This week’s Holocaust Days of Remembrance pose a difficult choice for teachers: To teach or not to teach?

The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. The Days of Remembrance begin on the Sunday before Yom Hashoah, the official Holocaust Remembrance Day (Tuesday, April 21), and conclude the following Sunday. This year’s theme is Never Again: What You Do Matters.

Unfortunately, many teachers are dropping discussion of difficult topics such as the Holocaust at a time when students most need to remember and understand atrocities of the past in order to discuss those of the present. These, after all, will be the citizens of the world who must avoid the atrocities of the future. But how can students come to understand these events, and their legacies, in an age-appropriate way?

Keith Schoch, fourth grade teacher in Bedminster, NJ, and host of the popular Teach with Picture Books blog, insists that picture books can play a key role. “I know from several years’ experience with my own fourth graders that students at this level have extremely limited background knowledge concerning World War II and the Holocaust. And furthermore, their parents typically don’t want them to learn the gruesome details of the event. I understand that; I’m a parent as well. But used appropriately, picture books can help students comprehend a serious topic such as the Holocaust, an event filled with equal parts tragedy and heroism, horror and courage.”

Even schools which already include Holocaust-themed novels in their curriculum are discovering that middle school and high school students are lacking the schema to make sense of the narratives. According to Schoch, picture books can play a role in these upper grades as well. “There is such a rich diversity of Holocaust picture books now available. Picture books allow teachers to prepare students with age-appropriate, foundational knowledge to place novels such as The Devil’s Arithmetic or Number the Stars into an accurate social and historical context.”

And if these older students turn up their noses at picture books? “First of all,” replies Schoch, “let’s not call them picture books. Let’s call them Wisdom Books, or, in the words of writing guru Ralph Fletcher, Micro Texts. And then, let’s just open them and start reading. Teachers of  some of the toughest kids have told me: after the third or fourth page, the kids are mesmerized. There’s something about story that has a magical effect.”

Parents and teachers wishing to explore novels and picture books related to the Holocaust can read more on this approach at Teach with Picture Books: Holocaust Picture Books.

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