Teaching the Holocaust in the Absence of Witnesses –
A “Novel” Approach
Wendy A. Muscat-Tyler
Canada
In coastal British Columbia, the challenges of teaching the Holocaust have
become even greater than ever before. The passage of time and the inevitable
absence of survivors have contributed to these challenges, and now, the legacy of
Holocaust Education falls upon a few dedicated teachers. The problems associated
with this mission remain huge, and current socio-political conditions have not made
them any simpler.
The curriculum of British Columbia is provincially mandated; it permits, but
does not require any instruction about the events of the Holocaust. Only in the
Social Studies curriculum at the eleventh grade is the Holocaust included, and even
then, only incidentally, as a by-product of the study of World War II. By the time
students reach that level of learning, they are 17 years old. Their biases and belief
systems have already been formed. It seems foolish, even futile, to begin any form of
anti-racism education at this late age.
It is my firm belief and commitment that
students must be educated about anti-Semitism, genocide, racism, and prejudice at a
much younger age, and that this “antidote to racism” educational focus should be a
central component of every school year.
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For twelve years, I have addressed this challenge in a variety of ways. As a
teacher of Grade 8 English, I have taught about the Holocaust through the study of
“Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl,” and related literature. Enabling my students
to “connect” with the events of the Holocaust is difficult. The absence of a survivor has
posed a tremendous additional, yet inevitable challenge, but I am trying to supplement
my program through the use of novels, short biographies and stories, memoirs, and films
about the Holocaust. My students engage in a process we call “Literary Circles” wherein
they work in small groups, led by adult facilitators, to read and discuss Holocaust-related
literature. Each student produces a journal of his/her impressions and observations
throughout this unit.
These journals reveal a tremendous depth of perception and
personal involvement in the subject; they illustrate the students’ newfound
understanding of the evils of anti-Semitism and genocide. Gradually, students begin to
recognize the eternal importance of understanding the events of the Shoah, and perhaps
most important, they recognize their own ability and responsibility to effect social
change.
This paper will explore a unit of study which remains a “work in progress”.
I use a variety of materials and methods of instruction to supplement the core text;
students see excerpts of films, they look at photographs, listen to stories, and read
short biographies. The Literary Circle encourages independent reading of further
Holocaust-related books. Students also participate actively in a variety of learning
activities, culminating in a trip to the annual Symposium on the Holocaust. These
students, most of whom knew little or nothing about the Holocaust, come away from
this unit with a new knowledge and understanding which enables them to carry
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these values into their daily lives. They develop a new commitment to ideals of
inclusion and appreciation of the variety and difference which make our world a
complex but beautiful mosaic.
When I begin teaching my grade 8 students each September, they appear to
be very shy but eager to please; they seem to want respect from their teacher and
their peers, but they also show signs of self-doubt. Their arrival in high school, and
their pubescent confusion make them a very interesting challenge for this English
teacher! It takes time to build a bond with these youngsters, but this is a very
important first step in their education. We begin with studying a series of short
stories, many of them about children who find themselves in conflict with social and
political pressures. Each new story brings the students closer to their teacher, while
simultaneously inviting them to write about their own feelings. At this age and
stage, the students are eager to express themselves on paper, if not aloud in front of
their peers.
As the course progresses, we begin studying short novels. The first, Copper
Sunrise, by Bryan Buchan, tells of a time in Canada’s history when Scottish settlers
in Newfoundland massacred an entire people of Aboriginals. The students identify
with Jamie, the hero of the novel, and they share his horror at the massacre of a
people Jamie has come to know as friends. This is the first encounter the students
have with the horrors of genocide, and they are shocked to hear that this atrocity
occurred in Canada, a country which today preaches tolerance and acceptance of
minorities.
A second novel, The Snow Goose, by Paul Gallico, introduces the
students to the concept of World War II. The hero of the novel, Philip Rhayader, is
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grotesquely deformed, but he is a gentle and loving artist who offers a sanctuary to
wounded wild birds. He is also one of the brave men who leave England to rescue
soldiers stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk. In this short but powerful novel,
students come to care about Rhayader, even though many of those who know him
have shunned him for his deformity. They also come to understand a bit about the
magnitude of World War II and its unknown heroes.
