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Teaching the Holocaust

Summer Institute will be held on-site at a location TBD in Downtown Chicago.

July 14 – July 18 | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM

July 15 | 6:30 – 8:00 PM

During this intensive, five-day seminar, participants will learn about teaching techniques, methods and resources to teach Holocaust history to their students. The course will include multi-media presentations, guest speakers, and will draw interdisciplinary connections that align with state and national standards. Educators will be equipped to return to their classrooms with deeper knowledge of the Holocaust and rich pedagogical resources. The program will enable them to investigate with their students the ramifications of prejudice, racism and indifference, and the role of the individual in nurturing and protecting democratic values and human rights.

• Learn why, how, what, when and where the Holocaust took place, including key political, social, and economic factors that impacted the times that led up to and culminated in the “final solution.”

• Explore concepts such as prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, racism, antisemitism, obedience to authority, decision-making, and justice.

• Examine the diversity of experiences of individuals targeted by Naziism, including Jewish people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma and Sinti, and Black people.

• Use resources including film, interactive text and graphics, diaries, and first-person accounts to actively engage students with the ideas of those involved in the Holocaust and provide a personal dimension to the historical narrative.

TUITION COST:  $150

Applications must be received no later than Monday, June 23, 2025

A limited number of full and partial scholarships and travel stipends are available for those who qualify.

Sarah Casteel

Professor of English, Carleton University; Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

She has written and co-edited five books, the most recent of which is Black Lives Under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art (Columbia University Press, 2024). She has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Vienna and Potsdam and visiting fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Zentrum Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg. The recipient of a Canadian Jewish Literary Award and a Polanyi Prize, she is a member of the Academic Council of the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University.

Gaye Flowers

Gaye Flowers has been involved in Holocaust education over 20 years, specializing in the Nazi persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses. She presents at conferences for educators, teacher workshops, student assemblies, museums and classrooms with age appropriate material for students from grade school to college level.

 

Daniel Greene

Adjunct Professor of History at Northwestern University; Subject Matter Expert at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Dr. Daniel Greene curated Americans and the Holocaust, an exhibition that opened in April 2018 at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Greene’s co-edited (with Edward Phillips) book, Americans and the Holocaust: A Reader, was published by Rutgers University Press in 2022. The exhibition also inspired The U.S. and the Holocaust, a documentary film directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein that aired on PBS in September 2022. Greene served as an advisor and appeared in the film.

Justyna Matkowska

Adjunct Faculty, Department of History at University at Albany, State University of New York

Dr. Matkowska received her PhD from the University of Wroclaw. She holds MA and BA in Literary Studies from the University of Wroclaw. Matkowska also graduated from the Postgraduate Romani Studies Program at the Pedagogical University of Krakow in Poland. Matkowska was a 2021-2022 Fred and Maria Devinki Fellow at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 2020 she held a research fellowship at Central European University. She also worked as an expert researcher for the “Re-Thinking Roma Resistance” project at the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (Germany). Matkowska’s current research focuses on Roma and Sinti Genocide and Resistance, as well as race and ethnicity, cultural memory and representation.

What to Expect

  • Classroom Resources and Materials
  • 30 Clock Hours (CPDUs)
  • Graduate Credit Available through National Louis University (at an additional cost)
  • Lunch
  • 2 Lane Credits; Lane Change Credits (available for Chicago Public Schools teachers only)

Questions? Contact us.

Email: education@ilhmec.org | Phone: 847.967.4843

Program Sponsor

With Assistance from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
Sponsored by the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”
Supported by the German Federal Ministry of Finance

Teacher Professional Development programs are supported by: Polk Bros. Foundation | Segal Family Foundation

Education Services are supported with generous grants from: Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Bank of America; The Bill Bass Foundation; Dr. Scholl Foundation; Leah Gutman Education Fund; Max and Sunny Howard Memorial Foundation; Niles Township Government; PNC; Regions Bank; Charles & M.R. Shapiro Foundation; State Farm; Steans Family Foundation; Women’s Leadership Committee of the Illinois Holocaust Museum, Vivo Foundation, Full Circle Foundation

Additional endowment support is provided by: The Mayor Richard M. and Maggie C. Daley Education Fund; The Harvey L. Miller Family Foundation Program Endowment Fund; Moselle Mintz Schwartz Education Fund; Barney & Anita Sidler Educational Endowment; Teachers Educational Endowment Fund.

Photo credits: Kathleen Hinkel

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