Tools for teaching

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF THE SHOAH BY THE IHRA

Faced with the growing ignorance of the Shoah among young people, the IRHA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) has put in place recommendations that shed light on education policy makers, school directors and teachers, so that the transmission of this dark period of history continues.

The Shoah Memorial has been part of the IRHA since 2001.

In order to accompany these actions, the IRHA published a document of recommendations for teaching and studying the Holocaust. Very complete, this document includes the following points:

• Why teach the Holocaust?
• What should be taught about the Holocaust?
• How to teach the Holocaust?
• List of main terms
• The Stockholm Declaration and IHRA working definitions

Download the document

The online resources

Like the other history objects studied in class, the Holocaust must be addressed through archival documents allowing students to develop historical reasoning under the guidance of their teachers. The corpus retained in these "pedagogical tools" is deliberately reduced; it is an indication of the type of available sources, which number in thousands.

The downloadable maps illustrate different themes: the internment camps in France, France in 1940, Europe in 1942, the ghettos of Poland, the routes of the main convoys to Auschwitz, the concentration camp universe, the death marches.

The audiovisual resources constitute a particularly suitable medium for testimony. In addition to many quality stories, this part of the "toolbox" includes recordings of meetings and conferences.

Historical syntheses are grouped in the section thematic sheets.  They cover the essential themes of the history of the Shoah: the rise of Nazism, the major stages of the Holocaust in Europe, the Vichy regime and the Jews, the trials of Nazi criminals. Themultimedia encyclopedia of the Shoah is a good complement to these sheets.

Finally, the comparative chronology of the Shoah, inseparable from the march to war and the different phases of the world conflict of 1939-1945, is a valuable tool for understanding the history of the destruction of European Jews. La chronological frieze of the Holocaust illustrated is also a good complement.

A selective bibliography, a filmography and a selection of websites complete these resources for the teacher.

Online leaflet intended for high school students, produced by the Île-de-France region and the Shoah Memorial « How do we get there? »

Borrow an exhibition

The Shoah Memorial has developed for many years awareness actions aimed at school audiences as well as the general public to understand the history of the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War. He thus designs and produces travelling exhibitions intended to circulate in France as well as abroad.
These exhibitions present often unpublished archives (iconographic documents, letters, testimonies...) which illustrate concise texts supervised by European specialists in these matters. From maps and lexicons facilitate the understanding of the themes presented. These exhibitions are made available to schools (middle and high schools) who request them.

DISCOVER

Booklets to help you visit a traveling exhibition

Educational accompanying booklets for traveling exhibitions are available. In accordance with the programs of the National Education, they were carried out to facilitate the work of teachers and allow students to observe, question and understand the documents appearing on the panels of the exhibitions.

Booklets to help prepare an educational workshop

Thematic booklets specific to certain workshops offered at the Mémorial allow teachers to discuss the topics of the workshop, in advance, with their students.

Thematic brochures

If the history of the Holocaust is part of the school curriculum and is mentioned at the ESPE and in textbooks, it remains nonetheless a difficult historical subject to address with young generations. The pedagogical service provides teachers and documentalists with six thematic educational brochures:

• Auschwitz
• The trials of Nazi criminals
• The ghettos The "Final Solution"
• What did we know about the Holocaust?
• Nazi Germany and the Jews

documentation center and multimedia teaching center

The Shoah Memorial is the first information and documentation centre on the history of the Holocaust in Europe. It has more than 40 million pages of archives, 280,000 photographs, 5,000 postcards, 4,000 posters and 80,000 books, periodicals and library documents that can be consulted on site, mainly in Paris but also in Drancy. The Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris also has a multimedia teaching center, for listening and viewing audiovisual documents.

bookstore

First bookstore in France on the subject, the Shoah Memorial bookstore offers more than 10,000 references. An exhaustive and up-to-date offer that covers the entire publishing spectrum: scientific works (history, philosophy, psychology, etc.), testimonials, essays, biographies, popular or awareness books, fiction or even children’s books.

internet

Other resources for teachers are also available on:

• enseign-histoire-shoah.org: A site, developed with the Ministry of National Education, to help teachers teach the history of the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War. There are listed the news, proposals for activities to be carried out in class or in institutions, practical information to organize visits to places of memory in France and Europe.
• cnrd.memorialdelashoah.org: Every year, the Shoah Memorial creates a website dedicated to the CNRD theme. In order to provide the keys to understanding the subject and to accompany students and teachers in their reflection, this site offers many online resources, bibliography, videos, glossaries, chronologies, etc...
• grenierdesarah.org: As an introduction to the history of the Holocaust, this site is aimed at children aged 8 to 12 years with respect for their sensitivity. It gives to see and hear tales and expressions that show the diversity of Jewish cultures transmitted before, during and after the Second World War. It offers nine itineraries that reflect the daily life of the Jews during the war, from archival documents and activity tracks, to be used in the educational space dedicated to teachers.