Exploring Humanity Through Hard History: Teaching the Holocaust and Racial Injustice in Today’s Classroom

About the 2026 Program

This seminar empowers educators to teach human rights through parallel studies of the Holocaust and American racial injustice. Participants will examine connections between Jim Crow and Nuremberg laws while engaging with survivor testimonies and primary sources. Using inquiry-based methods, written reflections, Socratic-style conversations, and hands-on engagement, we’ll explore how historical resistance and remembrance inspire contemporary change.

Program Benefits

Seminar highlights feature visits to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington, DC), the Capital Jewish Museum, a local synagogue, and notable African-American historical landmarks, along with a visit from the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.

Guest speakers include a Holocaust survivor, renowned Holocaust historians and authors, engaged student leaders, and other notable community and academic experts.

In partnership with Loudoun County Public Schools, Sha’are Shalom Synagogue, NoVaChai, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, and the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum.

What Teachers Said About the 2025 Program

Casey Voss attended our Virginia seminar to learn how to discuss sensitive historical topics in her classroom. “By attending this seminar, my own learning [was] broadened, allowing me to bring back historical context and real-life stories to teach my students the importance of human and civil rights, as well as social justice,” Casey said. “My goal is to facilitate an increase in [students’] awareness of community, as well as empathy for diverse groups.”

A teacher in a mostly white district, Casey recognizes the limited diversity of her students and strives to make those from marginalized backgrounds feel seen and valued. Casey is committed to inclusive education, emphasizing that Black, Latino, and immigrant histories are integral to American history. She actively works to teach about social justice despite the increasing efforts at historical erasure/censorship teachers often encounter.

Casey specifically teaches about the Holocaust to honor its victims and help students understand it as a deeply human event, rather than a distant abstraction. Through works like “Night” by Elie Wiesel and North Carolina’s Holocaust education lessons, Casey integrates history, literature, and survivor stories to build empathy and awareness. “I want students to understand the humanity associated with such an event,” she explained.” I am always curious and wanting to learn about the human experience, especially in cases in which humans fought for basic rights and showed a high level of resilience.”