By the time we begin our study of Anne Frank, my students are ready and
eager to learn more about issues concerning social justice, and they heartily reject
prejudice and the acts that it engenders. Moreover, they have developed a bond of
trust with their teacher, and they feel comfortable discussing their points of view in
the classroom. We begin our unit with a short exercise in role-playing. As the
teacher, I instruct the class that we are going to do some play acting. My smile
encourages them, and they giggle a little. I tell them that from now on, we are going
to treat one individual (this year, it was a wonderful child named Matthew)
differently. We are no longer going to be nice to him because, after all, he wears his
hair shorter than the other boys, and he has a silly grin, and his ears are too pink….
Before I say too much, several of the boys are laughing and the girls are trying very
hard not to laugh. They begin to tease Matthew until suddenly, and without any
prompting from me, one girl’s voice rings out over the noise. Carmen, a shy little
girl from Peru, firmly says, “Miss Tyler, that’s not fair! You’re all being so mean to
Matthew, it’s not right!”
Instantly, the class becomes silent; they have all heard Carmen’s challenge,
and they wonder how I will respond. I turn to her and speak, knowing that I must
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choose my words carefully. “You’re absolutely right, Carmen. Thank you for
speaking out.” Then I turn to the rest of the class. “What is wrong with the rest of
you? Why did no one else speak out against what I was doing? How could you all
allow me to treat Matthew this way?”
Sheepishly, they reply, “We thought it was just a game, we thought you
wanted us to participate, we thought you wanted us to obey…After all, you’re the
teacher, we’re supposed to obey, aren’t we?”
My reply is firm, almost severe. “You must never allow someone, even
someone you trust, to tell you to act against your own beliefs. You must never do
something you know is wrong, no matter who tells you that it is right. You must
always think for yourselves!”
When we question Matthew about how it felt to have been a ‘victim’ of our
game, he remains quiet at first. Then he says, “I didn’t know how to act. It was
kind of embarrassing. I didn’t know why anyone would pick on me like that, and I
felt kind of hurt. It was good that Carmen made everyone stop; at least I knew that
someone was on my side.”
This preliminary little ‘performance’ serves as a very powerful introduction
to our unit on the Holocaust. In those short moments at the beginning of class, the
students have suddenly understood a little about the confusion and humiliation
which so many Jewish children (and adults, of course) must have felt in the early
days of the Nuremberg laws. They also understand just how easily a teacher can
sway an entire class to cruelty, and they have recognized that they too have been
swayed by a teacher they trust. Perhaps most importantly, they have acknowledged
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that one courageous voice may have the power to reverse the cruelty and to rescue
the victim.
Our study of the Holocaust focuses on Anne Frank, a young and
impressionable girl, about the same age as my students. In her diary, the students
read about her school work, her social life before she went into hiding, her
conflicting relationships with her parents, her first boyfriend… in short, they learn
about Anne’s normal, ordinary daily life, and they find it very similar to their own
lives. Even the boys in the class begin to feel that they understand some of the
turmoil that Anne feels. Thus, when they begin to understand that she has been
forced to change schools simply because she is a Jew, they are outraged. Here it is
important to note that St. Andrew’s is a Catholic high school, the only one, in fact,
on the whole of Vancouver Island; the students who attend this school are not all
Catholic, but they do wear a uniform which, in their travels outside of school, makes
them instantly noticeable as “private school kids.” These youngsters know what it is
to be made fun of because of a uniform. They are horrified to learn that Anne has
to wear a star on her clothing so that others can make fun of her. They recognize
that the star Anne wears has been corrupted; it is no longer a symbol of Anne’s
religion, but a form of “kick me” badge which she is forced to wear. Many of my
students wear a crucifix around their necks, but few have ever felt humiliated
because they wear it, and all would resent being forced to wear it
As they read more about Anne’s life in hiding, my students feel overwhelmed
at the privation which Anne and her companions endure. They wonder how they
themselves would cope, and what they would want to take with them if they were
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forced into hiding. At this stage in the unit, I ask my students to write a brief
journal entry about what they have learned so far. Their responses are thoughtful,
and show a depth and insight one might not expect from students so young.
