Hitler's Supreme Master Race: A Classroom Activity to Get Everyone Involved

As a middle school educator teaching a unit on the Holocaust, I was striving to explain what exactly Hitler's "Supreme race" was. I wanted to directly involve my students and see who would have been safe from the Nazi regime, so I created this activity. If you need a kinesthetic activity to use in your classroom, follow this script. This works best for grades 6 and up.

Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers sought to create a pure, master race. Unfortunately most of us would not have been accepted into this society. If you are or consider yourself to be:

Jewish, please be seated

Jehovah's Witness, please be seated

Of Polish, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Slovak, Czech, Bulgarian, Russian, Croatian, Macedonian, Bosnian, Serbian, or any other ethnicity of which you are called a Slav or Slavic person, please be seated

Black or African American, please be seated

Hispanic or Latino, please be seated

Asian, please be seated

Native American, please be seated

Bi-racial, please be seated

Catholic, please be seated

If you are Caucasian or white, but have brown, black or red hair, please be seated

If you are Caucasian or white, but have green, hazel, brown, or gray eyes, please be seated

If you have ever at anytime in your life, broken or sprained a bone, resulting in wearing a cast or splint or using a wheelchair or crutches, therefore considered at one point in your life to be "physically disabled," please be seated

If you have any illness or disease, including but certainly not limited to diabetes, dyslexia, ADD, or ADHD, please be seated.

If you have hearing or vision problems, and wear hearing aids, glasses, or contacts, please be seated

If you are still standing, congratulations. You have made the cut and are in the select minority that would have been known as Hitler's Supreme Master Race. Unfortunately, Hitler's ideal Aryan race is an unreasonable, lonely one. Fortunately, in the United States, you do not have to be a specific color or race to be accepted. Our society is a unique melting pot of people of different cultures, races, and religions. In the words of Jerome Nathanson, "the price of the democratic way of life is a growing appreciation of people's differences, not merely as tolerable, but as the essence of a rich and rewarding human experience".

The script ends there, but your teaching should not. Please be sure to discuss with your students the positive aspects of having a diverse society. This activity leads itself into a classroom discussion about why we appreciate each other's uniqueness. Be absolutely sure to point out how flawed Hitler's way of thinking was.