The International School for Holocaust Studies

Lesson 1

Studying the Holocaust

In this lesson, you analyze the value and importance of studying the Holocaust, examine primary and secondary source materials, and learn about the Kristallnacht Pogrom that took place in Germany and Austria in November 1938.

General information about the Holocaust
More information about the Kristallnacht Pogrom

Key Words

• Concentration Camp
• Genocide
• Gypsies
• Holocaust (Hebrew – Shoah)
• Homosexuality in the Third Reich
• Jehovah’s Witnesses
• Kristallnacht
• National Socialism – Nazism
• Survivors
• Third Reich

Encyclopedia

• Anti-Jewish Legislation
• Germany
• Grynszpan, Herschel
• Racism

Photographs

• Baden Baden, Germany, Arrest of Jews by the SS on Kristallnacht
• Gross-Gerau, Germany, A synagogue burning down on Kristallnacht, 10/11/1938
• Koenigsbach, Germany, November 11, 1938, The Interior of a Ruined Synagogue after Kristallnacht
• Siegen, Germany, November 10, 1938, A Synagogue on Fire on Kristallnacht 

Documents

• A Report by the German Ambassador in Washington on Reactions to Kristallnacht in the United States
• A Police Report referring to the Events on Kristallnacht in Bebra, November 1938
• Nazi Regulation for the Elimination of the Jews From the Economic Life of Germany, November 12, 1938

Letters

• From a Letter by Emmanuel Ringelblum, a Polish Jewish Historian, on the Refugees in Zbaszyn, Poland
• December, 1938, Letter Describing the Deportation to Zbaszyn, Poland