Remember the basics of a lesson plan:  Keep this in mind as you plan your talk.

1. Where do you want to go with the lesson?
2. How are you going to get there?
3. Where have you been? In this case, what is the take-away message?

Ex. Under what circumstances might they have had to survive?  
Working in a slave labor camp?
Hiding underground?   Could they remain silent during daylight hours?
Hiding above ground?  Have them stop and think about what it would be like to forget their name and pretend to have another name…or to deny their family and their religion.

Ex. Give them concrete examples of life in the concentration camp.  Ex. My slide of the latrine at Auschwitz shocks and amazes the kids because there was no privacy or toilet paper.  This example speaks to their level of understanding.

High school students: many of these kids are old enough to have had a chance to survive.  They may not have the maturity to understand the pain and suffering of others.  Personalize it for them: You can use some of the same ideas discussed above.  You can also include some of these ideas:

Ex. As victims: not allowed to go to public school, public areas [parks, movies, swimming pools], no fraternization, etc, etc.

Ex. As potential perpetrators or bystanders:  not allowed to associate with former friends, mandatory participation in the Hitler Youth organizations, limited freedom of speech [no jokes about Hitler or the Nazi party].

College students:  these kids are old enough to be sent to either camps or the army.

-As victims: explain the role of luck in survival.

-What could you do to run, resist or fight back?

-What did people have to do to survive?

-How does a person change from a free, intellectual, independent spirit to a Musselman?  Ex. in the film Berga, one survivor testified that it took only 10 weeks to change from American GI to an animal.

-As perpetrators or bystanders: explain the limits on intellectual freedoms: burning of books, restrictions on subjects taught in school, educational standards set by the Nazi party to promote the Nazi party….

Adults:

Religious groups

Jewish:  this should be relevant and personal but occasionally you will get someone in the audience who will try to intellectualize the Holocaust.  They may ask questions like:  How was the Holocaust different from other genocides?

You may also get people asking the global questions like Why the Jews?

Gentile: are usually the most respectful audiences.  They may ask questions out of innocence. Occasionally you get a feisty person but they are usually feisty on all issues and their colleagues tune them out.

Government organizations / Military bases: There are many federal agencies that are holding Holocaust commemorations. Audiences are very respectful.  It is especially important to emphasize points that are relevant to these audiences:

-The role of the governmental bureaucracy

-The lack of freedom and individual liberty

-The role of the police / military in the genocide

Mixed audience: aim for a common denominator.  There are themes / interdisciplinary approaches you can take in your presentation:

Stay on topic. Try not to stray and, if you do stray, don’t forget to go back to where you left off.

You may want to include some themes in your presentation, especially if you are trying to address a specific audience or if you are asked to speak on a specific subject.

Themes:

Political Science / Government / Law:

What happens when a few individuals hold all the political / military power?

What happens when there are no checks and balances in government?

What happens when there is no freedom of speech?

What happens when a government agency, like the Propaganda Ministry, dictates

what citizens can read, see and hear?

How were the laws modified over a few, short years so the Nazis could systematically disenfranchise a segment of the population?

What are crimes against humanity?

Science / Medicine:

How were pseudo-scientific theories translated into racial laws?

How were doctors and scientists able to "justify" the T-4 action?

How were doctors able to "justify" the medical experiments in the camps?

Psychology / Sociology:

How does the individual behave in an immoral society?

What is individual responsibility?

What personality factors contributed to hardiness and survival?

Did a person’s pre-war, childhood life factor into their ability to rebuild a life after the Shoah?

What happens when prejudice becomes legally institutionalized?

How are gender roles impacted in a society that emphasizes motherhood?

How were marriages impacted by racial laws and Nazi genetic theories?

History:

How was WWII different from all previous wars?

How was this genocide different from other genocides?

What was the evolution of the destruction process?

Economics:

How did the monies expropriated from the Jews contribute to the destruction process?

How much of the war economy was directed towards concentrating and killing the Jews?

How did Jewish slave labor help the war effort and the Nazi economy?

How did the German industries / factories benefit from using slave labor?

As a rule of thumb: prepare more than you think you will need and don’t feel compelled to get to everything you have prepared.

-Brainstorm on paper what themes, anecdotes, facts, etc, you wish to include.

-Try to find some logical way to organize / link these together.

Ex. Chronological order

Ex. Reverse chronological order: roots of today’s issues are in the past…

Ex. Progression / evolution of events [destruction process: definition, expropriation, concentration, extermination]

Ex. How has the Holocaust been treated in film and television?

Ex. How has the Holocaust been explained in literature?

Ex. What can we glean from reading / viewing survivor testimonies?

-Not every point you want to make might fit into one presentation.  You may want to organize your thoughts into 2 or more presentations. Let logic be the priority.

-Think about any photos or videos you might want to include to supplement / emphasize your points.

-Think about the methodology you want to use:
Lecture?
Speaking from an outline of prompts?
Interactive component?

-Make an outline and then set it aside for a few days or a few weeks.  Look at it later with a fresh eye and see if you still like it, if you have new ideas, etc.  This is one homework project you may not want to wait to do until the night before!

-When you are ready to finalize your outline, highlight those points you really want to make and then include a few extra points, in case you have time to say more.  You never know…sometimes people have lots of questions, sometimes not.  Sometimes you will be asked to speak for 10 minutes but another speaker doesn’t show up so they give you another few minutes.  The flip is also true:  they can tell you 15 minutes and then cut you to 10 minutes.  Be prepared to be flexible.

-Do some background research so that you know the geographic and historical context that is relevant to your presentation.  You don’t have to know everything about the Shoah but you should know about the piece you want to discuss.

-BE ACCURATE! If you don’t know the answer to a question, admit it…but don’t B.S. an answer.

-Know when to quit. Don’t over-run your time and don’t overdose your audience.  They are not going to learn everything in one day.

-Achieve closure at the end, don’t start a new topic:  Like a good essay, your conclusion should relate to your opening.

-Encourage your audience to learn more about the Holocaust, to do something to fight prejudice, discrimination, genocide, etc.

-Thank them for their interest and make sure they get the take-away message you want to give them.

AV aids, power point, video clips, etc. - A multi-media presentation is the most powerful and most engaging presentation.

-Always be prepared for your equipment to break down or for there to be some glitch. The photos, videos, etc, should supplement and complement your presentation but shouldn’t be your whole presentation.

-You don’t need a lot of photos to emphasize your point.  You just need the right photos:

Ex. photo of your parent taken around the time the war started.  Let your audience understand that your parents were kids then.

-When trying to emphasize the hardships of the camp, show a few slides of things like the barracks, the latrine, the walking skeletons, etc.

-Maps help the audience visualize / contextualize better so feel free to use one.

-You don’t need to find the most grisly photos just for the shock value.  Sometimes those are counter-productive.

-Videos should always be cued up to the segment you wish displayed.  Watching you search a tape for the part you want to use is a real waste of time and a turn-off.