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Themed Resources

• Library of Congress Online Resources for Educators (pdf)
• Abraham Lincoln
• Art of War:
  WWI and WWII Posters
• Cartoon Analysis
• Childhood Lost:Child Labor During Industrial Revolution
• Coles County: Taught with Primary Sources
• Corp of Discovery:
  Revealing the American West
• Teaching the Holocaust with Primary Sources
• Illinois: Taught with Primary Sources
• Presidential Campaigns: Packaging the Presidents
• Underground Railroad:
  A Path to Freedom
• Verse and Chorus
• WWII
• Top Topics

Special Projects

• Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Tools 
• Classroom Activities
• Constant Motion:
  The Job of Railway Post Office Clerks
• Constitution Day
• Library of Congress Site Update "Cheat Sheet" (pdf)
• Lincoln Assassination CSI Activity
• Patriotic Songs
• • September 11
  • Teaching with Lincoln
  • Veterans Day

Professional Development

• Update-Summer Institute
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  (onsite workshop series)
• Customized Teaching with Primary Sources Institutes

Additional LInks

• EIUTPS Google Search Tool
• National TPS Site
• Library of Congress
• loc.gov Teacher PageAbraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Teaching the Holocaust with Primary Sources

Introduction: Nuremberg Race Laws | Kristallnacht | Ghettos
Concentration Camps: Dachau | Bergen-Belsen | Auschwitz
Righteous Among the Nations: Gies | Schindler | Winton | Grueninger

Primary Source and Analysis Tools | Library of Congress Resources 
 Primary Source Sets | PDF Version

Bergen-Belsen

Built in 1940 as a prisoner of war camp, Bergen-Belsen was converted to a concentration camp in 1943.¹⁴ Conditions at Bergen-Belsen were considered good when compared to other camps, most prisoners were not subjected to forced labor.¹⁴ But by 1944, conditions at the camp deteriorated and the camp began receiving prisoners too sick to work. Designed to hold 10,000, by the end of the war Bergen-Belsen consisted of 60,000 prisoners.¹⁴ This camp possessed no gas chambers yet 35,000 people died of starvation, overwork, disease, brutality and medical experiments.¹⁴ Among those who died were Anne Frank and her sister Margot who both died of typhus in March 1945.¹⁴

Bergen-Belsen was the first major camp liberated by British allies. There were always stories of the atrocities the Jewish people faced in Nazi concentration camps but nothing could prepare the British soldiers for what they witnessed. Starving prisoners, like the walking dead, wandering around the camp while others lay sick an dying. Even after liberation, nearly 500 people continued to die each day.¹⁴ Mass graves were dug to bury the enormous amount of bodies. The camp was eventually burned down to stop the spread of disease.

The liberation of Bergen-Belsen was a significant event covered by the press. The horrific scenes of life in the concentration camp were captured. Finally, the world could no longer deny what the Nazis had done to the Jewish people.

Citations:

14. The Jewish Virtual Library, Bergen-Belsen by Rebecca Weiner. Accessed
     8.7.12