Breanna writes, “By reading and watching Anne Frank and her family, I have
learned how lucky I am to live when the world is at least a little bit better…This unit
has taught me not to take anything for granted, especially family, friends, and food.
I hope that other students get to experience what I have learned… because I know
that this has changed my life, believe it or not, and I think if other people read about
Anne Frank, it will change their lives too.” Bogdan writes that “this unit has taught
me to respect all the people that live on Earth, even if I don’t like them… Not to
judge people by their blood or their roots.”
Chloë expresses “real respect for a girl her age who could live like Anne had
to,” while Steven’s response focuses on the broader topic, “This unit showed me how
racism destroyed millions of innocent people…The Diary of Anne Frank showed me
what it was like to be a Jew in that time: You had to hide, and if you were caught
you were probably killed… I have learned that I shouldn’t take life for granted. I
am fortunate to learn this at an early age.”
Claire, an especially sensitive girl, writes “before we started this unit, I had
already taken an interest in the Holocaust and wondered why Hitler and the Nazis
did what they did. From this unit, I learned about what it was like going into hiding
and living in fear of being shipped off or killed, and I learned about the Jewish
ghettoes. I also learned what happened in the camps and how horrible they were. I
felt very outraged and angry at what the Nazis had done to these innocent people.”
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In a surprising conclusion, she adds, “I feel very, very guilty as well for not being
able to help them!”
Clearly, the students are united in their impressions. They are in admiration
of Anne Frank, a girl their own age, who endured a difficult time in hiding, and who
emerged from the Secret Annexe only to be captured and sent to her death in a
concentration camp. They are outraged at the arrogance of racism, and horrified at
its consequences. Most importantly, perhaps, they have begun to see themselves as
agents of change, as persons capable of influencing others. As Erica writes, “I only
wish I could go back in time and stop Hitler. Even I would have been considered
Jewish, even though I never knew this until a week ago. I hate what Hitler and the
Nazis did to the Jews.”
These journal entries also reveal that my students are eager to learn more. It
is at this time that we begin our Literary Circles. My English classes meet three
times per week, for one-hour sessions. Each week, for three weeks, one of those
classes becomes dedicated to small group discussions, wherein the group members
meet to talk about their readings. Students are asked to read one-third of their
novels per week.
Each year, I use a variety of different Holocaust-related novels for this
project. I tell my students that we will be working in small groups for this unit.
Each group will contain six students and one adult coordinator. This year, I taught
two classes, one with eighteen students, and the other with 24. I chose a number of
novels which are age-appropriate, and very well written.
Our school library
actually has seven copies of each of these books, an important issue when one is
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teaching small groups of six-students-plus-one-teacher. The novels which formed
this year’s unit were:
I am David, by Anne Holm
Daniel’s Story, by Carol Matas
The Old Brown Suitcase, by Lillian Boraks-Nemetz
Jesper, by Carol Matas
Briar Rose, by Jane Yolen, and
A Time to Choose, by Martha Attema.
I was, at first, dismayed to realize that I had seven groups of students and
only six novels to choose from. What could I do with a seventh group that would
complement their study of Holocaust literature? A daring experiment began to take
shape. I had no difficulty finding adults willing to cooperate in leading six of my
groups. After all, we would meet for one hour a week and for three weeks. Each
leader would only have to guide their students’ discussions about the portion of the
book which was assigned each week. But, what could I devise for that seventh
group?
Suddenly, I knew! I invited my students to volunteer for a “guinea pig”
group. To my astonishment, six girls raised their hands. I would lead the group, I
told them, and we would each read a different novel. Each week, our experimental
group would meet to discuss the similarities and differences between our books. I
brought a huge suitcase of novels from my own collection to school, and asked each
of my group members to choose one which they would begin reading. I reminded
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them that they must only read one-third of the book before our first meeting. They
promised to be responsible, as did all the students in the other six groups.
The assignment was a simple one: each week, students would read one-third
of their novel. Each week, students would write three journal entries about their
reading experience. Each week, for one hour, we would meet in our small groups to
discuss our reading. This is a deceptively simple, yet very rewarding unit of study.
