More than half a century has passed since the horrific events of the Holocaust took place, but images of the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany are no less shocking than they were 60 years ago. Any discussion of the Holocaust inevitably leads to questions not only of how and why this event occurred in the modern era but, more importantly, how the legacy of the Holocaust can continue to raise international awareness of human rights abuses and genocide. One way of achieving this awareness is by providing holocaust education to the nation's young people. While this objective has obtained widespread support, there has been an absence of reliable nationwide information on how the Holocaust is actually taught in U.S. schools. This article attempts to fill that gap by presenting the results of a yearlong study commissioned by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum of teaching practices in Holocaust education in the nation's secondary public schools in 2003-04. The study assessed secondary teaching practices in middle and high schools in the field of Holocaust education, and investigated teachers' rationales for teaching about the Holocaust. (Contains 3 tables.)