As the fragile window of witness closes, here is a new way to commemorate the Holocaust.

Light from the Darkness does the things the survivors have always asked of us: to tell the story, remember, and learn the lessons. This short and empowering guided experience is filled with song, story, ritual, and remembrance, drawing strength from darkness and turning it into action.

In Light from the Darkness, the lessons of the Holocaust reinforce the core values of Judaism: remember the evil that we have experienced and make sure that no one ever has to experience such evil again, but always celebrate life and your Jewish faith.

Light from the Darkness makes a wonderful middle and high school program, whether led by teachers or by teens. It also makes a wonderful community-wide event. Leader’s guide and suggested discussion questions are included.

Lesson plan for using Light from the Darkness in Religious School.

Light from the Darkness can be ordered from Amazon or from us as part of a kit.

For grades 3 to 5, we have used Yad Vashem’s Keeping the Memory Alive posters as a Yom HaShoah program to wrap up the Holocaust educational unit. For several years, Yad Vashem has hosted a poster contest for their Holocaust Memorial Day celebration. The posters submitted to this contest are fascinating in the various ways they present the issues and depth of the Holocaust.

For Yom HaShoah, we lay out the posters and allow the students to walk around and look at them. Then we have them describe their responses to each other. We then discuss some of the lessons we hoped they would learn from the unit, including the recognition that although this terrible thing happened, we survived as a Jewish people. Depending on the age and maturity of your students, you may want to pick and choose which posters you lay out.

You can find the posters, along with additional information and additional suggested lesson plans, at Yad Vashem’s website:

• 2012 competition: “Children of the Holocaust”
• 2013- 2014 competition: “Journeys through the Holocaust”

Lesson plan for Keeping the Memory Alive poster session (PDF)

You can purchase these posters from Yad Vashem online or from us as part of a kit.

For grades 3 to 5, we also recommend the ADL’s No Place for Hate® initiative. This project is designed to help students learn about combating hate and building respect for all. A great source for project ideas is their resource guide.Some of their terrific suggestions (see page 7 of the guide) include 1) having students complete the statement “I am unique because…” and posting the responses around the school, 2) having students collaborate on a “No Place for Hate” mural, and 3) connecting students with pen pals of a different background in another state or another country. Connect this to the Holocaust with a discussion of how hatred led to the events of the Holocaust, but be careful to keep the discussion age-appropriate.

For the youngest students, we at Teach the Shoah, in conjucntion with Congregation Kol Ami, developed a program addressing the issue of bullying. Based on the children’s book Say Something, this lesson is designed to help students develop skills to cope with bullying and to become people who take a stand against bullying. As part of the lesson, we state that long ago, in another country, there were people who bullied us because we were Jews. They did not want us to grow or be successful, but we did! As a tangible expression of that, the students write the names of their living relatives on construction paper and make a chain of the names, which we display in the hallway.

Lesson plan for Say Something (PDF)

You can purchase Say Something from Amazon or from us as part of a kit.