UNC-TV ONLINE: Auschwits: The North Carolina Connection: Teacher's Resource Guide

Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State - The North Carolina

Picture: The front gate of Auschwitz

Download & Print Entire Module 6

Overview 6

Lesson 8

Handout 8A:
Portrait of a Rescuer

H andout 8B:
Shelly in Hiding

H andout 8C:
Honoring a Rescuer

Lesson 9

H andout 9A:
A Nazi Education

H andout 9B:
A 150-percent Nazi

BYSTANDERS, PERPETRATORS, AND RESCUERS
TEACHING LESSON 9
HANDOUT 9A
A NAZI EDUCATION

The following selections from Facing History and Ourselves Holocaust and Human Behavior by Margot Strom and William Parsons offer insight into the curriculum of schools in Nazi Germany. The first reading describes the Nazi Prime Minister of Education’s goals for education. The second looks at a math problem, and the third describes a discussion in a geography class.

The Nazi Prime Minister of Education’s Plan
“The chief purpose of the school is to train human beings to realize that the State is more important than the individual, that individuals must be willing and ready to sacrifice themselves for Nation and Fuehrer. . . . The basic principle to keep in mind is that we are not striving to inculcate as much knowledge as possible into the minds of our students. If students have learned to submit to authority, if they have developed a willingness to fit into that particular [place] chosen for them by the Party, then their education has been successful.”

“Every girl must learn the duties of a mother before she is sixteen, so that she can have children. Why should girls bother with higher mathematics or art or drama or literature? They could have babies without that sort of knowledge.”

An Arithmetic Lesson
The following word problem appeared in Germany’s Rise and Fall—Arithmetic Instruction in Higher Grades of Elementary School. “The Jews are aliens in Germany—In 1933 there were 66,060,000 inhabitants of the German Reich, of whom 499,682 were Jews. What is the percentage of aliens?”A Geography Lesson

In one geography class, the teacher explained that Germany was powerful now because of the doctrine of racial purity. He asked his students to name countries that were declining because of racial sins. They mentioned Russia, England, France. The teacher was not satisfied. “Well, which country has always called itself the ‘melting pot’ of all nations?” Then came the chorus: “Amerika.” He explained how during the centuries there had been many men and women who could not get along in Europe. Most of them were criminals and crooks . . . undesirables. Whenever they tangled with the law in Germany, or any other European country, they got on a boat and went to the United States. There they married each other. . . . Any German boy with intelligence could see what the result would be. The citizens of the United States were sinking lower and lower. “There are many other weaknesses as a result of this lack of racial purity,” he continued. “Their government is corrupt. They have a low type of government, a democracy. What is a democracy?”

A democracy is a form of government in which people waste much time. A democracy is a form of government that will be defeated by the Fuehrer.”

Published in cooperation with the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust
Copyright © 2002 by the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust. Updated 2005.
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/holocaust_council/