The Holocaust is a twentieth century human chronicle that fundamentally challenges the foundations of western civilization. It is also imperative to remember that the Nazis and their collaborators targeted every Jewish man, woman and child, and that the Holocaust has deeply penetrated into the collective consciousness and identity of the Jewish people.

Although an intensive study of this complex and difficult subject matter is not an easy task for teachers and their students, we firmly believe that the Shoah, a human story with universal implications, should be learned. By focusing on the daily life of perpetrators, victims, bystanders and rescuers, with a specific emphasis on their choices and options, we learn how human beings lived during the Holocaust. By studying this most extreme example in contemporary history, we lead our students to question their values and actions. Clearly, the unique circumstances of the Holocaust raise a myriad of universal, pedagogical questions.

A study of the Holocaust requires that we examine the behavior of bystanders and rescuers. Our aim is not to place blame but rather to gain a better understanding about how human beings - who went against the moral tide - coped with their choices. Righteous among the Nations saved Jews at their personal risk often on a daily basis, and their exemplary actions provide us with strong educational messages.

We need to address how the Holocaust was humanly possible. Perpetrators were human beings just like their victims, and we must discuss with our students how ordinary people managed to carry out the planned extermination of the Jewish people.

Ultimately, we need to assess what happened to the victims of the longest hatred in world history. The only way we will begin to comprehend the Holocaust is to reclaim the victims' identities as human beings and not just bodies on a pyre. By studying their prewar culture, we learn more about what was lost in the gas chambers of Hitler's Europe. In addition, we should focus on the moral dilemmas they faced on a daily basis, and how they managed to reconstruct their lives in the aftermath of the Holocaust.