The Holocaust & Genocide in World War II Readers Theater Script (Grades 11-12)

Guide students through the Holocaust’s machinery of persecution—from early legal restrictions to ghettos, mass deportations, and industrialized murder—while highlighting resistance and rescue. This script keeps the focus on primary voices and clear chronology for college‑prep analysis.

Focus: Students examine how Nazi policy evolved into systematic genocide and how individuals responded.

Summary: From the Nuremberg Laws to the Wannsee Conference and the liberation of camps, learners track escalation, resistance, and the post‑war reckoning, using concise scene work and excerpted primary sources.

Script Summary

• Berlin, 1933 — Anti‑Jewish measures intensify.
• Nuremberg, 1935 — Racial laws strip rights and status.
• Germany, 1938 — Kristallnacht escalates organized violence.
• Warsaw Ghetto, 1940 — Containment and starvation policies.
• Wannsee, 1942 — Coordinated plan for the “Final Solution.”
• Auschwitz, 1943 — Selections, labor, and extermination.
• Budapest, 1944 — Rescue actions amid deportations.
• Bergen‑Belsen, 1945 — Collapse, death, and liberation.
• Nuremberg Trials, 1945–46 — Crimes against humanity prosecuted.
• Post‑war Reflections — Memory, denial, and human rights.

What’s Included

(a single PDF with links to Google Docs/Slides, if print format is preferred you can download from your Google Drive to word/pdf/ppt/etc)

• Readers Theater script (~9 pages, 10 scenes, ~15 characters, editable Google Doc/PDF)
• Teacher Guide (10 pages) with scene summaries, primary‑source context, CCSS alignment, discussion questions
• Student Worksheet deck (25 Google Slides) covering vocabulary, short‑answer, analysis & extension tasks
• 20‑question self‑grading Google Forms quiz

Skills Addressed

• Analyzing diary and policy documents to evaluate ideology and decision‑making.
• Fluency through emotionally aware performance and narration.
• Collaborative scene work about resistance and bystander choices.
• Academic vocabulary: persecution, ideology, genocide, complicity.

The worksheet deepens learning with:

• 10 text-based comprehension questions
• 5 higher-order analysis prompts
• 5 optional research extension questions (use of primary source links)

Primary Sources

• Extracts from the diary of Anne Frank (1942–1944)
• Wannsee Protocol (1942)

 

Will this script meet your classroom's needs? 

Try the free script below that is included in the full World War 2 bundle below!

8 Script WWII Bundle | SAVE 40%

1. Causes of WWII & Pre-War U.S. [FREE DOWNLOAD]
2. Pearl Harbor & U.S. Enters World War II
3. The Pacific & European Theaters World War II
4. The Holocaust & Genocide in World War II
5. Tuskegee Airmen and African Americans in WWII
6. Rosie the Riveter & Social Changes
7. The Manhattan Project & End of WWII
8. Postwar & Dawn of Cold War

Standards Alignment

• CCSS W.11-12.2
• CCSS SL.11-12.1
• CCSS SL.11-12.4
• CCSS L.11-12.4
• CCSS CCRA.R.2
• CCSS CCRA.W.2
• CCSS CCRA.SL.1
• CCSS CCRA.L.4
• CCSS RH.11-12.1
• CCSS RH.11-12.2
• CCSS RH.11-12.6
• CCSS RH.11-12.7