Teaching the Holocaust with Anne Frank

When I teach anything History related, I always try to appeal to the students with emotion.  And with the Holocaust, there is plenty of emotion.  However, teaching the Holocaust can be so challenging!  It is hard to convey to students how stressful life was for Jews in Europe during World War II.  Lucky for them, they have not experienced such unthinkable things in life.  When I teach the Holocaust, I like to show the Anne Frank movie, The Masterpiece Classic: The Diary of Anne Frank.  (This movie is available on Netflix, so it is perfect to stream.  It is appropriate for all ages, middle school or high school).  Luckily for History teachers, we can play movies to help us teach the unit/standard.  There are so many interesting documentaries and movies about the Holocaust, but for me, the Anne Frank one is perfect when teaching middle school or high school!  Kids relate to her young age and the diary she left behind.



What I will do before watching the movie is teach the beginning stages of World War II, how it developed, Hitler rising to power, continuing to expand German territory, League of Nations not stopping him, and how he always blamed the Jews for the bad situation they were in.  I then teach about how the laws towards Jews started to change and the Holocaust itself.  At this point, I will watch the movie and have students answer as the movie guide questions as the movie plays. The movie really conveys how scared the 9 people were in that attic and does a great job demonstrating that emotion I want students to see and understand.  I always have students answer this great webquest afterwards and my students like it.  I wish I could take them all to the Anne Frank house, but this webquest is wonderful.  It helps extend the lesson after World War II.  I have done the Diary Project as well, but after I have completely taught World War II.  I like to do this at the end of the unit so students have a full understanding of what has happened.  And the results are AMAZING!!  Students get so into this project!