No institution is better known for its continuing work on the Holocaust than Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem. In this article Richelle Budd Caplan offers guidelines for teachers, based on its unrivalled experience. She demands that our teaching of this subject should aim to restore the identities of the victims. To do this appropriately, we should not start with destruction; our students need to be made aware of the richness and complexity of Jewish life and civilisation before the war. Using examples from the Baltic states, particularly Latvia, Richelle Budd Caplan suggests ways in which we can help our students to understand that Jews, no less than Germans, were people who had both ethical and practical decisions to make. They were not simply passive victims – they interacted with the world they found. Teachers must help students to interact with the material they are given, in all its complexity, and restore humanity to the nameless.