Virginia SOL USII.6.h
The Standard
examining the causes and consequences of the Holocaust including, but not limited to Jewish life before the Holocaust, antisemitism, the rise of the Nazi Party, Nuremberg Laws, persecution of Jews and other targeted groups, resistance efforts, the United States’ response, and the Nuremberg Trials
Virginia Standards of Learning for History and Social Science
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students trace how prejudice, Nazi rule, discriminatory laws, and wartime policies led to systematic mass murder. They examine resistance, American responses, and later efforts to prosecute Nazi leaders.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can explain how persecution escalated and support their explanation with evidence from laws, photographs, testimony, or government records. They can describe resistance and judge the limits of American responses.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think persecution began suddenly, only Jewish people were targeted, or victims did not resist. They may also assume all Germans supported Nazism or that Americans knew the full extent of the killings from the start.
How to Assess It
- Give students four events: the Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht, deportations, and the Nuremberg Trials. Ask them to order the events and explain how two show either escalation or accountability.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs event, source, and consequence cards to sort into a timeline showing how discrimination escalated into mass murder.
Read a short survivor testimony, then write: What choices did individuals and governments have, and what limited those choices?
Run a source-match practice where students pair laws, propaganda, photographs, and testimony with the event each source best documents.
Compare one Nuremberg Trial principle with a current human rights law, then identify the historical problem the law addresses.
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Related Standards
- USI.6.e
examining the causes, course, and consequences of key events and battles of the era
- USII.6
The student will apply history and social science skills to understand the major causes and events of World War II and the effects of America’s role by
- USII.4.c
analyzing the major causes and consequences of World War I and examining the roles of key leaders and groups
- USII.4.f
examining how post-war sanctions and the failure of the League of Nations set the stage for World War II
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