HOLOCAUST EDUCATION PROJECT Learning Lab — teacher notes Updated: source-based learning activities OVERVIEW The Learning Lab complements the partner-created Holocaust History Timeline activity and includes five learning pathways: Stories, Choices, Evidence, Memory and Today. A separate Teaching & Learning Resources hub now provides lesson plans, a schematic timeline/map, glossary, source-analysis method and archive directory. 1. The Evidence Desk — analyse a law, a diary, and a photograph/caption. 2. Choices Under Pressure — examine coercion, unequal power, and constrained decisions during the September 1942 deportations from the Łódź ghetto. 3. Pause Before You Share — analyse propaganda in its historical context and practise responsible verification of contemporary information. 4. Stories — object-based inquiry, statistics alongside individual biographies/testimonies, and evidence-informed museum labels. 5. Memory — local Jewish history source investigation, memorial analysis and a historically grounded memorial design brief. The resource hub is available at teaching-resources.html. It offers three 45- and 90-minute lesson plans in teacher and student views. The timeline/map is a selected locator, not a complete chronology or a reconstruction of wartime borders. Suggested age: 14+ for the full discussion, with teacher adaptation for younger groups. Some questions can be completed by learners aged 12–14 with guidance. The project's age range should be stated consistently across the handbook, website, and lesson plans. HISTORICAL SOURCES AND ATTRIBUTION The activity uses a clearly labelled adapted summary and a short excerpt from a published diary transcription, alongside an archival photograph and source record. The visual quiz uses the museum-hosted image URL and links learners to the original record; it does not claim ownership of the image. Check the museum's current terms and permissions before reusing the image in other publications. Sources include these United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) resources: • “Nuremberg Race Laws”: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nuremberg-laws • “‘Give Me Your Children’: Voices from the Lodz Ghetto”: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/give-me-your-children-voices-from-the-lodz-ghetto • “Teaching Materials Using Primary Sources and the Museum’s Collections”: https://www.ushmm.org/teach/teaching-materials/primary-sources-collections • “Primary Source Databases”: https://www.ushmm.org/collections/plan-a-research-visit/electronic-resources/primary-source-databases The source cards explicitly label the historical text as an adapted summary, not a direct quotation. The site links to the museum's full historical account and context. Before formal educational use, check links and the museum's current usage terms. Do not copy or reproduce archival images without checking rights and permissions. ACTIVITY 1 — THE EVIDENCE DESK Learning objectives: • distinguish a law's text from evidence of how it was enforced in a particular place; • interpret a diary as evidence of one person's experience without generalising to everyone; • understand how captions, provenance, and corroborating records help interpret photographs; • formulate a claim and state what a source cannot establish on its own. Format: five interactive questions with explanatory feedback, followed by a written claim. The expanded visual investigation uses an archival USHMM photograph, a revealable caption/context panel, and seven claims to classify as directly visible, confirmed by the archive record, or not inferable from the available evidence. Suggested time: 15–20 minutes. Follow-up: Ask learners to choose one source and complete: “This source helps us understand… because… However, it cannot tell us…”. Invite them to identify another source that could test or extend the claim. ACTIVITY 2 — CHOICES UNDER PRESSURE Learning objectives: • identify who held coercive power during the September 1942 deportations from the Łódź ghetto; • distinguish constrained action from a free choice; • discuss institutional roles without erasing Nazi responsibility or treating the Jewish population as a single voice; • identify whose perspectives and what additional records are needed. Format: five interactive case questions with explanatory feedback, followed by a written reflection. Suggested time: 15–20 minutes. Facilitation note: Do not ask students to decide whether people in the ghetto made “good” or “bad” choices from a safe distance. Keep German occupation, threats, imprisonment, and the extreme lack of safe options in view. Avoid simplistic hero/villain framing. Invite careful evidence-based discussion of institutional roles and the range of experiences. ACTIVITY 3 — PAUSE BEFORE YOU SHARE Learning objectives: • identify stereotypes and claims that lack verifiable evidence; • trace an image or claim to its original source; • analyse propaganda in relation to audience, purpose, historical context, and state policy; • compare communication techniques without equating distinct historical situations; • choose responsible responses to harmful online content. Format: five interactive questions with explanatory feedback, followed by a verification plan. Suggested time: 15–20 minutes. Follow-up: Learners write three checks they would make before sharing an uncited historical image. SAFE AND RESPECTFUL CLASSROOM USE • Preview