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

Dates and information about our 2026 Virginia seminar will be posted soon!

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, we’ll explore how historical resistance and remembrance inspire contemporary change.

Site visits include:

• The US Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington, DC)
• A local synagogue
• Local African American historical landmarks

Guest speakers include a Holocaust survivor, engaged student leaders, and 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 Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

2025 Program Report

This program empowered educators to teach human rights through parallel studies of the Holocaust and American racial injustice.

We visited the Lillian & Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC. At the Capitol Jewish Museum, we explored antisemitism and the impact of today’s environment, and “No Place For Hate” with speakers from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). We toured the museum and discussed “It Starts With Words: Teaching the Escalation of Hate.” At the USHMM, we were led in a guided tour by TOLI Board Member, Arthur Berger.

We heard testimony from Holocaust survivor Frank Cohn, discussed “Stories That Shaped A Nation: Jewish Lives in America” with Daniel Osborn from the Weitzman National Museum of Jewish History, and engaged in reflective writing on topics including “How can we as educators avoid teaching the ‘disappearance’ of marginalized groups? How can we help students better understand the lives of other marginalized groups, in the past and today?”

What Teachers Said

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.”