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Thematic Teaching
studying genocide: related resources
Activity Ideas | Related Resources
Find Below: PBS Web Sites, Other Recommended Links, Recommended Books
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Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State
Explore the largest mass murder site in history with extensive eductaional online resources and community discussion guides.
Berga: Soldiers of Another War
Learn about the soldiers who worked as slave laborers in a satellite concentration camp of Buchenwald.
American Experience: "The Nuremberg Trials"
Examine how the impact of the Nuremberg trials in how crimes against humanity are punished by the global community.
Frontline: "The World's Most Wanted Man"
Learn about the Serbian leader and his role in the Bosnian genocide during the 1990s.
Frontline: "Valentina's Nightmare"
Investigate the world's inaction in stopping one of the worst atrocities of the 20th Century.
Frontline: "Memory of the Camps"
Learn about the resurrection of one of the most definitive and unforgettable records of the Holocaust. (Note: The graphic nature of the film "Memory of the Camps" may make it inappropriate for some school audiences.)
P.O.V.: "The Flute Player"
Learn about the Cambodian genocide and one man's quest for survival.
NewsHour Extra: Sudan
Explore the crisis in Darfur and the role the United States should play in stopping it.
The Great War
Learn how World War I triggered the "first genocide of the 20th century."
NOVA: "Holocaust on Trial"
Investigate how flawed science has helped fuel Holocaust denial.
American Experience: "America and the Holocaust"
What were the social and political factors that shaped America's response to the Holocaust?
Destination America: A Century of Genocide
Visit this site for a concise history of genocides of the 20th century.
recommended web sites
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - For Educators
http://www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provides many publications in
PDF format through their section for teachers. Download specific sections
or the entire 133 page book "Teaching about the Holocaust: A Resource Book
for Educators." There is even an online teacher workshop to accompany the
book, with online text and short videos (requires RealPlayer). Sample
lesson plans are included with the workshop agenda. Some publications are
also available in Spanish. Listen to the weekly podcast series, Voices on
Genocide Prevention, where you can hear past podcasts and read the
transcripts online.
Subject: Social Studies
More Recommended Social Studies Links
Genocide Education Project
http://www.genocideeducation.org/
The Genocide Education Project assists educators in teaching about human
rights and genocide, in particular, the Armenian Genocide in 1915 when 1.5
million Armenians were exterminated by the Turkish government of the
Ottoman Empire. There are lesson plans, a cyber resource library with free
materials available to download in PDF, and an annual award to provide
recognition for an outstanding educator who has implemented
lessons on the history of the Armenian Genocide in her/his curriculum.
Subject: Social Studies
More Recommended Social Studies Links
Genocide Watch
http://www.genocidewatch.org/
Genocide is defined in international law as "acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group." Gregory H. Stanton's 8 Stages of Genocide are presented:
classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization,
preparation, extermination, and denial. There is a chart of nations in
Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East, with details
about death tolls, those responsible for the killing, main division
(reason) such as political, ethnic, racial, or religious, and the stage
for each as of 2005. Because these include events occurring today, there
will be some controversy as to the "genocide" label.
Subject: Social Studies
More Recommended Social Studies Links
Rwanda Commemoration Project
http://www.wcl.american.edu/humright/center/rwanda/
The Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law from American University's
Washington College of Law provides a booklet, "The Rwanda Commemoration
Project: Genocide in Our Time" for secondary school teachers. It includes
a lesson plan, activities, and suggestions for what students can do to
help raise awareness of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The main content is
about the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 when nearly a million people were
killed in three months while the international community largely stood by
without intervening. The intent of the site is to serve as a reminder and
warning about genocide in our time and how we can help stop it from
happening again.
Subject: Social Studies
More Recommended Social Studies Links
Human Rights Watch Research and Advocacy
http://hrw.org/advocacy/index.htm
Browse through topics monitored by the Human Rights Watch organization,
particularly International Justice, or by country (Sudan, Croatia, Rwanda,
Iraq, etc.). Each country profile will have background information on
human rights abuses as well as annual human rights developments. Many
documents are available in other languages pertinent to a particular
locale. Note that war crimes, genocide, and other atrocities are reported
only from the 1989 to the present. For example, there is no documentation
of the Holocaust in Germany, nor the starvation and massacre of Armenians
listed under Armenia. Human Rights Watch is an independent, non-governmental organization.
