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result in an inaccurate and unbalanced account of history.
8.
Contextualize the history.
Study of the Holocaust should be viewed within a contemporaneous context, so students can begin
to comprehend the circumstances that encouraged or discouraged particular actions or events.
Encourage your students not to categorize groups of people only on the basis of their experiences
during the Holocaust: contextualization is critical so that victims are not perceived only as victims.
9.
Translate statistics into people.
Show that individual people’s families of grandparents, parents, and children are behind the
statistics and emphasize that within the larger historical narrative is a diversity of personal
experience.
10. Make responsible methodological choices
.
Be sensitive to appropriate written and audiovisual content. Graphic materials should be used
judiciously and only to the extent necessary to achieve the objective of the lesson. Avoid
simulation activities and activities that attempt to re-create situations. Such activities oversimplify
complex events and can leave students with a skewed view of history. Even worse, they are left
with the impression at the conclusion of the activity that they now know what it was like during
the Holocaust.
