Holocaust Classroom Presentations (Middle School)

1. The Rise of the Nazis: Why Do People Hate?           

     Why do we target others? How does casual cruelty potential lead to something worse? What allows us to justify hate that is both destructive and self-destructive? This presentation will broadly focus on the Nazis coming into power and the hate that drove them. How do human rights violations escalate without being checked. How can we learn to take care of each other? An ideal introductory presentation for middle schools dealing with the issues of personal, social, and civic responsibility.

2. Choices: Letting others Be

This 45-minute presentation asks students to consider who tells you to hate and why? What happens to you? What happens to the target? Using Anne Frank and Martin Luther King (both born in 1929) students are presented with the choice to care about others and build compassion by confronting the past. The presentation is shaped around an April 1944 diary entry by Anne: “If only I can be myself”. Why is it difficult to let people be themselves, to just be?

3. Number the Stars: Danish Rescue

This presentation places the story and its characters within the broader context of wartime events in Denmark and the Holocaust. We will explore how Danes negotiated, resisted, and at times collaborated with the German occupation.  We will discuss the relative advantages of Denmark during the Nazi era and explore the rejection of antisemitism and the work of the Danish Resistance. We will examine "goodness" as a human, not national trait.