Teaching the Holocaust in a first-year writing course--using photographs of the Shoah as a primary resource--authorizes students to engage in research and writing that provides a place of empathetic, dignified witnessing for those who were denied the possibility of realizing the lives they were meant to live. The author believes that in engaging the Holocaust in a first-year writing course, students experience personal growth as they actively affirm themselves and their responsibilities in a pluralistic world. In particular, she believes they engage in a reaffirmation of humanity when they develop a witnessing imagination. In this article, the author discusses a first-year writing course that is required of all incoming students, the majority of whom are eighteen years old. University Writing 20 (UW20) is the only course that all students at the George Washington University must take. In this writing course, one of the students' assignments is to investigate photographs that are known to reference the Shoah. As such investigation reveals, it is through photographs that they have come to "know" the Holocaust. The author believes that incorporating photographs into the framework of a writing classroom institutes the images in the pedagogical space of the academy. The author argues that it is most fitting to teach the Holocaust in a first-year writing class using photographs that document the event. (Contains 2 notes.)