the materials and set expectations for respectful discussion. • Explain that the Holocaust involved systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder; propaganda was one part of a wider system that included law, institutions, dispossession, deportation, and mass murder. • Do not ask learners to search for hateful content, reproduce slurs, or disclose personal experiences of discrimination. • Make space for learners to pause or ask questions. • Acknowledge that testimonies are individual accounts and that not every victim or survivor had the same experience. • Use historical photographs and testimony with context; avoid using traumatic material merely to provoke shock. • Check all sources, translations, captions, and rights before adapting the activities for publication or classroom handouts. TECHNICAL NOTES • The activities are static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. No student accounts, tracking, analytics, or third-party JavaScript libraries are used. • Learner answers in the reflection boxes are not sent to a server; they remain in the open browser page and are not saved when the page is closed or refreshed. • Keyboard focus indicators and immediate written feedback are included. The activities are not timed. • The chronology activity is hosted externally by the project partner in Romania. ADDITIONAL HANDBOOK-ALIGNED LEARNING TASKS STORIES — A SUITCASE, A PHOTOGRAPH, A NAME The online task follows the handbook's object-based inquiry: observe material details; formulate questions and cautious hypotheses; then check the museum/archive record and provenance. The object alone does not establish its owner's thoughts or complete life story. The extension “Behind Every Number Is a Story” asks learners to consider what aggregate statistics can show and what an individual biography or testimony can add. Teachers must select and cite a verified statistic and a documented individual account; clarify estimates versus exact counts. The museum-label task requires at least two source-supported details, a stated limitation and an exact source reference. Imagined writing must never be presented as authentic testimony. MEMORY — MEMORY DETECTIVES, MONUMENTS SPEAK, DESIGNING A MEMORIAL The local-history investigation uses teacher-selected maps, photographs, building/cemetery records, museum objects, newspaper extracts or oral-history records. Students record source title, creator/institution, date (if known), and location. They distinguish documented facts from hypotheses and identify what further evidence is needed. The memorial analysis asks who is commemorated, who created the memorial, when and where, what the design communicates, and what it leaves out. The design brief requires historical evidence, a reasoned location, accessible interpretation and clear limits; students must not invent names or personal histories. TODAY — THE POWER OF WORDS, LETTERS ACROSS TIME, FROM MEMORY TO ACTION The language exercise uses neutral fictional examples for practice, followed by a teacher-selected and verified historical source. Analyse creator, audience, purpose, emotional techniques, in-group/out-group framing, omissions and historical context. Do not reproduce slurs for shock value. The letter task is a reflective writing exercise based on a documented source; it must not claim to speak for a victim or invent historical quotations. “From Memory to Action” asks for a specific, realistic civic or heritage action grounded in the learning. All new tasks are structured templates where the handbook requires teachers to select a local or individual source. The website does not fabricate a named object, local resident, memorial record or testimony. Teachers should supply and cite the exact verified source before classroom use. ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES ADDED TO THE LEARNING LAB CHOICES — THE BYSTANDER'S DILEMMA The new activity follows the handbook lesson on bystander behaviour. It introduces perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders and rescuers, and asks learners to investigate knowledge, position, social pressure, fear, perceived risk, available options and consequences. Its interactive case is a methodological prompt, not a claim about a specific historical individual. A teacher must select and cite a documented historical case before using the activity for case-based discussion. Do not assume that all bystanders had the same knowledge or opportunity to intervene; understanding circumstances is not the same as excusing consequences. STORIES — CHILDREN'S VOICES: “THE BUTTERFLY” The new interdisciplinary prompt follows the handbook's lesson on Pavel Friedmann's poem “The Butterfly” (1942) in the context of the Terezín ghetto. Learners analyse imagery, contrast and symbolism, then connect the poem to verified historical context. The website does not reproduce the poem. Teachers must use a verified edition and reliable biographical/historical sources. Any student-created poem, visual work or sound response must be labelled as a contemporary creative response, never as Friedmann's words or testimony. A single poem is one particular voice, not a representative account of all children. EVIDENCE — IF THESE WALLS COULD SPEAK The new activity adapts the handbook's method of reading buildings, photographs and objects as historical evidence. The handbook's worked example concerns the Sofia Synagogue and