Holocaust Remembrance Day

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual memorial day on January 27th, commemorates the over six million Jews who were murdered and millions of others who were persecuted by the Nazi Regime.

• Explore titles and resources on these featured curated lists:

  • Tell Them We Remember: Literature about the Holocaust and World War II from the CCBC
  • The Holocaust list from Penguin USA
  • Holocaust Remembrance Day list from The Horn Book
  • Selected Holocaust Literature for Youth from the Association of Jewish Libraries

• Hear author Alan Gratz talk about how he brought Jack Gruener’s personal story to the page in this Meet-the-Author Recording for Prisoner B-3087.

• Listen to Doreen Rappaport introduce and share some of the backstory for creating Beyond Courage in this Meet-the-Author Recording.

• Watch Elie Wiesel explain that he wrote his memoir Night out of a duty to bear witness to his experiences in the Holocaust in this recorded speech.

• Consider how author Claire Sarnowski collaborated with Holocaust survivor Alter Wiener Alter to push for change and promote kindness and compassion by listening to this author book talk. for Remember My Story: A Girl, a Holocaust Survivor, and a Friendship That Made History.

• Practice expression and fluency with the Reader's Theatre script for Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kindertransport after listening to the Meet-the-Author Recording to learn about the piece of Holocaust history that inspired this book. Dive deeper into context, tips for teaching hard history, and more in this teachers resource guide from the author.

• Share this audiobook excerpt from The Librarian of Auschwitz. Then, using this teacher guide as a starting point, have students think about what it would be like to have virtually no access to education, books, and other reading materials or information, such as newspapers and the internet. How would it affect their development and their future?

• After hearing about the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants – Children's Aid Society) in this audiobook excerpt for We Must Not Forget by Deborah Hopkinson, research the organization to learn more about their efforts during World War II.

• Show the video book trailer for The Tower of Life, view some of the photographs in Yaffa’s collection in the link found in this curriculum guide, and reflect with students on the importance of photographs. Using the template in the guide, have students draw and caption moments from their life they would want to capture.

• Ask students to think about heroes in the world around them, and injustices that they see in the world today, after listening to the Meet-the-Author Recording with Peter Sís about Nicky & Vera.

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