A team of eight staff members from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education is responsible for bringing the Some Were Neighbors IWitness activity to life.

Jennifer Ciardelli, David Klevan, Christina Chavarria, Peter Fredlake, Warren Marcus, Gretchen Skidmore, Cameron Sumner, and Kristin Thompson comprised the working group to develop the IWitness activity based on the USHMM’s special  exhibition Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration & Complicity in the Holocaust which draws, in part, on testimony from the Visual History Archive to explore the pressures and motivations which influenced the choices of ordinary people during the Holocaust.

The working group said Some Were Neighbors was born after feedback from museum visitors revealed that they weren’t quite grasping the idea that it wasn’t just “Hitler” or “the Nazis” who were responsible for the Holocaust. The museum realized they had an opportunity to help people reflect on individual choices and actions in the past and present, instead of distancing themselves from the horrific events of the Holocaust.

Curators and educators working on the Some Were Neighbors exhibition put significant thought into helping visitors interpret historical photographs. Among the techniques they use are a series of “photo reveals” where viewers look at photos from the Holocaust period and learn the context behind them. These photos show seemingly innocent images, like a young girl approaching the entrance of  a public pool, and then reveal the dark truth behind them – a wider angle shot of the pool entrance displaying a sign stating that entry for Jews is forbidden, for example. The exhibition features video theaters displaying testimony clips that complement the visual evidence with personal stories of how friends, neighbors, teachers, police officers and others contributed to or were complicit in the persecution of Jews.

The USHMM working group thought USC Shoah Foundation’s interactive, educational website IWitness would be a natural fit for an accompanying educational activity for students that specifically focuses on the role of individuals -- neighbors, friends, police and firemen -- who were complicit or collaborated with the Nazis persecution of Jews during Kristallnacht.

IWitness offered the opportunity to pair photos with testimony clips to provide students a more personal perspective of historical images and to help them practice analyzing multiple sources of information, they said.

“The IWitness interface allowed us to provide students with an opportunity to interact with testimonies in a way that strengthens their critical thinking and media literacy skills,” the group said. “This activity encourages learners to focus on the role of neighbors, classmates, co-workers, friends, police officers, and other community members during Kristallnacht. By pairing survivor testimonies with historical photographs, the activity employs close reading of photographs to analyze and complicate their understanding of historical events.”

Though the group had to work around a few limitations in the IWitness activity-building interface, they enjoyed the process of developing the activity. It was especially rewarding to cross-reference multiple primary sources to construct an activity that furthers the USHMM’s goal of enabling people to better understand how and why the Holocaust happened.

“Within this larger goal, the Some Were Neighbors exhibition seeks to challenge visitors’ beliefs about what actions were and are possible to take when confronted with hatred and genocide and to reflect on their own actions while considering pressures that affected those who were complicit,” the group said. “The IWitness activity allows us to achieve this goal with a broader audience of learners by examining a specific case study – Kristallnacht – in a way that uses survivor testimonies that reinforce the human impact of individual decisions.”

In the photo above: back row, L-R: Christina Chavierra, Jennifer Ciardelli, David Klevan, Peter Fredlake. Front row, L-R: Warren Marcus, Gretchen Skidmore. Not pictured: Kristin Thompson, Cameron Sumner