This module explores the importance of introducing students to the diversity of Jewish life across Europe before the Holocaust. It will explore how to approach this important history with your students, modelling teaching materials and resources that you can use in the classroom.

During the Holocaust the Nazis and their collaborators destroyed Jewish life and communities that had been a present in Europe for over 2,000 years.  In order to fully grasp the significance of the Holocaust, students need to develop an understanding of ‘what was lost’. Exploring the long history of Jewish life across Europe and the many forms that this took also ensures that students recognise Jewish people as more than just victims of Nazi persecution and genocide and enables them to understand the enormous loss to contemporary world culture that resulted from the destruction of these communities.

By exploring case studies throughout, students are able to see those persecuted by the Nazis as individuals and recognise that each ‘statistic’ was a real person, with a life before the Holocaust, existing in a context of family, friends and community.