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Social Studies (X) - High (X) - Middle (X) - World War II (X)

Into the Arms of Strangers (2000)

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Academy Award-winning documentary uses archival footage and interviews to tell the story of the rescue operation that transported ten-thousand Jewish children from Nazi Germany and certain death, to Great Britain just prior to World War II.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
01:57
Into the Arms of Strangers

The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century (2007)

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World War II, we have been told all our lives, was our greatest triumph, the moment when the forces of light—the Western democracies and the U.S.S.R.—prevailed over the forces of darkness—the Nazis and the other Axis powers. It was a conflict that began in Europe in September 1939 and ended with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in August 1945. Or did it?

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
03:00
The War of  the World: A New History of the 20th Century

The War: 1941-1945 (2006)

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THE WAR, a seven-part documentary series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who become caught up in one of the greatest cataclysms in human history.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
15:00
The War: 1941-1945

Road to War (2005)

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The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into the most devastating war of the 20th century. America's diplomatic road to war and the wartime mobilization, including the internment of Japanese Americans is analyzed.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
00:30
Road to War

World at War (2005)

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Turning to diplomacy and military operations, the reasons for Allied success are assessed. The holocaust, use of atomic bombs, and how the war transformed the world and the place of the United States in it are examined.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
00:30
World at War

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition (Unabridged)

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More than 50 years after its first publication, Doubleday's definitive edition of Anne Frank's famous diary generated an extraordinary amount of excitement when it was published in early 1995.

Author: 
Grade Level: 
Length: 
09:56
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition (Unabridged)

Lessons of the Holocaust (#104)

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Examines the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany and demonstrates that the ideas and opinions of that time are still prevalent in our society today.


Click here to watch streaming online

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
00:14
Lessons of the Holocaust (#104)

Return to Auschwitz (#108)

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Auschwitz was the most notorious Nazi death camp of World War II. After returning there for the first time in more than 50 years, several Holocaust survivors tell the stories of their forced incarceration and the horrors they endured.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
00:14
Return to Auschwitz (#108)

Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two (Unabridged)

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Although the mission school bans all that is Navajo, Ned secretly clings to his native language and culture. Proudly joining the U.S. Marines in 1943, he becomes a top-secret Navajo Code Talker. During bloody battles for Japanese islands, Ned and his brave band of code-talking brothers save thousands of lives using Navajo encryption the enemy never cracks.

Grade Level: 
Length: 
05:55
Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two (Unabridged)

The Book Thief

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Based on the beloved best-selling book comes an "extremely moving" (Leonard Maltin, Indiewire) story of a girl who transforms the lives of those around her during World War II Germany. When her mother can no longer care for her, Liesel (Sophie Nelisse) is adopted by a German couple (OSCAR® Winner Geoffrey Rush and OSCAR® Nominee Emily Watson). Although she arrives illiterate, Liesel is encouraged to learn to read by her adoptive father. When the couple then takes in Max (Ben Schnetzer), a Jew hiding from Hitler's army, Liesel befriends him.

Director: 
Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
02:11
The Book Thief

Footprints: Discovering the Holocaust through Historical Artefacts (2014)

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This educational video was created for the Footprints of Hope project, a new initiative from the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme designed to involve students aged 13 years and older in the study of the Holocaust. This film is accompanied by a lesson plan and PowerPoint presentation titled “Ordinary Things? Discovering the Holocaust through Historical Artefacts”.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
00:08
Footprints: Discovering the Holocaust through Historical Artefacts

Time of Fear (2004)

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In World War II more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes and relocate to military camps dotted across the western United States. TIME OF FEAR tells the story of the 16,000 men, women, and children who were sent to two relocation camps in southeast Arkansas--one of the poorest and most racially segregated places in America.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
01:00
Time of Fear

Riverside's Mine' Okubo

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Teachers may have trouble opening this link as it is a blog post, but this is directly listed inside of the Grade 8 Module M3A - Japanese American Relations in WWII.

The blog post provides an overview of Mine' Okubo's life and character.

Transcript of Joint Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Japan (1941)

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Transcript of Joint Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Japan (1941)

The Boy on the Wooden Box

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Copies: 7

Leon Leyson loved playing on the Krakow streetcars with his friends and tagging along after his older brothers...

Then, suddenly, German soldiers were: In his country. In his city. In his home.

Seemingly overnight, the life he knew vanished. The Third Reich wanted him, and every other Jew in Europe, dead.

Author: 
Lexile: 
1000L
The Boy on the Wooden Box