Bringing Jewish Stories into Classrooms Across San Antonio
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the Winter 2025 Issue of the Jewish Journal.
NOVEMBER 12, 2025 – Picture yourself as a new teacher. You have never studied the Holocaust in depth or learned how to talk about it with children in a safe, age-appropriate way. Yet Texas law (SB1828) requires Holocaust instruction across all grades (Kinder-12), during Texas Holocaust Remembrance Week. Where would you even begin?
For the Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio (HMMSA), that question is not new. In 1975, a teacher in the North East Independent School District reached out to the Jewish Federation of San Antonio, asking for help in teaching World War II and the Holocaust. Local volunteers, many with personal ties to the Holocaust, responded by creating the Holocaust History Project. It included documentary films, classroom visits with survivors, guided discussions, and a teacher’s manual. The program grew, and in 1993, the Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio, a department of the Jewish Federation, was established.
Nearly 50 years later, teachers are still asking for support. This past year, 34,186 students walked through our doors to engage with Holocaust education in meaningful, age-appropriate ways. Each student represents the legacy of that first teacher’s call for help, and the commitment of the museum to answer.
The momentum is accelerating. In 2023, the Museum was invited to a curriculum day by North East ISD. By 2024, the work had expanded. Canyon Middle School (Comal ISD) educators came to the museum for training, and in San Antonio ISD, a single curriculum day grew into three professional development days. While many invitations still come from teachers and librarians familiar with HMMSA resources, more districts are now seeking support. At these sessions, museum educators lead workshops using the Seven Pitfalls in Holocaust Education, a guide developed by HMMSA from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum best practices, that helps teachers avoid mistakes such as telling only one story or oversimplifying history.
Building on this foundation, HMMSA has created and launched the Young Upstander Cohort for K-5 educators. The cohort combines interactive dialogue with focused instruction, giving teachers a chance to learn together, share ideas, and leave with clear guidance they can bring into their classrooms. At its core is the Young Upstander Framework, developed by HMMSA, which helps children explore how ordinary people stood up for Jews during the Holocaust.
The framework focuses on four elements: skills, resources, values, and geography, and how they came together to shape decisions. Teachers help students notice skills like problem-solving, identify resources such as safe shelter, and discuss values that guide choices, going deeper than bravery or courage. Students also look at maps to see how living in a city, near a border, or a body of water changed what was possible. Step by step, they begin to see that these parts only make sense when connected.
For example, Nicholas Winton’s organizational and fundraising skills, paired with resources like trains, visa paperwork, and a trusted network inside Czechoslovakia, made the Kindertransport possible. From England, he could arrange foster homes and raise funds in ways rescuers inside occupied Europe could not. His actions were guided by a strong sense of responsibility to protect children.
Through stories like Nicholas Winton, teachers guide students to see that upstander actions are the combination of skills, resources, values, and geography. The framework gives teachers an age-appropriate way to meet the state mandate while showing students how ordinary people made extraordinary choices in difficult times.
This work is part of a larger effort across HMMSA, from educational trunks to traveling exhibits, including the new Museum in Motion, a trunk which brings replica artifacts, survivor testimony, and primary sources directly into classrooms. Each resource helps bring Holocaust education into classrooms, ensuring students across San Antonio and South Texas have direct access to the lessons.
Through a grant in Summer 2025 from the Texas Holocaust, Genocide and Antisemitism Advisory Commission, the Holocaust Memorial Museum and Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) are working together to introduce lessons on Jewish American life, Jewish Texans, Jewish American Heritage Month, Jewish holidays, and antisemitism education into K-5 classrooms. Parent workshops will help families bring these programs to schools. Together, HMMSA and JCRC, both departments of the Jewish Federation of San Antonio, are helping ensure Jewish history and culture are taught with accuracy and meaning in schools across South Texas.