Tips for teaching the history of the Holocaust to primary school students

Teaching the history of the Shoah in the first degree raises a number of questions that concern respect for children’s sensitivity, the choice of themes to be addressed, the relevance of testimony... The educational team of the Shoah Memorial has developed a summary, enriched by the experience of school teachers, to guide the teacher in his approach.

• To approach the history of the Shoah, it is advisable to use a support and start the sequence by studying a book or a film.

• The second step is to review the chronology of events and clarify the specific vocabulary in order to demonstrate the outcome of the exclusion process.

• Children’s knowledge of the subject and their imagination should also be taken into account. Primary school students are confronted very early on with a lot of information, particularly in the media: the press, radio, television, via the internet or their family environment. It is not a question of drowning the child in a mass of information but of helping him to organize his knowledge on the subject.

• It is advisable to present a map in order to locate the countries at war and the major centers of Jewish life.

• Documents can illustrate themes to to approach (photographs, children’s drawings, letters from hidden children). The photographs must be chosen carefully because they attest and fascinate powerfully. It is not, of course, a matter of showing children photographic or film representations of the genocide.
  Children can be asked to bring objects to class (badges, newspapers, leaflets, posters and photographs...).

• At the end of the sequence, we can offer children an art activity on the theme addressed so that they can express their emotions: drawing, painting, collage, text expression... and try to respond in class to each student’s questions.

• The teacher must remain cautious because he can cause rejection, or even saturation on this subject. It is necessary to return to the specificity of the Shoah and, then, possibly expand with intelligibility to other victims of racism and mass crimes (the genocide of the Armenians in 1915 and the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994).

• Beyond the horror of a crime that is incomprehensible to students, it is about to convey a message of hope and to envision a better world.
  Here, we can mention: democratic achievements such as justice, secularism, and citizenship; certain essential values such as tolerance, humanism, and universalism; the establishment of a solid and lasting peace between France and Germany within the framework of Europe after three conflicts. What is it to be French? What do we have in common? (The language, the country, the places of memory, the cuisine...)

Resources

We can approach the history of the Shoah through multiple approaches, through various subjects: history – geography, civic education, French, arts subjects, and "péri-scolaire" activities: meetings with witnesses, with writers who have written about this period, shows, exhibitions, film screenings, activities of the Shoah Memorial-Museum... We must remain attentive to current cultural and artistic events.

Meet a witness

• The meeting with witnesses who have lived through this period must be carefully prepared for both the children and the witnesses. We must ask the witnesses to speak only of their personal experience, to try as far as possible not to do a history lesson but to situate themselves as closely as possible to their experiences. It is prudent to check beforehand that the witness’s speech is clearly understandable and does not unnecessarily mention any traumatic details for the young listener.

• The teacher must prepare the children for his coming and insist on the fact that it is impossible to judge, a posteriori, an event whose tragic end is now known, in order to avoid indecent and arrogant questions against their will.

Educational and cultural activities of the Memorial-Museum

• Tour of the permanent exhibition with signage and an accompanying booklet for children.
• Activities for primary school
• Activities for secondary school
• Training for teachers and summer school
• Support for specific projects (classes at P.A.C., A.P.A....)
• Educational files, sheets...
• Travelling thematic exhibitions
• Multimedia teaching center (testimonies, encyclopedia, selection of sites, films...), on-site consultation.

Sarah’s Attic

On the website of the Memorial, the Attic of Sarah is an introductory site to the history of the Shoah dedicated to 8-12 year olds, children’s courses are presented as well as a FAQ for the youngest, a bibliography, a comparative chronology and a Shoah dictionary accessible from all the pages of the site.

ACCESS THE "SARAH’S ATTIC" SITE