the history of Bulgarian Jews during the Second World War. The online task explicitly invites teachers to adapt the method to a documented local site. Supply verified dates, architect, purpose, historical context and source references before classroom use. A photograph of a building cannot establish a complete community history or prove that a building remained unchanged. The new tasks complement the existing five pathways and are designed as short digital entry points, not replacements for the handbook's full 50- or 90-minute lesson plans. The site's general age recommendation remains 14+; adapt materials for younger learners only with teacher guidance and age-appropriate sources. TRANSNATIONAL ARCHIVAL SOURCE LAB — POLAND, BULGARIA AND ROMANIA A new comparative source lab has been added to the Evidence pathway. It links directly to institutional catalogue records and asks learners to compare provenance, source type, date, place, purpose and evidential limits. Poland — Łódź: - POLIN Collections, “Ghetto Litzmannstadt”: contemporary photographic documentation of the former ghetto site, produced in 2017. It must not be described as a wartime photograph. - USHMM, “Deportation of Jewish children from the Łódź ghetto”: wartime archival photograph and catalogue record, September 1942. Bulgaria and Bulgarian-occupied territories: - USHMM, “Jewish Community of Monastir: Photographs for Registration”: individual and family portraits used by Bulgarian occupation authorities to register the Jewish population before deportation in March 1943. - USHMM, “Deportation of Jews by Bulgarian authorities”: photograph record from Lom, March 1943. - USHMM historical overview of Bulgaria. Historical precision: the March 1943 deportations discussed in these records concerned Jews in Bulgarian-occupied territories (including Macedonia and Thrace). Do not conflate these deportations with the Jewish population of Bulgaria's pre-war core provinces. Romania: - USHMM, “Aftermath of a pogrom in Iași”: photograph record relating to the deportation of survivors in June–July 1941. - Arolsen Archives, collection 11000124: 750 Romanian police documents from 1942, including correspondence, notes, protocols, lists, memoranda, statements and a map relating to deportations of Romanian Jews and Roma to Transnistria. - USHMM historical overview of Romania. Classroom method: 1. Open the original institutional record; do not rely on a thumbnail or search-result caption alone. 2. Record creator/holding institution, date, place, source type and catalogue description. 3. Separate what is directly visible or written from the archive's contextual description and from the learner's inference. 4. Ask what the record cannot establish and identify another source that could corroborate or complicate the interpretation. 5. Do not treat photographs, maps, administrative records and site documentation as interchangeable. 6. Check rights and access conditions before downloading, reproducing or redistributing images or documents. Links in the Learning Lab point to institutional records; they do not grant reuse permission. The comparative activity is a guided entry point to the collections, not a substitute for detailed examination of each individual record. The teacher should preview the selected item and consider the class's age, prior knowledge and emotional readiness. TEACHING & LEARNING RESOURCES HUB — CONTENT AND HISTORICAL NOTES The new teaching-resources.html page includes three modular lesson plans: 1. What can a photograph tell us? — visual evidence, caption, provenance and inference. 2. One testimony is not every story — individual testimony, contextualisation and limits of generalisation. 3. Three countries, different records — comparison of institutional records from Poland, Bulgaria/Bulgarian-occupied territories and Romania. Each plan includes timings for 45- and 90-minute lessons, objectives, preparation, discussion prompts and teacher guidance. Student view displays a shorter task sequence; teacher view displays the facilitation notes. These plans are starting points and should be adapted to the class, curriculum and selected source records. TIMELINE / MAP — IMPORTANT DISTINCTIONS The map is a schematic locator with approximate placement. Dashed lines indicate selected documented directions and are not surveyed railway tracks or exhaustive deportation routes. It deliberately separates: - Łódź ghetto → Chełmno, including the September 1942 Gehsperre action. USHMM notes that about 15,000 Jews were deported during this action; sick people, older people and children under ten were specifically targeted. - Bulgarian-occupied Macedonia: roundups in Skopje, Bitola and Štip; assembly at the Tobacco Monopoly transit camp in Skopje; three transports to Treblinka between 22 and 29 March 1943. - Bulgarian-occupied Thrace: a distinct set of deportations. USHMM identifies assembly points at Gorna Dzhumaya and Dupnitsa; for a group from Kavala, Seres and Drama, it describes the onward route via Lom and Vienna to Treblinka as probable, not certain for every deportee. - Romania: the Iași pogrom and subsequent deportations by train to Călărași and Podu Iloaiei; a separate regional history of Romanian-administered Transnistria, which must not be represented as one single camp or route. - Theresienstadt/Terezín: established in November 1941; deportations from January 1942 to other ghettos, camps, killing sites