Description and History
The internationally recognized date for Holocaust Remembrance Day corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar and it marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In 2024, Yom HaShoah will be recognized beginning at sunset on the evening of Sunday May 5 – Monday May 6.
Professional Learning Resources
Echoes & Reflections
Echoes & Reflections, Anti-Defamation League Education’s Holocaust Education program in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation and Yad Vashem, provides professional learning opportunities and classroom content to equip educators for effective instruction of the Holocaust and resonant themes of today. The content is standards-based, interdisciplinary, personalized, integrated with primary and secondary sources, and customizeable.
- Interactive Map of States That Mandate Holocaust Education
This map provided by Echoes & Reflections tracks state legislation (passed and pending) regarding Holocaust and genocide education, as well as task forces/commissions established by such law.
#LearnToNeverForget
Anti-Defamation League Education has launched a national campaign to support and improve Holocaust education.
- View the archived Echoes & Reflections webinar Help Students #LearnToNeverForget with Digital Holocaust Education Activities. Attendees learn how to use Echoes & Reflections' activities to help students better understand the Holocaust and inspire them to recognize and challenge antisemitism today.
- On April 27, ADL will close the campaign with a special event where students will have the opportunity to virtually meet and interact with a Holocaust survivor Mark Schonwetter.
Never a Bystander & Other Enduring Lessons for Holocaust Remembrance
Knowledge Quest, Volume 49, No. 2
Margaret Lincoln shares how the community of Battle Creek, Michigan, has participated in the nationwide effort established by Congress to honor victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution. She shares Holocaust Remembrance collaborative projects which can be replicated or adapted by other school librarians.
Fighting Anti-Semitism and Anti-Asian Hate Through Books
In this Knowledge Quest post, blogger Karin Greenberg reviews two nonfiction books highlighting the complexities and beauty of Jewish and Asian culture. She also shares book lists with recommended titles to celebrate Jewish American Heritage and Asian American & Pacific Islander Month.
Days of Remembrance Resources
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) provides a variety of ready-to-use resources to help educators plan Days of Remembrance activities for their students. The USHMM website also shares a lesson on teaching with survivor testimony, materials for teaching about the Holocaust with books and literature, and a one-day lesson featuring the testimony of Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann. The museum also offers a free three-day virtual conference for educators.
Learner Engagement Resources
Books Matter™ | Children's & Young Adult Literature
ADL provides an online bibliography of recommended children’s and young adult books about bias, bullying, diversity and social justice. This curated list provides age level recommended books on Jewish culture and antisemitism.
ALA's Sara Jaffarian Award Presents - Empathizing with Teens in Trauma: An Exploration of the Terezin Ghetto/Camp
This presentation shares how a team of teachers, a librarian, a social worker and various outside groups in St. Marys Area Middle School combined their skills and worked together to help students expand their content knowledge of a topic they may not know about, deepen their research skills, and talk about mental health strategies. Students researched artwork, poetry and music created by teenagers in the Theresienstadt/Terezín Nazi concentration camp during World War II and also learned strategies for coping with their own stress and emotions.
Be Inspired by AASL Award Winning Programs
- Wilson Southern Middle School’s Holocaust project receives AASL Roald Dahl Miss Honey Social Justice Award - School librarian Ann Yawornitsky and 6th grade reading teachers Jennifer Sarnes and Melissa Zawaski collaborated to create the project “Children of the Holocaust/Holocaust Hall of Memories.” Read more from Ann Yawornitsky in The Real Prize of the Miss Honey Social Justice Award.
- Stephanie Meurer, Jennifer Milstead and Erin Kelley Receive AASL Collaborative School Library Award for Holocaust Project - School librarians Stephanie Meurer and Jennifer Milstead have worked in collaboration with the 8th-grade language arts teachers at Sierra Middle School to develop the project "Investigating the Holocaust: A Collaborative Inquiry."