Teaching the Holocaust: the power of personal stories

professor of history

Lisa Reid

how to meet Holocaust survivors took lessons at a different

have always faced, like most history teachers the challenge of having little time to express the depth and detail required by my students understand the terrible events of the Holocaust .

After visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs 'and Heroes' Remembrance in Jerusalem, I realized that my students showing a picture of a thousand pairs of shoes is not as powerful than showing my students a picture of a single pair. Allow students to discover the story behind the shoes makes it a much stronger link between the individual and the event. On behalf of the family, a mother and father, brothers and sisters, all tell the story of a life before the Holocaust. A personal account which reveals the masses and focuses on the individual is the most powerful way to teach the events of the Holocaust, which allows students to empathize with the victims, and especially learn horrors the past.

think showing pictures of corpses and graves can traumatize students and causes disconnection, since students are often unable to manage or treat images like this and just off. I think students have difficulty understanding the concept of six million victims. However, they can understand and empathize with an individual and his family.

I, like any other history teacher, I have read many books on the subject, saw many documentaries and sat through hours of movies. I also learned the facts and figures, the chronology of events, names of authors and about 1001 other things to enable excellence in teaching and learning takes place in my classroom. None of this has kind of had the same effect as a 70-something, five feet tall, well-dressed lady came into our room at seminars at Yad Vashem.

few moments of this soft-spoken lady, sharing his story, he was transported back in time. I was sound - a five year old son, through his experience and feel her fear. I am his mother to make a terrible choice to save two of their children, knowing the fate of those who remain. Thanks to Esther Schlesinger, the Hungarian Holocaust survivor who was voluntarily tell his story, I knew some of the horrors faced by so many, if only for an hour. Listen to this incredible woman, the terrible reality of the Holocaust really touched. At one point she had to ask someone to read a passage from his story. Even at age 67, it was too painful for her to bear.

Before my experience has taught Yad Vashem Holocaust-related facts and textbooks and films convey the story behind this event. Films like Schindler's List and The Pianist powerfully illustrate personal stories, while sections of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas can be useful to advance the process and mechanism of indoctrination. I will build on my movies using the new Holocaust Educational Trust Film resources thinking, thinking History: The Holocaust. I will also continue to use the TV Nazis - A warning from history to better communicate the facts to the higher level classes. Which had not been used in my teaching before visiting Yad Vashem was the testimony of survivors.

like spending time in Jerusalem and attend conferences of researchers and writers remarkable, it became clear that I should change the way I pronounce my teaching of the Holocaust in the classroom. I'll also take a look at the newspapers and postcards extracts of those who lived and died during the Holocaust, allowing a person and intimate perspective shine through.

I will also make sure that incorporate life before the Holocaust from a Jewish point of view, something that I never took the time to do it, but now we see the importance of this aspect of the story really is.

worry, this year, I embark on the Holocaust teach my students to customize Holocaust history and tell the story behind the numbers. I will focus on the impact of the image of a single pair of shoes may have.

• Lisa Reid is Professor of History at the College of Linwood Linwood, Renfrewshire. She went to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as part of a specialist training program for teachers in the Holocaust Educational Trust.

The Guardian Teacher Network has many resources related to the Holocaust. Here are some for you to try to share with their colleagues.

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