and killing centres. The distinction between the Jewish population in Bulgaria's pre-war core provinces and Jews in territories occupied by Bulgaria in 1941 is essential. In May 1943, almost 20,000 Jews were forcibly expelled from Sofia to the countryside; this must not be confused with deportation to Nazi killing centres. Bulgarian authorities deported 11,343 Jews from occupied territories including Macedonia, Thrace and Pirot in March 1943; the government did not deport Jews from Bulgaria's pre-war core provinces to Nazi killing centres during this period. This does not mean that Jews in Bulgaria proper were free from antisemitic laws, restrictions, dispossession or persecution. The map's 1933 and 1935 entries are national-level milestones and are not plotted as a location-specific event. The 1933 entry should specify that President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor on 30 January; avoid implying that the Nazis took power through a straightforward electoral victory. The 1945 entry is a broad end-of-war marker, not a single local liberation event. KEY INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES FOR THE TIMELINE - USHMM, Łódź: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lodz - USHMM, animated map of the Łódź ghetto: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/animated-map/the-lodz-ghetto - USHMM, deportation of Jewish children from the Łódź ghetto: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/deportation-of-jewish-children-from-the-lodz-ghetto - USHMM, Theresienstadt: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/theresienstadt - USHMM, Romania: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/romania - USHMM, Transnistria Governorate: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/transnistria-governorate - USHMM, Bulgaria: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bulgaria - USHMM, deportation of Monastir Jewry: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-holocaust-in-macedonia-deportation-of-monastir-jewry - Arolsen Archives, police documentation on Romanian Jews and Roma deported to Transnistria (collection 11000124): https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/archive/7-6-2_11000124/ GLOSSARY AND SOURCE-INQUIRY GUIDANCE The glossary defines ghetto, deportation, collaboration, resistance, testimony, perpetrator, witness/bystander, victim/survivor, memory and antisemitism. These are working definitions, not exhaustive legal or historiographical definitions. Encourage students to apply terms to documented actions and contexts rather than populations as a whole. The source-analysis sequence asks learners to identify source type and provenance; separate observation from inference; consider creator, audience and purpose; read captions critically; identify absences and limitations; corroborate with independent evidence; and make a carefully qualified claim. Do not ask learners to role-play victims or perpetrators, invent testimony, infer identity or emotion from appearance, or reproduce hateful propaganda without critical framing. ACCESSIBILITY AND TECHNICAL REVIEW NOTES The resources use semantic HTML sections, keyboard-operable timeline buttons and map markers, visible focus styles, responsive layouts, and reduced-motion support. The map is schematic and should be paired with the text descriptions; it is not a substitute for a detailed historical atlas. The interactive map and timeline need a final manual browser check at desktop and mobile widths, including keyboard-only navigation and screen-reader announcement of selected event details. Student writing is not submitted or stored by the site. EDITORIAL REVIEW STATUS The current content has been checked for JavaScript syntax and for the presence of key source links. This is not a substitute for a specialist historian's review or a full live-browser accessibility audit. Before formal publication, ask a Holocaust historian or a relevant museum educator to review the chronology, terminology, map routes and teaching notes; check each archive item's current caption, catalogue record and reuse conditions. UPDATED MODULES — NOVEMBER 2026 The four language versions now include the same core additions in the learning tools: a short chronology, a source-based case file about the Łódź ghetto, a myth-check activity distinguishing concentration camps from other Nazi sites, and a testimony listening station. The teaching resources hub also includes the Essential Guide, a 12-place atlas and a Source Lab comparing a USHMM photograph record with the YIVO collection description. SOURCE LAB — FACILITATION The photograph record identifies an image of deportation from the Łódź ghetto to Chełmno in April 1942 and attributes it to Walter Genewein, associated with the German ghetto administration. The YIVO item is a collection-level description covering materials dated 1940–1965; it is not an individual digitised document, and not every listed item is available online. Ask learners to distinguish an image record from a collection description and to identify what each can and cannot establish. DIGITAL REFLECTION The new comparison fields and testimony reflection field are temporary browser-page notes. They are not saved to a server and are lost when the page is reloaded or left. Ask learners to copy only non-sensitive learning notes if they need to keep their work. Never request personal or traumatic disclosures.