Magda S., Holocaust Survivor, at Meridian Middle School

Meridian Middle School Honors International Holocaust Remembrance Day

In education, studying primary source documents is often a valuable tool. Meridian’s eighth-graders had an opportunity to hear from the ultimate primary source, a living witness to the Holocaust, as part of their language arts literature study. Mrs. Magda Schaloum, an eighty-eight year old Hungarian survivor of the Holocaust spoke to students sharing her story of deportation from her Hungarian village, life in Auschwitz and the Plaszow work camp in Poland, a weapons factory in Germany, and finally liberation from Muhldorf, another concentration camp in Germany at the end of World War II.

January 27th marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, in 1945. Listening to Mrs. Schaloum share her survival story was a powerful way for the students to honor the memories of the more than 6,000,000 Jewish people, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the mentally and physically handicapped, and homosexuals who lost their lives under the Nazi regime from 1933-1945.

Students honored Mrs. Schaloum with flowers and their undivided attention as she told of her moving experiences losing her father, mother, and brother. She told of her personal humiliation, brutal beatings, starvation diet, deprivation, and fear under the horrors of the Nazis. On the tender and sweet side, she shared about the meeting of her husband, a Greek Holocaust survivor, in a displaced persons camp shortly after the end of the war. Mrs. Schaloum began telling her survival story about twenty years ago when many were denying the Holocaust altogether. She knew she had to speak out and make sure the world never forgets.

At the closing of her visit to Meridian Middle School, Mrs. Schaloum was in tears as she said good-bye to the students and shared how much she had been blessed by them as an audience with their gifts of flowers and honor of her. She told the students she had never been treated so well and felt so loved in all of her years of visiting schools. She closed telling them she loved them all and challenged them to never let anyone put them down or allow them to believe they were not valuable and important.

Meridian eighth-graders in Miss Do’s and Mrs. Carlson’s classes have been doing a literature study of the Holocaust in preparation for reading The Diary of Anne Frank, a piece of literature commonly read by eighth-graders nationally. They have been reading about the survivors, rescuers, and resistors involved in life in the Jewish ghettos, concentration camps, and how many were hidden and protected from the Nazi atrocities. Both teachers share a passion for encouraging students to become contributing citizens of the world, honoring and valuing all human life. Studying the Holocaust is a way to learn from the past, honor those whose lives were stolen from them, and look to the future with eyes of tolerance and acceptance. Students are challenged to consider and make personal commitments to change patterns of bullying, harassment, and hatred of other human beings.

The Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center provides teaching trunks, with many primary source materials, literature units, posters, and other resources for teaching the Holocaust and making the link to the present with anti-bullying campaigns and the prevention of future genocides. Meridian Middle School has adopted their theme of “Change Begins with Me” with a huge, beautiful new wall hanging in the eighth grade pod, created by Mr. Bogle. The WSHERC also maintains a list of local Holocaust survivors who are willing to visit schools and other groups to share their own personal stories. Magda Schaloum is part of this local speakers bureau.

Wall of Resistance - Class Project

Wall of Resistance

Created by students in John Boselman's Humanities class at High Tech High School, in Chula Vista, California. Mr. Bosselman was one of more than 50 teachers participating in the Holocaust Center's pilot project for the "Everyday Objects: Artifacts from Washington State Holocaust Survivors" poster series and curriculum. These materials helped to inform his students.

What is the cost of war to humanity and to the human body?
This project was exhibited at Festival del Sol on March 25, 2010

In 1961 the Soviet Union, in Eastern Germany, constructed a wall that would divide the world into two. In the east, communism and the Soviet Union, while the west “democracy” and the United States battled throughout this Cold War. This wall became the symbol of the division between these two countries and their ideology that ultimately brought the world the closest it has ever been to annihilation.

We asked our students to create their own Wall, focusing on the conflicts of the 20th and 21st century. Each panel of the wall is an answer to their own essential questions and their own perspective on the cost of the war, both to society and to us biologically as humans. It is our hope that this Wall of Resistance is a symbol of how close humanity has come to its annihilation, whether that be of the human race as a whole, the individual human body, or even the individual human cell.

One of the student art pieces, entitled "Work Sets You Free," focuses on World War II and the Holocaust. Mr. Bosselman describes it:
On the left side of the project is a creative representation of World War II the Home Front in America and the use of propaganda, especially by Walt Disney. The right side of the project is the students' depiction of the Holocaust. You can see the contrast between the two sides, Donald Duck on one side, and the silhouette of a human on the other.

To see this piece and others, please see the Wall of Resistance.

Special thanks to John Bosselman for sharing his project and students' work.

