Black History Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day Resources

Black History Month Resources

The National Museum of African American History and Culture's Learning Lab collections utilize objects, documents, imagery, and videos to enhance content knowledge, hone historical thinking skills, and inspire users to see themselves as agents of change. The lab includes numerous resources for teachers and students of all grade levels. The featured image here highlights artifacts from the collection to be shared with young learners PreK-3. Explore additional educator resources from NMAAHC or from the links below:

K-5 Resources

Cross-curricular K-5 Lessons and Resources From NEA

Teaching about Black History

Kids Can Be Change Makers

Children and the March

Civics K-2

Youtube Read aloud “Martin’s Big Words”

6-12 Resources

Oregon Historical Society's Extensive Black History Resource List & Motown Exhibit

Secondary Resources Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

1776 Unites Classroom Lesson of Black Achievement from American History 

C-Span Black History and Civil Rights

1619 Project Resources and K-12 Curriculum Guide from Pulitzer Center

Upcoming Free Trainings

In-person Teaching Black History with Primary Documents- February 4th Lincoln City. Application extended. Additional dates and locations available

Webinars For Teaching the Black Freedom Struggle from Zinn Education Project

Holocaust Remembrance Day

The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides. The United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial offers teachers and students resources for teaching about the Holocaust and other genocides. 

The 2023 theme for Holocaust Remembrance Day is "Home and Belonging." The image above captures eight Stolpersteine (in English: “stumbling stones”), the shiny bronze plaques commemorate the victims of the Nazi regime in more than 1,100 locations in 17 European countries. Scattered throughout Europe, each stone commemorates a victim of the Holocaust at that person’s last known address.

Additional Resources

ODE Holocaust Resources -- K-5 Guiding Questions -- 6-12 Guiding Questions

Oregon Jewish Museum & Center for Holocaust Education Lesson Plans K-3 & 6-12

Echoes and Reflections: Methods and Resources for Teaching the Holocaust

PBS Lesson Plans and Activities

Facing History's Ideas for Using Survivor Testimony

The Human Spirit in the Holocaust: A Podcast for Students 

US Holocaust Museum Educator Workshop for "America and the Holocaust"

Classroom Lessons From Documentary "America and the Holocaust"

Photo by Boudewijn Huysmans on Unsplash

Book Review:

The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland

The story of one man, Rudolf "Rudi" Vrba's, escape and attempt to inform the world about the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau is told in gripping and gut-wrenching detail. Freedland's writing captures the tension of planning an escape, the panic of running through forests, the fear of trusting villagers, Rudi's determined insistence on telling everyone what he has seen, and his optimism that knowledge of the mass murder will change the actions of European leaders and Jews not yet in the camps. 

In The Escape Artist, Rudi's voice and the historical archives describe the gruesome cruelty of Auschwitz-Birkenau, forcing the reader to pause and contemplate the darkness and depravity of a system designed for mass execution. Oregon's Holocaust and Genocide Education Learning Concepts guides teachers to "Prepare students to confront the immorality of the Holocaust, genocide and other acts of mass violence and to reflect on the causes of related historical events." The Escape Artist provides numerous such examples for a high school classroom. Freedland also includes stories of resistance and resilience. Small acts of sabotage by enslaved Jews working in munition factories and inexplicable moments of kindness among prisoners attempting to preserve their humanity. 

In Rudi's quest to save the remaining Jews of Europe from destruction, he discovers that sharing information is not enough. "Only when information combines with belief does it become knowledge. And only knowledge leads to action."