Education

Calling all classrooms! You're invited to participate in telling the “American Story” of the Holocaust

As the nation comes together during the National Days of Remembrance to reflect on the lessons learned during the Holocaust, students and educators are invited to assist the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in a special upcoming initiative.

Just in time for its 25^th anniversary in 2018, the Museum will unveil a special exhibition on Americans and the Holocaust.

The novel, yet somber display, will address what Americans knew about Nazism and the Holocaust, and how they responded from the Nazi rise to power through the end of World War II. In preparation for this new exhibition, USHMM has launched History Unfolded, a special interactive project that will help the Museum tell the “American Story” of the Holocaust by having students and educators delve into their local newspapers from the 1930s and 1940s to report on how the Holocaust was covered throughout the United States.

This “citizen history” approach will allow museum staff members to collaborate with students and educators, and together answer real questions about Americans’ understanding of this event.

• Participants in History Unfolded will first choose an event from the listed topics that the Museum would like to have researched in the newspaper archives.
• Events range from topics such as Dorothy Thompson’s expulsion from Germany, to Hitler’s announcement of Nuremberg race laws, to FDR’s authorization of the detention of Japanese Americans.
• After selecting which event to research, participants will then be asked to investigate the event by going to their local library, historical society, or searching online for local newspaper archives.
• Upon finding an appropriate article, participants will enter the information into an online, centralized database maintained by the Museum.
• All information recorded will become part of a research database used by the exhibition team and other scholars. These articles will be available to anyone, anywhere – from historians to curators to students.

The success of this project hinges on the Museum getting volunteers to help research the stories. As firm believers in hands on learning, WorldStrides is proud to offer this opportunity to you and your students. You can learn more about and/or register for this initiative at newspapers.ushmm.org.

We invite you to personally become involved in this project, or better yet, involve all your students and make this a classroom project. It is a unique opportunity to take part of what will truly be an inspiring exhibit to this major event in World History.

Register for the project or learn more by visiting https://newspapers.ushmm.org/.

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