School Tour Resources
Please feel free to share these resources with your students before and after your visit with us. Let us know if you need any more lesson plans and curriculum guides. We work with the Orange County of Department of Education to deliver power, hands-on learning based on state standards. We can provide your classrooms with add-on experiences during your visit. Schedule your classroom visit today to experience the museum.
Holocaust Education Kit
We are offering 500 first-of-their-kind educational kits for students visiting Holocaust Museum Orange County. Visiting school groups will receive complimentary kits to take back to their classrooms, while supplies last—extending the museum experience while deepening historical understanding, building empathy, and empowering students to counter hate.
Each kit includes 25 reproduction artifacts—including shattered glass representing Kristallnacht and replica barbed wire from Auschwitz—plus historical photographs, guiding questions, and a 60-page educational guide.
Created in partnership with Hands-on History and the House of Ruach, a Don and Gwen Hecht Philanthropic Foundation.
The visit ends. The learning—and its impact—continues.
Meet Mel Mermelstein
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Mel Mermelstein was a Holocaust survivor, author, educator, and lifelong advocate for truth and remembrance. Born in Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia, he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944 with his family and endured the horrors of the concentration camp system. After liberation, Mel rebuilt his life in the United States and became a powerful voice against Holocaust denial. Through his testimony, writing, and educational work, he challenged the world to remember what happened and to recognize the human consequences of hatred and antisemitism. His legacy continues to inspire Holocaust education and the responsibility to preserve survivors’ stories for future generations.
At just 17, Mel Mermelstein was taken with his family from Hungary to Auschwitz, where they were among the millions killed during the Holocaust, but he survived and vowed to honor his father's memory by sharing the truth about their experiences in the camps.
Watch the film, Never Forget, based on Mel's historic legal fight against infamous Holocaust denier organization, The Institute for Historical Review, to prove the Holocaust was a true historical event.
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"For decades, a Huntington Beach lumberyard was the site of a museum where visitors were given a shockingly honest look at the Holocaust as seen through the eyes of someone who’d experienced its horrors and survived."
Curriculum & Lesson Plans
Utilize helpful curriculum and lesson plans below to help prepare for your visit.
After Your Tour
Students can reflect on their visit with some thoughtful discussion questions about their school field trip. Please let us know if you need more materials and we will accommodate your request.
