Teaching about pre-war life is essential if students are to begin to grasp the impact of the genocide on contemporary Europe. It is equally crucial to restore agency to those who would later become victims of the Holocaust, whilst ensuring students’ understand there was nothing inevitable about the genocide.

Using rare home movie footage taken by a family from Munster, Germany, students engage with some of the challenges faced by German-Jewish families in the months before the Second World War. Students are also introduced to some approaches towards Holocaust memorialisation, and encouraged to reflect on the efficacy of these.