Subject: Social Studies
More Recommended Social Studies Links
recommended books
Auschwitz: Story of a Nazi Death Camp
by Clive A. Lawton
Published August 2002
Grades: 3-5; 6-8
Subjects: Social Studies
More than a million and a half people died in Auschwitz during World War II. This brief history uses first-person accounts, research, and archival photographs to describe the daily routine in one Nazi death camp. Final chapters address evidence, Holocaust denial, and the rise of Neo-Nazi movements.
More Recommended Social Studies Books
The Cats in Krasinski Square
By Karen Hesse and Wendy Watson
Published September 2004
Grades: 9-12
Subjects: Social Studies; Reading & Language Arts
The young narrator of this picture book escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto and now passes as a non-Jewish Polish girl. Her older sister Mira works with the Underground and is trying to get food to Jews still trapped in the Ghetto. Somehow the Nazis learn of the plan, but Warsaw's stray cats help the narrator devise a solution. A compelling story and evocative illustrations make this an outstanding book.
More Recommended Social Studies Books
More Recommended Reading & Language Arts Books
Finding George Orwell in Burma
By Emma Larkin
Published June 2005
Grades: 9-12
Subjects: Social Studies
There is a Burmese joke that Orwell wrote three books about Burma: Burmese Days, Animal Farm, and 1984. Burma, now Myanmar, is a paranoid country in which jail and torture are common. The author, Larkin is a pseudonym, traveled and talked with intellectuals, discovering that despite severe censorship and the threat of arrest and torture, it is a country in which people have secret libraries and talk passionately about books.
More Recommended Social Studies Books
A Global History of Indigenous Peoples: From Prehistory to Age of Globalization
By Ken S. Coates
Published January 2005
Grades: 9-12
Subjects: Social Studies
Coates has written a global history of indigenous people. He covers the first migrations that spread mankind across the planet, looks at how tribal people distinguished themselves from other societies, and evaluates the impact of colonialism. The effects of European and non-European expansion are considered.
More Recommended Social Studies Books
Hana's Suitcase
By Karen Levine
Published March 2003
Grades: 3-6; 6-8
Subjects: Social Studies
An empty suitcase in the Tokyo Holocaust Education Resource Center prompts curious school children and the museum's director to investigate the fate of its owner Hana Brady. The only information they have is the girl's name and her birth date painted on the side of the suitcase. This moving detective story covers 70 years and events on three continents. The book features photos and documents.
More Recommended Social Studies Books
Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, The
By James Cross Giblin
Published April 2002
Grades: 6-8; 9-12
Subjects: Social Studies
How could a nation be enthralled by a man who now seems so clearly evil?
This biography puts Hitler in context, revealing the social, economic, political, and international factors that helped provide the right moment for his ascendance. The book is filled with archival photos and contemporary art. It includes a glossary of German words and terms, notes, and bibliography.
More Recommended Social Studies Books
No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War
By Anita Lobel
Published September 1998
Grades: 3-5;6-8
Subjects: Social Studies
Caldecott award winner Anita Lobel presents a stirring testament to her early childhood in the concentration camps of World War II Europe. Readers will be moved by Lobel's painful return to school and adolescent life after the armistice.
More Recommended Social Studies Books
One Boy from Kosovo
By Trish Marx and Cindy Karp
Published March 2000
Grades: 3-5;6-8
Subjects: Reading & Language Arts; Social Studies; Science & Technology
This book for readers 9-12 tells the story of 12 year-old Edi Fejzullahu who escaped to Macedonia with his family in 1999. Text and full-page photos describe the ups and downs of life in a refugee camp.
More Recommended Reading & Language Arts Books
More Recommended Social Studies Books
More Recommended Science & Technology Books