Virtual Student & Educator Resources

Museum Toolkits

Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center offers a variety of toolkits and resources that can be used by professional educators, students, and the general public.

Audio Guide Activities

Available in English & Spanish for Grades 7-12.

Journey through the Museum on a self-guided online virtual audio tour that features personal stories of local Holocaust Survivors. Explore the history and lessons of the Holocaust as told through the photographs, historical records, and stories of local Survivors and eyewitnesses. The tour is also available in Spanish.

Take a Stand Activities

Available in English & Spanish for Grades 7+. Meets the Illinois Civics Mandate for middle & high schools.

Empower students to connect with human and civil rights history and challenges today, gathering tools for civic engagement and positive action in their community and around the world.

Activities include:

• What are Human Rights?
• Take a Stand Upstanders
• Tips and Tools to Take A Stand – Advocate, Give, Participate and Raise Awareness

Stories of Survival Activities

For Grades 7+

Stories of Survival is a landmark exhibit that showcases more than 60 never-before-seen personal items brought to America by Survivors of the Holocaust and genocide. Each artifact is dramatically showcased alongside oversized photographs by renowned documentarian Jim Lommasson with handwritten responses by Survivors or their family members.

The objects are as every day as a baby doll and a black suitcase and as symbolic as a young mother’s cookbook and a wedding announcement—saved by local Survivors from genocides around the world, including Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Syria.

Activities include:

• Stories of Survival Introduction 
• Activity 1: Objects and Memories
• Activity 2: Share Your Family Heirloom (digital)
• Activity 3: Share Your Family Heirloom (low-tech option)
• Activity 4: Writing Prompt – Point of View
• Activity 5: Writing Prompt – Six Word Memoirs 
• Activity 6: Writing Prompt – Poetry
• Activity 7: Research Activity
• Appendix 

Genocide Awareness & Prevention Month

10 things you can do during Genocide Awareness & Prevention Month

Why I Stayed in Rwanda During the Genocide: Finding Allies Among Enemies – Carl Wilken TEDxTalk

Escaping the Khmer Rouge – Sophal Ear TED Talk

Stories of Liberation Activities

Allied and Soviet forces steadily worked their way across Europe in pursuit of Nazi Germany and encountered extreme devastation from the hands of the Nazi party in their wake. Concentration camps, mass graves, and complete destruction greeted them in their pursuit as they freed survivors, administered health care, and collected evidence of what the Nazis had done in Europe.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Activities

We are honored to share with you our new virtual Warsaw Ghetto Uprising exhibition to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the beginning of the Uprising on April 19th, 2020.

Explore a timeline of events that led to the largest and most symbolically important Jewish Uprising in German-occupied Europe. Learn about the courageous young leaders, including three local survivors who fought with dignity under impossible conditions. Listen and read the inspiring words written by Ghetto Revolt Commander Mordecai Anielewicz in his last letter to his friend and second-in-command Yitzhak Zukerman.

Social-Emotional Learning Activities

Explore online activities that feature contemporary Upstanders who made choices to act on behalf of others and not be bystanders. Take a look at recommended readings from our grades K-2 and grades 3-4 Teaching Trunks that teach acceptance and diversity. Hear from Survivors and their message that inspires students to take action.

Act of Art Activities

In our Act of Art gallery, the works explore genocides and human rights atrocities from artists’ perspectives. Artists express themselves through artistic mediums, such as paintings, photography, sculpture, spoken word, poetry, etc., and become Upstanders through their form of expression.

We are highlighting different forms of art that is in response to the Holocaust, genocide and human rights. Each piece contains reflection questions and interactive activities that will turn budding artists into activists!

Karkomi Holocaust Exhibition – Supplemental Materials for Catholic School Educators

Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center and the
Archdiocese of Chicago Office of Catholic Schools invite teachers
to make use of the following activities and resources as they align
their instruction of the Holocaust to the Archdiocese of Chicago
Religion Curriculum Priority Standards for Grades PK-8 (2020). We
encourage educators to explore these suggested activities to
incorporate into their interdisciplinary instruction—using all of
them or only a few, and implementing them as-written or with
modifications to meet students’ specific needs. Through these
lessons and activities, students will gain a deeper understanding of
the human dimension of the Holocaust, while exploring topics
through the lens of Catholic faith, tradition, and values.