Students create quilts to honor Holocaust survivor Susie S.

Students from Lisa Kreiger's class at Kalles Junior High School in Puyallup, designed two Holocaust quilts, which they recently donated to the Holocaust Center. These quilts were inspired by the class's Holocaust unit and were created to honor Susie S., the Holocaust survivor who spoke to their class in April.

Says Kreiger of the unit, "We examined the unit from the perspective of the theme of justice and injustice and the role of the bystander in helping, as well as the role of discrimination and propaganda in genocide."

Students were moved by what they learned in the unit and from Susie, a member of the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau.

Both quilts are on display at the Holocaust Center. Thank you for all of your hard work Kalles Junior High!

Memorializing Victims of T-4 Program: Wenatchee teacher in Germany writes about her students' experiences

By Kathleen Ralf, a teacher at the International School in Stuttgart, Germany. Prior to teaching in Germany, Kathleen taught at Easmont High School in East Wenatchee, WA. Photos by Jens Knickmeier.

This past month, school children from around Stuttgart memorialized the thousands that were gassed at Schloss Grafeneck as part of Germany's T-4 Program. The T-4 program advocated "euthenasia" for people who were physically or mentally disabled.

Kathleen and her 7th grade students participated in the memorial. The students painted a purple line on the pavement, following the route the busses took from Stuttgart to the Schloss.

“From here, all it looked like was a line. A solid, flat, purple line. I didn’t realize how significant it was.” Gabrielle M. (California)

We are all familiar with what happened during the Holocaust, but we often forget that it was not just the Jews who were deported to camps. Much work is being done here in Germany to recognize those forgotten ones of the Final Solution: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gays and Lesbians, Gypsies, Handicapped and the Mentally Disabled. Today part of our 7th grade class at the International School of Stuttgart got to take part in a memorial project called “Spur der Erinnerung” which means in German “Trace of Memory”.

Between the October of 1939 and December of 1940 over 10,000 physically and mentally disabled were gassed at Schloss Grafeneck as a part of Hitler’s euthanasia program.

Disabled residents in Stuttgart were picked up by bus and then taken through the countryside, 75 kilometers away, to Grafeneck near Tübingen. There they were asked to go into the showers and were then gassed. These citizens served as a test group for a system that would later be adopted by the Reich for use in other camps. Grafeneck was used for only one year and was later closed due to public pressure.

Over the last two days, our students, along with other students from the region, memorialized this act of intolerance by painting a purple line along the pavement from Schloss Grafeneck to Stuttgart Center.

It was cold and looking like rain, but our students were dressed warm and ready to go. They were handed their orange safety vests, paint-brushes, and stencils. They were full of energy and excitement as they coated themselves and the street with purple paint. Nikita Prasad, a student from India remarked “I felt very amazed that we got to paint part of the line but I also felt very sad thinking about these people that suffered and died.”

This was the reaction most students had; they had fun doing this act of memory together but at the same time were struck by the meaning of what they were doing.

“We all hope that when you see that line that we painted you too will also remember.” Claudia O. (Texas).

One of our first year students, Keita S. from Japan, felt this way “The mark of the line has two meanings: One is a hope that we never repeat the Nazi’s dictatorship and the other is the mark which is engraved on people’s hearts.”

For other students painting the line was much more personal, “My grandpa’s sister was handicapped, but her family hid her to when Hitler and the Nazi’s came, so she was saved.” Judith Z. (Germany)

“It is very special to me because my family is from Poland and the Nazi’s killed many Polish people” For Alex M. (Germany) this was special in two ways: a way to remember those in his family that were lost in Poland but also a way to be proud of his home town, Tübingen, for commemorating this tragedy.

“When we washed the paint off our hands and we were obsessed with our wet painted clothes. We didn’t remember. Only when I glanced out the window and saw the line did I remember.” Gabrielle M. (California)

If you would like more information on the Spur der Erinnerung the official website is located at http://www.spur-der-erinnerung.de/.

Students write letters to synagogues defaced with graffiti

Students at Alternative School #1 in Seattle wrote letters to the congregants of the synagogues defaced with antisemitic graffiti.

(See entry, "Swastikas painted on Seattle synagogues.")

Josephine Cripps is one of the Holocaust Center's master teachers and frequent consultant to the Holocaust Center's educational programming and materials.

Excerpts from the students' letters:

Dear Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation,

My name is S. and I'm in the Holocaust studies class at Alternative School #1. Recently my teacher Jo gave us an article to read. I read the article and learned that two of your synagogues had been defaces by images of swastikas. I also learned that some of the nearby houses had also been vandalized. This fact outrages me...This sort of thing should not be happening in Seattle or anywhere else....


