary approach to teaching about the Holocaust to today’s students.
• Addresses academic standards—including Common Core State Standards—using informational texts and primary source documents.
• Incorporates compelling visual history testimony into ten multi-part and modular lessons to engage students in the lives of survivors, rescuers, liberators, and other witnesses of the Holocaust.
• Combines the experience and resources of three world leaders in education: the Anti-Defamation League, USC Shoah Foundation, and Yad Vashem.

Please visit the Echoes and Reflections website to attend a free online training program and receive a resource guide, opportunities to explore effective strategies for teaching the Holocaust to students, and access to professional development credit. 

Facing History and Ourselves

"Facing History and Ourselves provides ideas, methods, and tools that support the practical needs, and the spirits, of educators worldwide who share the goal of creating a better, more informed, and more thoughtful society." (Facing History and Ourselves website)

Schwules Museum

With its highly regarded exhibitions, archival holdings, numerous contributions to research and more than thirty-five (mostly volunteer) staff, the Schwules Museum* has, since its founding in 1985, grown into one of the world's largest and most significant institutions for archiving, researching and communicating the history and culture of GLBTIQ communities. Changing exhibitions and events take diverse approaches to lesbian, gay, trans*, bisexual and queer biographies, themes and concepts in history, art and culture.(From The Schwules Museum website.)