Key Stage 3 history · British history

The Holocaust in KS3 history: a guide for parents

The Holocaust is the one named, compulsory topic in the Key Stage 3 history curriculum. It is the persecution and mass murder of about six million Jewish men, women and children by the Nazi regime and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Pupils study it as part of the history of the twentieth century, and they learn to ask how it happened, who was involved and how we know. It is a difficult subject, and it deserves to be taught and talked about with care.

The Holocaust, explained

The National Curriculum names the Holocaust as something pupils must study, within the larger period of challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world from 1901 to the present day. It does not say when, how long or in what detail, so schools decide. Many teach it in Year 9, and it often builds on lessons about Nazi Germany and the Second World War. Pupils are also expected to pursue enquiries and to write evidence-based accounts, so the emphasis is not on shock but on understanding: what happened, why, and what the sources show.

Teachers usually begin with Jewish life in Europe before the war, so that pupils meet people and communities, not only victims. They then trace how persecution developed step by step after Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933: boycotts, laws that took away citizenship and rights, such as the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, the violence of Kristallnacht in November 1938, and ghettos established after the invasion of Poland. After the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, mobile killing units began mass shootings of Jewish communities, and from the end of 1941 killing centres in occupied Poland began operating. The largest was Auschwitz-Birkenau, where about a million Jews from across Europe were murdered.

Pupils also learn that Jews were not the only people persecuted. Roma and Sinti people, disabled people, political opponents, Jehovah’s Witnesses and gay men suffered under the Nazi regime, and some of these groups were murdered in large numbers. The Holocaust refers specifically to the attempt to destroy the Jews of Europe. Lessons look at the range of people involved, from leaders and officials to ordinary neighbours who looked away, helped or gave in to pressure. They also study resistance, rescue and the testimony of survivors, as well as the liberation of the camps in 1945. Auschwitz was liberated on 27 January, the date now marked as Holocaust Memorial Day.

A good Holocaust lesson is careful about sources. Official Nazi documents show what the perpetrators intended, but not what it felt like to be persecuted. Diaries, letters, photographs and survivor testimony show human experience, but each has limits. Historians continue to debate questions about timing and decision-making, and pupils see that careful, honest argument is possible even about a subject this serious. Many schools also link it to Britain’s own story, such as the Kindertransport, which brought about 10,000 mostly Jewish children to safety in 1938 and 1939.

Words your child will hear

Antisemitism: Hatred of, or prejudice against, Jewish people. It existed in Europe for centuries before the Nazis used it as a political weapon.
Persecution: Treating a group of people cruelly and unfairly because of who they are.
Ghetto: A part of a town where Jews were forced to live, closed off from the rest of the population, badly overcrowded and short of food.
Genocide: Acts committed with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
Perpetrator, bystander, rescuer: Words historians use for those who carried out persecution, those who watched, and those who helped. People’s roles could change.
Testimony: A person’s own account of what they saw and experienced. Survivor testimony is a vital source.
Collaborator: Someone in an occupied country who helped the Nazi authorities.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 3 says:

Pupils should be taught about challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day
Pupils should study the Holocaust (the programme of study states: ‘In addition to studying the Holocaust, this could include…’ for the 1901 to present period).
Pupils should understand how different types of historical sources are used rigorously to make historical claims and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.
Pupils should pursue historically valid enquiries including some they have framed themselves, and create relevant, structured and evidentially supported accounts in response.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: reading a source carefully

What do the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 show us about the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany?

Say what the source is. The Nuremberg Laws were two laws announced at a Nazi Party rally in September 1935. One stripped German Jews of their citizenship. The other banned marriage and relationships between Jews and non-Jews.
Read what it says closely, and what followed. A decree two months later set out who counted as Jewish by ancestry, using the religion of a person’s grandparents. A person’s own beliefs did not matter. It shows persecution was built on a claim about race, not on what people did.
Ask what kind of evidence it is. It is an official government document, so it shows what the regime wanted and was willing to do openly. It was written by the persecutors and tells us little about how Jewish families experienced it.
Place it in a sequence. The laws came after the 1933 boycott of Jewish shops and before Kristallnacht in 1938. They made discrimination legal, which let it spread into schools, jobs and everyday life.
Say what else is needed. To understand the human effect, we need other sources, such as diaries, letters and testimony from people who lived through it.

A model answer might say: “The Nuremberg Laws show that the persecution of Jews in Germany was official and planned, not just random violence. They took away citizenship and, with the decree that followed, defined Jews by ancestry, turning prejudice into law. As a source, they show the aims of the Nazi government but not the experience of its victims, so historians combine them with personal testimony.”

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking the Holocaust was sudden or the work of Hitler alone

A simple story of one man and one decision is easier to remember. In fact persecution grew step by step from 1933, and carrying it out needed officials, police, soldiers, railway workers and many others, in Germany and in occupied countries.

What helps: Ask your child to describe the steps in order, and then who had to take part for each one to happen. It shows why historians study ordinary people’s choices as well as leaders.

Believing it happened only in concentration camps inside Germany

Photographs of camps are the images people know best. Many Jews were murdered in mass shootings across eastern Europe, or in killing centres built in occupied Poland, and the persecution reached nearly every country the Nazis controlled.

What helps: Use a map to look at where Jewish communities lived before the war and where the killing took place. Discuss why the number of places involved matters.

Assuming Jewish people did not resist

The idea that victims went passively is a damaging myth. People resisted in many ways: by hiding, smuggling food, keeping schools and records going, and in armed uprisings such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.

What helps: Look for stories of resistance and rescue and talk about how hard it was. Ask what “resistance” means when people have no weapons and nowhere to go.

Mixing up the Holocaust with every death in the Second World War

Both are part of the same years, and the numbers are so large that they blur together. The war killed tens of millions of people, and about six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. It was a deliberate attempt to destroy a whole people.

What helps: Explain that the two are linked but different. Ask your child what makes a genocide different from the deaths of a war, and listen to their reasoning.

How to help at home

Check in first. Ask what your teenager has learned and how they feel about it. Some find it upsetting, and some want to talk more. Give them space and avoid pushing for details they don’t want to share.
Read a survivor’s account together. Libraries hold memoirs and diaries by young people who lived through the period. Read an age-appropriate one at the same time as your teenager and talk about it. It keeps the focus on individual people.
Visit a memorial or museum. Many towns and cities have a Holocaust memorial, and some museums have galleries on the subject. Going together can make the history real. Plan time to talk afterwards, and don’t rush it.
Talk about how prejudice grows. Ask how name-calling, jokes and exclusion can turn into something worse if nobody speaks up. Discuss what it means to be a bystander or someone who stands up. Connect it to school and online life without making comparisons that trivialise it.
Mark Holocaust Memorial Day. On 27 January, you could light a candle, read a testimony or simply spend a few minutes remembering together. It is a simple way to show your child that this history matters beyond the classroom.

Builds on

Key Stage 2: Stone Age Britain
Key Stage 2: Bronze Age Britain
Key Stage 2: Iron Age Britain
Key Stage 2: Roman invasions and the army
Key Stage 2: Roman conquest and Hadrian’s Wall
Key Stage 2: Boudica and British resistance
Key Stage 2: Romanisation of Britain
Key Stage 2: Romans leave, Anglo-Saxons arrive
Key Stage 2: Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, villages and art
Key Stage 2: Anglo-Saxon Christian conversion
Key Stage 2: Viking raids and invasion
Key Stage 2: Alfred the Great and Athelstan
Key Stage 2: Danegeld, laws and Edward the Confessor