Sample topics:

• The Holocaust and Nazi atrocities
  • life before the Holocaust, including the existence of well-integrated and thriving Jewish communities in many countries throughout Europe
  • the rise of discrimination, racism, and antisemitism in Europe (e.g., social and political effects before and after WWI; development of imperialism, nationalism, racism, inferior race theory, and eugenics; ancient roots of antisemitism in Europe, discrimination against the Sinti and Roma)
  • the main beliefs of Nazi ideology and the process behind Hitler’s rise to power in democratic Germany (e.g., Hitler becoming Chancellor and using the 1933 Enabling Act to gain dictatorial powers)
  • denial of Jewish immigrants by Canada and other nations during the interwar years (e.g., MS St. Louis in 1939)
  • the evolution of displacement, persecution, and violence into mass killing operations by the Nazis (e.g., Nazi racial ideology and the concepts of Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community) and Lebensraum, forced sterilizations, the Nuremberg Laws, development of concentration camps, Kristallnacht, ‘euthanasia’ killings (T4 program), ‘Holocaust by Bullets’ and the Einsatzgruppen mass shootings, the Wannsee Conference and the 'Final Solution' and death camps – e.g., Auschwitz-Birkenau)
  • individuals and groups targeted by the Nazis as part of the Holocaust and other systematic persecutions (e.g., Jews as the primary target of Nazi persecution, along with other groups including Sinti and Roma, Eastern European civilians, persons with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Black people, political opponents, prisoners of war)
  • the scale and singularity of the Holocaust and the murder of 6 million Jews throughout Nazi-occupied Europe as part of the Nazi plan for complete physical annihilation of the Jewish people
  • stories of resistance and resilience during the Holocaust
  • aftermath of the Holocaust (e.g., overcoming trauma and loss, rebuilding lives, and the pursuit of justice through venues like the Nuremburg Trials)
  • the development of the concept of genocide by Raphael Lemkin to identify and prevent similar atrocities (e.g., the Holocaust as the paradigmatic example of genocide, the Genocide Convention, Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
  • Additional topics related to the concept of genocide
    • the Ten Stages of Genocide as published by Genocide Watch
    • other internationally recognized genocides during the 20th and 21st centuries (e.g., Armenian, Holodomor, Khmer Rouge, Rwanda, and Darfur) and the 2020 recognition of the Roma Genocide by the Canadian Parliament