“At crucial junctures…
every individual makes a decision, and every decision is individual.”
~ Raul Hilberg, Holocaust Scholar
Oath & Opposition:
Education under
the Third Reich
Holocaust Education programs for professionals are founded on the belief that a healthy society depends upon engaged citizens. By studying the choices made by individuals and institutions during the Holocaust, participants gain fresh insight into their own professional and individual responsibilities today.
Training programs today are offered for those in the military, law enforcement, judiciary, education, and medical fields. These same institutions that were to uphold democracy & were entrusted to protect their citizens, failed during the Holocaust. How can we safeguard against making the same mistakes today?
This learning module examines the role of individual teachers and the education system under the authority of the Third Reich. Teachers were obligated to join the National Socialist Teacher’s Union and take an oath of loyalty to the führer. Within that framework, teachers were still able to make individual choices; some chose to comply with Nazi ideology, while others chose to act in opposition. This close scrutiny of the past provides a framework for a discussion on the role and responsibility of teachers in the education system today.
A short film sets the historical context. Participants then examine primary source documents in case studies and survivor testimony clips that highlight the pressures felt by and the range of choices available to teachers during Nazi rule.
Intro Film
This short introductory film sets the historical context for the case studies and discussion.
Case Studies
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Jeanne Daman: Risking Her Life to Protect Her Students
Jeanne Daman was a schoolteacher who saved 2,000 Jewish schoolchildren and worked for the Belgian resistance.
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Teachers Facilitate Sterilization of Students
Teachers, local police, and city government officials collaborated with the Nazis to carry out the orders.
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Arrest of Teachers Prompts Nationwide Protests - Norway
90% of Norway’s 14,000 teachers resigned from the national teachers union under German occupation, refusing to teach Nazi ideology.
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Teachers Ask Students to Write Letters to Hitler
Teachers could be recognized and promoted as leaders within their school or community for sending portfolios of Christmas or birthday greetings from their students to Hitler.
Survivor Testimonies
Survivors share their experiences during the Holocaust related to their teachers, schools, and classmates.
Clips should be watched in pairs to have a better understanding of the full spectrum of choices made.
The final clip, featuring Esther Bem, serves as a conclusion for the learning module as a whole.
Lili Armstrong: (Berlin, Germany)
“She came into the class with a big book under her arm, and she addressed us. She spoke a slightly old-fashioned German. She would say, ‘Meine kinder—my children—meine Kinder, today we are changing our lecture and from now on, we are going to read Mein Kampf, written by our Führer, Adolf Hitler. And we have to interrupt our Romantic literature like Eichendorff and can’t read anymore Goethe or Schiller.’ And she was upset. She was very upset. And I think she had tears in her eyes. At the time, I wasn’t quite sure whether she was joyful about Hitler or tearful about that we have to change our literature. But I go for the second one; I know that for sure. ”
Eva Brewster: (Berlin, Germany)
”“When that Nazi teacher—she was the only one that was a party member at that time, and she recruited all the kids she could to the Hitler Youth. And she was also working with the Gestapo, the secret police, and so she spied on parents, on kids, on other teachers, and so everybody was really afraid of her . . . .”
Werner Halpern (Nördlingen, Germany)
“There was at least one teacher who tried to be kind. He rescued me a few times when, after school, I was being threatened by my fellow students in the school courtyard, and he happened to come by and chase them away so I could go home. But that occurred two or three times. He kind of took some special effort to make sure I’d be all right. But that was only one teacher.”
Emma Mogilensky (Cronheim, Germany)
“A real serious change that I noticed was when we found one morning when we went to school that all the other children had formed two lines in front of the schoolhouse door, and, as we walked through those two lines, they beat us up. And I went to the teacher and I complained, and he said, ‘Well, what did you expect, you dirty Jew?’ And, from that, we figured that he had the children every morning in church—they had to go for Mass every morning—and we figured that what he had done is organize the children to beat us up.”
Intro Film
This short intro film sets the historical context.
Case Studies
Case Studies rich in primary sources, highlight the motives and pressures felt, as well as the range of choices available to teachers during the Holocaust. Discussion guide included.
Testimony Clips
Survivor testimony clips provide a glimpse into the experiences of several different teachers and students during the Holocaust.