Dear Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation,

...I never really thought that antisemitism existed in Washington until now. I am so sorry. I know that if someone painted hate symbols on my home I would fee awful. Not only would I feel awful, but also scared. I wish that I could say that I know what its like, but I don't. And I can't even start thinking of how you must feel. I am outraged. It makes me so upset that people think it's okay to disrespect others, but in such a way like this...well, it's absolutely horrible. I want you to know that you are in my prayers...

Dear Bikur Cholim,

My name is D. I have recently heard about the swastika graffiti that has vandalized your synagogue and I am agitated by that, but also deeply sorry. I am studying the Holocaust in school so I know what that symbol symbolizes. I am really, really sorry. I do hope that it doesn't happen to anyone again....


Dear Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation,

Though I haven't experienced any hate crimes against me, I can only imagine how it feels having swastikas painted on your synagogue and homes. It is most likely a terrifying and infuriating experience. Keep in mind that though there may be ignorant people who do uncivil acts of hatred towards your religion, lots of people in Seattle care about this issue and re more than willing to support you, including me.


Dear Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation,

My name is J. I am writing to let you know I stand by your side. I live right in your neighborhood. I feel that you need support. So you will get it. I am studying the Holocaust at Alternative School #1. I will stop at nothing to help. I will write to see how you're doing, and if you choose you can write back. I am one of your neighbors. My twin and I will keep an eye out and report anything suspicious to the police.

Saint George’s Students Finish Study of Holocaust with Visit to U.S. Holocaust Museum on Same Day as Shooting

SPOKANE, WA – Thirty Saint George’s middle schoolers who studied the Holocaust in class have just returned from a five-day tour of Washington DC landmarks that included the disconcerting experience of visiting the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum the same day it was attacked by a neo-Nazi gunman.

The students and two Saint George’s teachers toured the museum from 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 10, and were on the opposite side of the museum building just over an hour later when the shooting occurred at 12:50 p.m. They were not in any immediate danger and didn’t learn what happened until later that day.

“It was a lesson we weren’t counting on, but it certainly reinforced what they had learned about hate crimes,” says Ruth Ann Johnson, SGS Middle School English teacher who was on the tour. Her 7th grade class reads Anne Frank’s diary, leading to student research projects on topics such as the Kristallnacht persecutions of the Jews and Nazi concentration camps.

The 7th and 8th grade students on the tour took both their visit to the museum and the news of the shooting very seriously. “We had an excellent discussion about the reality of violence that specifically targets certain people,” says Johnson. “This is why I teach the Holocaust, because this still happens today.”

The students’ tours that day had a broader theme of remembering acts of violence. They had begun with a tour of Ford’s Theater where President Lincoln was shot, before viewing the Holocaust Museum and ending their day at the Pentagon memorial to the victims of the September 11th attack. Now they have something else to remember from that day that will keep the lessons they learned in class very real for a long time to come.

Johnson serves on the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center’s advisory board. The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous has named her an Alfred Lerner Fellow at its Summer Institute for Teachers, and she has toured Holocaust sites in Amsterdam and Berlin on educational trip sponsored by the Holocaust Center and Museum Without Walls.

To arrange an interview with Ruth Ann Johnson about the school’s Holocaust curriculum and the students’ experiences in Washington DC, contact John Carter at 466-1636 x397 or at john.carter@sgs.org.

Students Create Birthday Cards in Honor of Anne Frank's Birthday

On June 12, 2009 Anne Frank would have been 80 years old. Jollie Evan's class at Tonasket Elementary School in Tonasket, wanted to make birthday cards for Anne as a special remembrance of her life.

http://mail.tonasket.wednet.edu/~jevans/?OpenItemURL=S005B6E9C

Thank you Ms. Evans for sending us this link and for letting us know about your class project!

Forest Ridge Students Create Holocaust Museum

Each year Ann Gilbert's 8th grade students spend weeks studying the Holocaust and creating a museum for their fellow students, parents, and others to visit. For the past several years I have been invited to tour the museums. I am always so impressed with the students' creativity, knowledge, and passion for the subject. For the first time, this year's museum is set up throughout the campus - both outside and inside. The displays included timelines, video presentations, drawings, paintings, cutouts of life-sized figures, and a pile of shoes - all set in carefully crafted spaces.

Special thanks to Ann Gilbert and my two knowledgable and insightful docents yesterday.

Want to know more about this project? Ask Master Teacher Ann Gilbert - anngi@forestridge.org.

-Ilana Cone Kennedy, Director of Education