HMD08 Education Materials
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) challenges young people to prepare for a better future by encouraging them to learn from and remember the past. Education establishments are encouraged to engage their students in active participation in HMD commemorations in order to remember the victims of Nazi oppression and those who have suffered in more recent genocides. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust produces new materials each year specific to an annual theme. Our free education resources aim to assist all those who work with young people, in formal and informal educational settings, to unpack Holocaust narratives and relate them to the theme for 2008: Imagine...remember, reflect, react.
HMD gives teachers and students, in all curriculum areas, the chance to engage with historic events which have relevance for all who live in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Through participation in HMD events and school based activities students are able to learn about the relevance of the Holocaust to their society and are more able to apply the lessons of history to their world today.
The scale of the Holocaust and the actions of the Nazis are difficult to comprehend but sadly, they give insight into aspects of potential human behaviour. Conversely a focus on those who risked their own lives to protect those facing persecution and deportation shows how the action of individuals can make a difference to the lives of others. Examining questions of how and why can link the past with modern ethical questions.
HMD provides a special space for reflection on issues of morality which fits into the basic curriculum but can also move beyond it. Students can approach the Holocaust through exploring the past, its relationship to the present and its lessons for the future. At a basic level young pupils may think about how people treat each other at home, at school and in the wider community. They might talk about unfairness when people are excluded from activities which should be open to everyone. Students in the middle years may focus on specific events from the time of the Holocaust and the reasons why they took place. Some teachers may wish to draw attention to more recent genocides. Senior students could explore the experiences of groups and individuals, the actions taken by governments and the rights and responsibilities of each person within a democracy. For this reason one of the lessons takes basic rights as a starting point and examines how these were taken away as the Holocaust took hold. Questions on rights and responsibilities are not just of the past, they remain with us today. Examining difficult and sometimes controversial issues through past events may lead to a deeper understanding of human nature and individual potential for right or wrong action.
This year HMDT is encouraging a more personal and reflective approach to Holocaust issues. In this education pack we have provided a series of letters. These include letters from survivors from a death camp, a kindertransport refugee, a woman whose life was preserved when she was a tiny baby and an ex-soldier. We have also included letters by others whose lives have been torn apart in more recenttimes through the cruelty of others both overseas and here in twenty-first century Britain. These letters to students link the past with both the present and the future. The past because they remind us of the horrors of Nazi dominated Europe, the present because they have been written especially for HMD08 and the future because they each contain a message for present day students to carry with them as our young century unfolds.
With each letter you will find a series of discussion questions, linked with the events outlined in the letter. These can be used to explore the issues raised by the letter, in schools and youth groups. The letters are intended for students of different ages. We include all of them in your pack but ask you to read them carefully before deciding which ones will work best with your class or group. The story of the modern day refugee contains material more suited to older students. We hope you will want to personalise the letters for use with a particular group. In the pack we have provided stickers to seal the letters. Your students will therefore have to open and unfold the letter as part of the exercise. It is a letter to them rather than a worksheet. If you download the letters on our website you will be able to print your own stickers. Fold the letters along the fold lines.
We have also included lesson plans and outlines for collective worship/assembly for primary and secondary students. Following requests from infant school teachers, we have included, for the first time, a short poem for very young children. This does not deal directly with Holocaust events but is a simple poem about what children can do to make the world a kinder place. Just as small children learn the alphabet before we present them with “War and Peace” we offer these words as a simple foundation for the issues they will learn about as they grow up. We hope that the HMD08 theme, Imagine...remember, reflect, react will encourage teachers and their students to commemorate the Holocaust in creative ways. We are not asking students to imagine themselves in Holocaust scenarios. Some horrors are indeed beyond imagination. Rather we take imagination in a wider sense and encourage students to respond creatively to the true stories of those who were victims of Nazi oppression and those who suffer today because of the cruelty of others.
As we are encouraging both a creative and a personal approach we have provided lessons which will fit into a wide variety of curriculum areas. Teachers of History, Citizenship and Religious Education have used our materials in the past but this year we invite those working in other subject areas to join them. We hope that Music, Dance, Drama, Art, English, Media Studies and Technology departments will also want to spend some time near January 27th to Imagine...remember, reflect, react.
We will update the education area of our website regularly. Look out for our new book club section which will run from half term and our exciting new venture this year, a film competition for students. Explore our collection of images and use our recommended poems as a stimulus for dance, music or creative writing.
Use the letters, lesson plans and assemblies as a starting point to respond to the Holocaust and more recent genocides. Encourage students to work towards a better future by challenging injustices in contemporary society. Please devote some time to commemorating HMD08 and please let us know what you achieve.
You can download the entire HMD08 Education Pack here, which contains links to relevant case studies, lesson plans and assemblies/collective worship activities.
- HMD08_Introduction (PDF document)
