The Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center (SBHEC) is dedicated to providing Rhode Island schools with historically accurate, high-quality resources and information to support Holocaust and genocide education.
The Jordan Frank Family Educational Program
The Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center offers a comprehensive Holocaust curriculum for both middle and high school, aligned with Rhode Island’s Social Studies Frameworks and developed in consultation with the Rhode Island Holocaust and Genocide Education Commission. This educational resource was made possible through the generosity of the Jordan Frank Foundation.
Educators can request:
- A flexible, developmentally appropriate high school curriculum (6–20 lessons), designed for Social Studies or English Language Arts classrooms, featuring historical content, literary texts (e.g., Night, Maus, Salvaged Pages), survivor testimony, and local Rhode Island history.
- An adaptable middle school curriculum (5–15 lessons), centered on historical understanding, personal narratives, and creative reflection, featuring the book Survivors: True Stories of Children in the Holocaust.
- Classroom sets of books, lesson pacing guides, multimedia resources, and optional activities, including guest speakers, virtual field trips, and art/writing projects.
- Trauma-informed content reviewed by clinical and educational experts, designed to support emotional safety and ethical learning.
- To request curriculum materials or classroom sets, email: info@hercri.org.
- These resources are offered at no cost to Rhode Island educators and fulfill the state’s legislative commitment to Holocaust and genocide education.
Borrowing & Attribution Policy
The Teaching the Holocaust in Middle and High School curricula is provided cost-free by the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center (Providence, RI) for educational use in schools and community organizations.
Usage Guidelines
- Materials may be adapted for classroom or organizational use, but must remain consistent with the educational intent of the Center.
- Redistribution, sale, or use for non-educational purposes is not permitted without prior written consent from the Center.
- When incorporating these lessons into syllabi, lesson plans, presentations, or public-facing materials, users are required to give credit to the Center.
Required Attribution
All schools and organizations using this curriculum must include one of the following credit lines:
- “Curriculum provided by the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center (Providence, RI).”
- “This Jordan Frank Family Educational Program lesson plan was created by the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center.“
- “Holocaust education resources courtesy of the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center.”
Visual Attribution
When possible, please also include the Center’s logo on any printed or digital materials that incorporate the curricula. The logo and style guide can be requested at info@hercri.org.
By using the curricula, you help ensure that the voices of Holocaust survivors and the mission of the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center are honored and recognized in every classroom.
In addition to textual resources and films, the SBHEC’s most important source is witness testimony. While there are still survivors who are willing and able to travel to schools to share their experiences with Rhode Island’s school children, the SBHEC also has an extensive video/DVD catalogue of witness testimony. SBHEC encourages educators to explore the website. All of the materials are here for you to use. We also encourage you to contact us with any questions you may have and to invite us into your classrooms.
This Resource Page provides information to help educators enhance their instruction with this difficult but necessary subject. Resources for instruction include our archival materials.
Why Teach the Holocaust?
Teachers who are new to teaching about the Holocaust, and even veteran teachers, may be asked, “Why teach about the Holocaust?” Sometimes that answer may be easy. “So it never happens again!” However, sometimes it may be a difficult question to answer.
According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), “Students in grades six and above demonstrate the ability to empathize with individual eyewitness accounts and to attempt to understand the complexities of Holocaust history, including the scope and scale of the events. While elementary age students are able to empathize with individual accounts, they often have difficulty placing them in a larger historical context.
Such developmental differences have traditionally shaped social studies curricula throughout the country. In most states, students are not introduced to European history and geography—the context of the Holocaust—before middle school. Elementary school can be an ideal place to begin discussing the value of diversity and the danger of bias and prejudice. These critical themes can be addressed through local and national historical events and can be reinforced during later study of the Holocaust.”
How to Teach the Holocaust
When teaching genocide studies, educators need to keep one thing top of mind: bring your students safely in and safely out. Bringing your students safely in is most easily accomplished with an activity that addresses the Holocaust with a wide lens.
This subject matter can be disturbing or traumatic for some students. When bringing your students safely out, it’s important to remind them of humanity’s triumph during dark times. We like to show films about rescuers (such as Nicholas Winton, who rescued over 600 Czech Jewish children), or read stories of loving reunions.
You can always take your studies one step further by collaborating with other educators in your school and integrating art, music, and other disciplines into your unit. The celebration of life, the happiness of finding a loved one, the resilience of humanity, and our own connection to such joy will help students to appreciate their own lives and to understand that they play a significant role in a future world absent from genocide, hate, bigotry, and intolerance.
Rhode Island’s History of Holocaust Education
In the summer of 2016, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo signed a bill approved by the legislature to require Holocaust and Genocide education in Rhode Island’s secondary schools, both public and private, commencing with the school year in September 2017.
According to the legislation, “Given the importance of the issue of genocide to the political affairs of the United States, as well as the responsibility of the state to educate its citizens, it is a fundamental responsibility of the state of Rhode Island to ensure that the critical subject of genocide is included as part of the curriculum in all public school.” Furthermore: “It is the judgment of the Rhode Island general assembly that the board of education in the state shall include instruction on the subjects of Holocaust and genocide studies where appropriate in the curriculum, for all middle and high school students.”
Responding to Antisemitism: Practical Guides for Classrooms, Families, and Everyday Conversations
Whether in everyday conversation or in school, here is a list of links that can help anyone respond to incidents of antisemitism: