Facing History and Ourselves has added the young-adult novel The Assignment by author Liza Wiemer to its newly released Teaching Holocaust Literature Collection, a set of classroom resources designed to help educators teach Holocaust literature.
The collection, intended for grades seven through 12, is tailored for English Language Arts classrooms and aims to help teachers plan Holocaust literature units that build literacy and critical thinking skills while fostering empathy. In its 2024 annual report, Facing History said it provides resources to more than 278,000 educators across the globe.
Wiemer’s novel, published in 2021, was inspired by a real-life 2017 incident in Oswego County, N.Y. It follows two teenagers who face antisemitic hate and online bullying after challenging a classroom assignment that asks students to defend the “Final Solution,” the exterminist policy put into place by Nazi Germany to eliminate the Jews of Europe.
Wiemer, a longtime educator and writer who lives in Milwaukee, told JNS that Facing History reached out after reading The Assignment and saw it as a tool for addressing antisemitism and broader forms of hate through literature.
“I think Facing History feels strongly about having this book because it has the ability to stop antisemitic incidents and to give students multiple ways to use their voices,” Wiemer said, describing the guidance for teaching her book as “phenomenal.”
“It’s so detailed, and it makes teaching this book so easy for educators,” she said. The guide includes a chart of antisemitic tropes that includes Holocaust distortion and dual loyalty, and a resource on the impacts of antisemitism.
“At a time of rising antisemitism and polarization, this book offers a timely and accessible way to engage students about what it means to speak out against hate, even when doing so is unpopular, and to consider the very real consequences of taking action,” the guide states.
Wiemer told JNS she has run 750 workshops connected to the book and that its application extends beyond bigotry.
“I had an eighth-grade girl write me a letter saying that it gave her the courage to speak up,” she said. “Girls were being sexually harassed in her school, and this gave her the courage to say, this isn’t OK.”
She shared another anecdote, saying, “I had a young woman in a classroom situation. She waited until everyone was gone, walked past me, and said, thank you very much. She went out of the classroom, turned around, had tears streaming down her face. And she said to me, ‘I wish, I just wish so much that we could have a kinder world.’”
Wiemer, a mother and grandmother, noted that “we are blessed to live in a country where we have free speech, and under the guise of free speech, we can say hateful things. You have the right to say it. But it doesn’t make you a nice person.”
She cautioned, however, that “although there is free speech and hate speech, what we need to give more attention to is informed speech. Speaking up when you are uninformed can cause tremendous harm. Nazi propaganda helped spread antisemitism during World War II.”
These days, social media has helped normalize antisemitism and other forms of hatred, said Wiemer, so “we must teach our children to be skeptical, especially with AI, and to ask questions, seek facts and find authentic sources.”
