ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the potential for using film to engage students in the perspective recognition aspect of developing historical empathy by examining a unit in a US History class on the rise of totalitarianism and the Holocaust. It focuses on the aspect of empathy with the goal of helping students to evaluate the thinking, decision making, and experiences of individuals and groups in the past. Films make natural supplementary resources to use along with primary documents and literature in attaining historical empathy. Depending on the film, students could be asked to recognize perspectives that may be a more general perspective of people from particular historical groups. For example, teachers may use Days of Glory, which presents the experiences of Algerian soldiers fighting for France in World War II, to help students understand the role of soldiers fighting for their colonial homeland.
