Allan Hall’s testimony offers students a deeply personal view of what it meant to survive as a child during the Holocaust. Born in 1935 in Krakow, Poland, Allan and his family faced a series of life-or-death decisions as Nazi persecution escalated.

His story includes narrow escapes from deportation, time spent hiding in a cramped closet beneath Nazi headquarters, and the extraordinary bravery of both his parents and strangers who helped them survive.

Allan’s memories help students connect emotionally with the realities of the Holocaust—showing not only the brutality of Nazi policies but also the courage, sacrifice, and moral choices that defined so many lives during this time. His voice serves as both a witness to history and a call to future generations to confront hatred and protect human dignity.

In this course you will learn to:

• Define the Holocaust as the planned and systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.
• Define antisemitism as prejudice against or hatred of Jewish people.
• Recognize the Holocaust as history’s most extreme example of antisemitism.
• Draw parallels between the past and the present to understand why we must study history.
• Arm themselves with facts so that when they are confronted with Holocaust denial, they can speak out.

Before You Begin Teaching about the Holocaust:

• Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (ushmm.org):

  https://www.ushmm.org/teach/fundamentals/age-appropriateness

• Horrors of Auschwitz: The Numbers Behind WWII’s Deadliest Concentration Camp:
  https://www.history.com/news/auschwitz-concentration-camp-numbers

• Timeline of major events that occurred before, during, and immediately after the Holocaust:
  https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/resource-center/timeline.html