A Simple, Ready-to-Run Plan for Holocaust Education
If you’re an educator staring at a packed calendar and a mandate to teach the Holocaust well, we can help you get it done—thoroughly, age-appropriately, and without weeks of prep. The Holocaust Awareness Museum & Education Center (HAMEC) delivers live and virtual programs for K–12, plus teacher training, museum experiences, and primary-source materials you can use tomorrow. We work in-person across Pennsylvania and New Jersey and virtually worldwide.
What we provide (and why schools choose it)
- Live testimony from a Holocaust survivor or second-generation (2G) speaker, with moderated Q&A. Nothing connects students to history like a real voice and a chance to ask their own questions.
- Classroom presentations led by HAMEC educators: core history, choices and consequences, and guided analysis of primary sources.
- Teacher professional development you can count toward district needs—focused on pedagogy, difficult conversations, and confronting denial or distortion.
- Museum experiences (in-person or virtual): artifacts, timelines, and inquiry prompts that make abstract dates concrete.
- Support materials: pre-lesson context, vocabulary, reflection prompts, and a simple assessment rubric.
A three-step sequence that actually fits
You don’t need a complicated unit to meet your goals. Here’s a structure schools use again and again:
- Prepare (45–60 minutes).
Introduce essential context and vocabulary, set norms for respectful discussion, and preview what students should listen for in testimony or the presentation. - Experience (45–60 minutes).
Host a HAMEC testimony or classroom program—live or virtual. We tailor content by grade band and adjust pacing for assemblies or single-class sessions. - Reflect (45–60 minutes).
Use our primary-source handout and a short reflection (three prompts: what happened, why it matters, what choices people faced). If helpful, we provide a simple rubric you can adapt.
That’s it: three contacts, clear objectives, and authentic student work you can document.
Alignment, you can show your admin
New Jersey requires instruction in the Holocaust and genocides; Pennsylvania provides strong guidance and professional-development expectations for relevant courses. Our programs align to those frameworks and state standards. When you book, ask for our one-page crosswalk—it lists objectives, standards connections, and the materials included, so you can file it with your department chair or board packet.
If you’ve been meaning to refresh your Holocaust instruction—or you’re building it for the first time—this is a straightforward way to do it well. Your students will hear history directly, engage with primary sources, and leave with something more than facts: a clearer understanding of human choices, responsibility, and why memory matters.
