What do current world genocides and the Holocaust have in common?

April is National Holocaust Awareness Month. The Holocaust lasted for more than a decade and ended when the last Nazi concentration camp was liberated by the Allies in World War II. The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

"Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.

In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the "Final Solution," the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe.

During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority:" Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.

It is vital for your students to learn about the Holocaust and the reasons that created the rationale for a civilized country to sponsor, approve, or at least permit such horrific acts against their own citizens and those of other countries that they occupied. The rationale that justified the Holocaust continues today, as evidenced by the genocide in Darfur.

ProQuest model BookCarts are an excellent way for teachers to assign inquiry-based learning activities. Model BookCarts are really lesson plans that give students direction, provide examples of essential questions for critical thinking (you can add others), and suggest great articles and websites to use to complete their reports or presentations. Using BookCarts ensures that students know what to do, use critical thinking and original thought, and access only the best teacher-selected resources for their research.

Time saved in surfing for quality resources is reinvested in more learning through analysis, synthesis, writing, and presentation.

Here are the titles of Holocaust model BookCarts:

• Anne Frank and the Holocaust
  
  
• Elie Wiesel's "Night" Book and the Holocaust
  
  
• Holocaust--History and People

1. Access your eLibrary Teacher Edition
   
   
2. Click the BookCart Admin link
   
   
3. Open the ProQuest Carts tab
   
   
4. Search the collection for "holocaust"
   
   
5. Click the Copy icon to the right of "Anne Frank and the Holocaust"
   
   
6. Select Return to My Local Carts
   
   
7. Repeat the process for the other two BookCarts above

These BookCarts can easily be edited for effective use in your collection:

1. Click the BookCart Title that will have "Copy of" as its prefix to open BookCart Editor
   
   
2. Delete "Copy of" in the Title
   
   
3. Type your name in the Author boxes
   
   
4. Scroll down and click the Save button at bottom
   
   
5. Return to My Local Carts

Assign a report of 150-200 words that cites at least three resources. Students should address the essential questions inside the BookCart of your choice. An alternative format for the report would be a PowerPoint of about two to three minutes.

Students can address essential questions directly, using these new ProQuest models for reports and presentations. (See Curriculum Builders and Learning with PowerPoint.)