KS3 History Lesson: What was the Holocaust? A fully resourced lesson covering Nazi persecution, propaganda, and legislation — the opening lesson of a 7-lesson enquiry.

Overview

This fully resourced KS3 history lesson is Lesson 1 in a 7-lesson enquiry sequence exploring the question “How significant was Jewish resistance to the Holocaust?” It opens the enquiry itself — introducing the second-order concept of significance, the 5 Rs framework, and a genuine historian’s interpretation from Yehuda Bauer that pupils will return to across the sequence — before building core knowledge of the Holocaust through propaganda analysis, legislation, and the systematic murder of European Jews from 1941 onwards.

Ideal for teaching topics on:

The Holocaust and Nazi Germany
Historical significance and interpretation
Propaganda, persecution, and legislation

What’s included:

Retrieval starter with keyword definition, prior-topic recall questions, and a stretch inference task from an image
Full enquiry-opening slide: second-order concept, key vocabulary, a historian’s interpretation (Yehuda Bauer) to explore across the sequence, and a preview of upcoming lessons
Glossary task on Genocide and Dehumanise, with a stretch linking task
Video comprehension task on Nazi persecution methods and the escalation of the Holocaust from 1941
Two genuine primary source analysis tasks using real Nazi propaganda posters, with full Type/Origin/Purpose provenance and source-utility evaluation questions
Card sort task on anti-Semitic legislation (1933–1938), with an impact-ranking extension and a chronology stretch task
Map-based task on Operation Reinhard, where pupils write their own questions and answers
Video task with an accompanying question sheet
Check-and-correct recall task revisiting the lesson’s key knowledge
Differentiated final written task — a guiding-questions version and a sentence-starters version, both with visual/keyword reminders
Plenary: write a 30-second “TikTok script” explaining what the Holocaust was, requiring pupils to be selective about key information
Full teacher notes throughout with source links, video links, and talking points

Learning focus:

Understand what the Holocaust was and how it was carried out
Explain how the Nazis used propaganda and legislation to persecute Jewish people
Begin exploring the concept of historical significance ahead of the wider enquiry

National Curriculum links (KS3 History):

Understand historical concepts such as significance and interpretation
Study the Holocaust and its place in twentieth-century history
Develop skills of source evaluation and extended historical writing

This is the opening lesson in a 7-lesson enquiry — How Significant Was Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust? — sequencing into lessons on ghetto resistance, resistance in concentration camps, partisan warfare, Anne Frank, and a final significance-judgement lesson. Available individually or as part of the full enquiry bundle.