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Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission

Approved Audiovisual Resources for the Classroom

"You see, it really doesn't matter how one feels. What matters is what one does."
-Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, Texas child survivor

A Lasting Image

SB 1828 assigns the THGAAC the task of approving audiovisual resources that can be used in the classroom. The following resources are approved. SB 1828 allows each Texas school district to decide which THGAAC-approved materials are age-appropriate for their students.

Educators should screen in advance anything shown to students to ensure appropriateness. 

A Daughter's Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust, 2023. Anna Salton Eisen shares her journey to uncover her father’s hidden Holocaust past. Using her father’s artwork, original Nazi documents and photographs from her research and trips with her father back to Poland, Anna shares her detailed search. Anna recommends this 20-minute presentation for middle and high school students; view here

A Lasting Image, directed by Kirstin Stevens Schmidt, Ana Villareal, Scott Huddleston, and Christine Veras, 2022; American short film features Texas survivor Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, whose memoir, When the Danube Ran Red, is also approved for classroom use; view here

A Night at the Garden, directed by Marshall Curry, 2017. American documentary film; employs archival footage of 1939 American Nazi rally; TV-PG; 7 minutes; view here

Alma Rosé: A Tribute with the Ranana Symphonette Orchestra, 2016. Israeli television news story about Gustav Mahler’s niece, who served as Kapo for the women’s orchestra in Auschwitz, where she was killed; music teachers may find this of interest; 3 minutes; view here

Birthplace, directed by Pawel Lozinski, 1992. Subtitled Polish documentary film; features survivor who returns to Poland decades after the war to find out what happened to his father and baby brother; 47 minutes; view here

Blessed is the Match, directed by Roberta Grossman, 2010. American documentary film; features the story of Hannah Senesh, who was part of a small team of Jews that parachuted into Yugoslavia on a mission to save Hungary’s endangered Jews; she was captured and executed, but her poems are widely read; 86 minutes

Bogdan’s Journey, directed by Michael Jaskulski, 2016. Partly subtitled Polish American documentary film; features a contemporary Catholic Pole who fights antisemitism through commemoration of the 1946 Kielce pogrom against Holocaust survivors; 90 minutes

Brundibár: How the Nazis Conned the World (60 Minutes story), 2007. American television news magazine story featuring the story behind the children’s opera, Brundibar, which was written and performed in Terezín; the Nazis filmed the performance along with other art to convince outsiders that Jewish children were being treated well; theater teachers may find this of interest; 13 minutes; view here; also view here

Comparing the Holocaust to Other Genocides, Yad Vashem, 2008. This Yad Vashem lecture by historian Professor Yehuda Bauer highlights the unprecedented features of the Holocaust and where to locate parallels to other genocides; 21 minutes; view here

European Antisemitism from Its Origins to the Holocaust, USHMM, 2021. American documentary film; presents an overview of the growth of hatred and persecution of the Jewish people; 14 minutes; view here

Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust, directed by Daniel Anker, 2004. American documentary film; 92 minutes; numerous clips may be found in the ODLE

Lithuanian Holocaust Fraud (talk by Grant Gochin at Cape Town Genocide Center), 2022. Presentation exposing Lithuania's falsification of Holocaust memory, its portrayal of Holocaust perpetrators as rescuers and national heroes, and its more recent antisemitic discrimination against Jews; 59 minutes (plus introduction); view here

No Place on Earth, directed by Janet Tobias, 2013. American documentary film; survivors who hid in the world’s second-largest underground cavernous formation during the Holocaust return decades later to tell their story; the picture book, The Secret of Priest’s Grotto: A Holocaust Survival Story, tells of the same family; PG-13; 83 minutes

One Survivor Remembers, directed by Kary Antholis, 1995. American documentary film; features interviews with Gerda Weissmann Klein, who survived concentration camps and a death march that are also described in the memoir, All But My Life; 40 minutes; opening images depict emaciated, naked corpses and should not be shown to middle school students; entire film may be found in the ODLE

Sister Rose’s Passion, directed by Oren Jacoby, 2004. American documentary film; features interviews with Sister Rose Thering, who fought antisemitism and influenced the Vatican’s Nostra aetate proclamation; educators in Catholic schools may find this of particular interest; 39 minutes

Talk by Dr. Bernd Wollschlaeger
, posted by JLI, 2021. A Nazi officer's son recounts how he came to reject his father's lies, uncover his family's antisemitic hatred, and build relationships with Jews; 54 minutes; view here

The Courage to Care
, directed by Robert Gardner, 1985. American documentary film; features interviews with rescuers and rescued; 29 minutes; view here

The Path to Nazi Genocide, USHMM, 2014. American documentary film; features the rise of Nazism and Hitler, as well as its impact on Jews; 39 minutes; view here

The Miracle of Shanghai, posted by Shanghai Daily. Short video describing how Shanghai, China, provided refuge to thousands of Jews who fled the Holocaust; 5 minutes (Note: Some of those Jews eventually settled in Texas.) view here

The Vel d'Hiv Roundup, Yad Vashem, 2012. This Yad Vashem video assembles interview clips of Jews who were rounded up by French police and held in Paris's Winter Stadium in July 1942 before deportations to camps; 6 minutes; view here

Two Barns, directed by Haim Hecht, 2014. Subtitled Polish documentary film; featuring Jan Gross, Yehuda Bauer, and others, this film recounts the brutal mass murder of Jews by their own neighbors in Poland, including the example of Jewabne that is investigated in Gross’s book, Neighbors; includes some strong language and description of sexual violence; 62 minutes; view here

Viktor Frankl, Psychology, and the Holocaust, posted by JLI, 2021. Noted psychiatrist survives the Holocaust and shares the importance of a life purpose; 4 minutes; view here

Watchers of the Sky, directed by Edet Belzberg, 2014. American documentary film; features interviews with numerous people and especially highlights the story of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term, genocide; other genocides are featured; narrated by Samantha Power, whose lengthy book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, received the Pulitzer Prize; Power later served as US Ambassador to the UN; numerous clips may be found in the ODLE; 120 minutes

Audiovisual resources on the THGAAC Antisemitism page, the THGAAC Texas Connections page, and the THGAAC ODLE are also approved for classroom use during Holocaust Remembrance Week.

Educators are also encouraged to locate online survivor testimonies, especially through the multiple museum websites and USC Shoah Foundation links on the Approved Lesson Plans and Other Resources for the Classroom page.

Educators wanting to discuss the age-appropriateness of resources should contact THGAAC State Coordinator of Education Dr. J.E. Wolfson at jwolfson@thgaac.texas.gov.