About the Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Now the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, ADL defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all. A leader in the development of materials, programs, and services, ADL builds bridges of communication, understanding, and respect among diverse groups in the United States and around the world, carrying out its mission through a network of Regional and Satellite Offices in the United States, as well as offices abroad.
For more information about ADL, visit www.adl.org.
About the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education
With a collection of nearly 52,000 video testimonies from Holocaust survivors and other witnesses in 32 languages and from 56 countries, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s archive is the largest visual history archive in the world. The mission of the Institute is to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry—and the suffering they cause—through the educational use of the Institute’s visual history testimonies.
The Institute relies upon partnerships in the United States and around the world to provide public access to the archive and advance scholarship in many fields of inquiry. The Institute and its partners also utilize the archive to develop educational products and programs for use in many countries and languages. Today, the Institute’s educational resources reach more than two million students worldwide.
For more information about the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, visit www.usc.edu/vhi.
About Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority was established by the Knesset in 1953. Located in Jerusalem, it is dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, documentation, research, and education. Through the International School for Holocaust Studies, the International Institute for Holocaust Research, the Archives, the Library, the Hall of Names, and its museums and memorials, Yad Vashem seeks to meaningfully impart the legacy of the Shoah for generations to come.
Drawing on the memories of the past, Yad Vashem aims to strengthen commitment to Jewish continuity and protect basic human values. Yad Vashem recently launched its Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names onto the Internet and an 11th Hour International Campaign is underway to collect nearly three million missing names. Yad Vashem recently completed a ten-year campus and program development initiative that culminated in the opening of the new Holocaust History Museum.
For more information about Yad Vashem, visit www.yadvashem.org.
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Whether teaching a full semester Holocaust Studies course or including information about the Holocaust in a unit of study on World War II, this curriculum allows teachers to choose as little or as much material as they can cover in a specific time period and still cover the subject matter effectively. Developed primarily for use with high school students, the
Echoes and Reflections curriculum has also been adapted successfully to accommodate both younger and older students.
Ten multi-part lessons are provided with a companion DVD or VHS of over two-and-a-half hours of visual history testimony from survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust. Each of the interdisciplinary lessons is supported with numerous primary source documents, including poems, literature excerpts,
maps,
photographs,
timelines,
a glossary, and
student handouts.
Close to forty journal assignments are included in
Echoes and Reflections. These journal assignments encourage students to reflect on what they are learning, to record their feelings and reactions to the information, and to think about how the material has meaning in their own lives and in society. Journals also serve as a mechanism by which students create their own primary source material.
Suggested journal topics from Lesson Seven: Rescuers and Non-Jewish Resistance
- Write a letter to someone that you’ve learned about in this lesson. Tell the person what you are thinking and feeling after learning about his/her experiences.
- Reflect on the meaning of the statement from the Talmud, “He who saves one life, it is as though he has preserved the existence of the entire world.”
- Write about a time when you made a conscious decision to help someone in a difficult situation or about a time when someone came forward to help you. Describe the event in detail and tell how you felt during the situation. What were some of the complications or difficulties that you faced? Were there any moral or ethical dilemmas that needed to be addressed? What were your feelings after the situation ended?
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