In cooperation with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and HBO, Teaching Tolerance is pleased to present the Oscar-winning documentary One Survivor Remembers online.
Accompanying online teacher resources encourage thoughtful classroom discussion about a historical topic that is particularly difficult to teach and comprehend. Gerda Weissmann Klein’s account of surviving the Holocaust reduces the distance of both time and geography, making the topic more accessible to students. It also places the responsibility of remembering not solely on the shoulders of one woman, but on us all.
This educational film deepens students’ understanding of the Holocaust and draws connections to students’ lives by asking enduring questions such as:
- How can individuals and societies remember and commemorate difficult histories?
- What is the purpose of remembering? What are the consequences of forgetting?
- During the Holocaust, what strategies were used to create distinctions between “us” and “them”? What were the consequences of these distinctions?
- What are the costs of injustice, hatred and bigotry?
- What choices do people make in the face of injustice? What obstacles keep individuals from getting involved in their communities and larger world? What factors encourage participation?
One Survivor Remembers was produced in 1995 by HBO and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and directed by Kary Antholis.
Since 2005, more than 130,000 copies of the film have been distributed to schools and youth organizations around the country by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance project. In 2012, the film was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, a registry reserved for films that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”
"Here to Tell My Story" (Interview with Gerda Weissmann by Jeff Sapp, Teaching Tolerance Fall 2005)
Each chapter of the Teacher's Guide for One Survivor Remembers is linked below.
- One Survivor Remembers: Bullies & Bystanders
- One Survivor Remembers: A Call to Action
- One Survivor Remembers: Intolerance Today
- One Survivor Remembers: Antisemitism
- One Survivor Remembers: Twenty Pounds