Reply to Jewish parents -- how and at what age did your kids learn about the Holocaust?

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm a Jewish educator and a mom, so I come at this from two different angles. We start teaching kids formally about this in the 6th grade but it comes in more "informal" ways beginning in 3rd grade. For example, when we teach 3rd graders about places in Israel, we touch on Yad Vashem and give some pretty easy to tackle information about what it is and what it honors. We find most kids have a vague awareness of things by then, mostly through the avenues you mentioned (movies like Sound of Music or Indiana Jones, or "stuff" like the planes at Udvar Hazy).

For my own kids, I definitely used movies to set the stage for conversations before they were ready for the whole things at once. You would be amazed how many kids' movies from a certain era employ the device of the London Blitz to set the stage for a plot, so that's a great place to start. For example, Bedknobs and Broomsticks holds up great, most kids between the ages of 6-10 really enjoy it, and it deals pretty honestly with the blitz. So after we watched it, I talked to my kids about why those planes were dropping bombs on London and worked my way back from there.

There are also children's books that can help you out. I like Keeping the Promise and The Yellow Star, which are both very honest and at the same time age appropriate.[/quote]

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