Teaching about the Holocaust is often limited by teacher’s familiarity with the subject and the amount of time available for this topic. The materials in this guide were designed with these concerns in mind. The guide is divided into three main parts: Overviews, Lesson Plans, and student Handouts. The guide also contains a Holocaust time line, glossary of key terms, and bibliography.

Overviews
The seven Overviews in this guide provide short summaries of topics related to the Holocaust. Teachers can summarize these mini-lectures for students or share them with more able readers. In the Overviews, unfamiliar words are printed in bold to indicate that the term is defined in the Glossary. Each Overview provides an historical context and background information for teaching the lessons it precedes.

Lesson Plans
Each lesson examines a topic discussed in an Overview. Depending on the amount of time available for each topic and the course in which it is taught, a teacher might use all or two or three of these lessons. Each lesson plan contains a list of handouts needed to teach the lesson, new vocabulary, and suggestions for teaching. The lessons conclude with ideas for enrichment activities that connect the study of the Holocaust to other areas of curriculum.

Handouts
Each lesson contains one or more handouts for students. Most are primary source documents: interviews with North Carolina survivors, original newspaper accounts of events in Germany, speeches by Nazi officials, and testimony from the Nuremberg Trials. At the middle school level, teachers may want to read some of the handouts aloud or tape record and replay them. Interviews with North Carolina survivors or Nazi officers work especially well as oral presentations.

Time Line, Glossary, Bibliography
The back of the book contains the poem “The Hangman,” suggested for use with Lesson Two and a Holocaust time line. The Glossary consists of terms introduced in the Overviews or the lessons. The guide concludes with an annotated Bibliography of books and audiovisual materials.