Race and Citizenship in Nazi Germany and Jim Crow United States

This teaching set engages students in close, empathetic listening and historical inquiry. It brings together primary sources, scholarship, and testimonies from the Fortunoff Video Archive. After introductory lessons on listening to Holocaust testimonies and the challenges of making historical comparisons, students engage in several lessons focused on Nazi Germany, followed by a lesson examining Nazi leaders’ interests in U.S. race laws. The teaching set concludes with lessons on race and citizenship under Jim Crow. Throughout, students encounter the voices of Dr. Leon Bass, a Black soldier and civil rights activist; Martin Schiller, a Jewish survivor of Buchenwald; and John Weil, a German-Jewish refugee from the Third Reich. Lessons link to the work of Holocaust scholars, including the Nazi Concentration Camps website, developed by Dr. Nikolaus Wachsmann.

Designed in partnership with a community of educators, this teaching set includes 40-minute lessons that can be taught individually or in small sets. The lessons are intended primarily for secondary classrooms, but they can be adapted for middle school students. Individual lessons or their components can be incorporated into a variety of courses in U.S. History, World History, Civics, Holocaust and Genocide, as well as English and humanities.

Explore the Collection

Explore the Introduction for Teachers and the full set of lessons that engage students in an in-depth exploration of the value and limits of historical comparisons. The Introduction outlines the content of the collection and the thinking skills that underpin lesson design.

The Nuremberg Laws

Students learn from the testimony of John Weil, a Jewish teenager who had his Bar Mitzvah shortly before the Nazis came to power. Students listen to John’s narrative about how the Nuremberg Laws affected him and his family, and then analyze the text of the laws.

Nazi State Power: Concentration Camps

Listen to John Weil’s description of the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht) and how his father was sent to Dachau. Then learn more about Nazi concentration camps through Dr. Nikolaus Wachsmann’s website based on his 2015 book “KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps.”

A Black Soldier in a Segregated Army

This lesson explores the importance of multiple sources and perspectives in the study of the past. It is anchored in the testimony of Leon Bass, a young Black soldier who helped liberate Buchenwald and later dedicated his life to educating young people in Philadelphia.