Students have a chance to ponder their own impressions and to record them in
journal form. Moreover, students can talk in small groups without fear of ridicule
or criticism. Group leaders are encouraged by the spontaneous discussions which
develop in this setting. And the journals which the students produce are nothing
short of amazing.
But simple plans can go awry. I began this unit a few days before our weeklong mid-March holiday. When we returned to school, I was greeted with a number
of rather contrite faces. “Miss Tyler, I tried to read only one-third of the book, but
it was so good, I couldn’t stop, and before I knew it, I had read the whole thing! I
am so sorry,” said one. “I couldn’t help it, it was an accident, please don’t be mad
at me!” said another… and another, and another… My solution to this dilemma:
“Well, I guess you just might have to choose another book to read.”
Almost every student who had finished their book accepted the challenge and
gladly chose another Holocaust-related book to read. Many of them, however, had
neglected to do their journal work, so it was only a few who actually did read more
than one book. Still, their enthusiasm was impressive. Clearly, I had succeeded in
reaching them, and in re-awakening an interest in learning. Moreover, the students
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were eager to discuss their impressions and observations. The small groups made
discussion comfortable, without the self-consciousness that often accompanies a
discussion in a large class. Students undertook to study some of the vocabulary in
their novels, they tried to draw maps of the journeys their characters undertook,
they imagined entries in the protagonist’s diaries, and they wrote poetry about their
impressions.
Perhaps the best example I can offer is the journal entries of a group I led.
These six young people read The Old Brown Suitcase, an autobiographical account
of Lillian Boraks-Nemetz and her experience in the Warsaw ghetto. Lillian’s book
is written in excerpts, as her character Slava Lenski arrives in Montreal and
remembers life in Warsaw. As Slava learns to adapt to life in Canada, she finds it
difficult to forget her past. Thus, when a fire engine roars past her one day, she
screams in absolute terror as her memories engulf her. As my students read this
book, they are transfixed by Slava’s impressions. After all, when they see a fire
engine go past the school, they all turn around, delighted by the distraction from
our lesson! Matthew, that same young man with whom I began this unit, decided to
do some research about the Warsaw ghetto. To our second meeting, he brought
maps he had downloaded from the internet. He was able to show Elektoralna
Street, where Slava had lived. Matthew also found the cemetery, and even the
bridge over which Slava had walked when she escaped from the ghetto.
For
Matthew, finding the maps had made Slava and the Warsaw ghetto real.
Angela was strangely quiet as Matthew showed us his maps.
She had
something even more interesting for our discussion. She too had used the internet to
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do research, but with very different results. Angela had found the e-mail address of
Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, and had written to her. To Angela’s delight, Lillian wrote
back! For a student to receive a letter from a published author is always a thrill.
When I explained that I would be taking my students to the Holocaust Symposium
where they would hear Lillian speak, Angela was beside herself. I promised that we
would try to go backstage to meet Lillian, and perhaps we could even get her
autograph.
When I asked the groups to report to the class about the books they had
read, each group did a short presentation. The group reporting on The Old Brown
Suitcase chose to perform a short skit, where Slava is being teased by the students at
her new school in Montreal. The students are taunting Slava, calling her “Jew girl,”
and she is so hurt by their taunts that she hides in a prickle bush. Later, her father
calls the principal who berates the children about their unkind behaviour. He tells
the children,
“You have been cruel to your classmate. You have acted on prejudice and
hate…This is a free land…In Canada, people have the right to be whoever
they choose or happen to be. I am leaving it up to each one of you, to
question your own conscience, why you acted as you did, and what you can
do to make sure that such discrimination doesn’t happen again. I am leaving
each and every one of you to do the right thing.”
With Angela in the role of Slava, and Matthew in the role of the principal, this small
group of students convey the essence of all they have learned in this unit. Slava
returns to school the next day to find a note on her desk. It says, “We your
classmates, want you to know how sorry we are for what has happened… Please
accept our sincerest apologies.” (p.83)
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The groups which worked with the other leaders revealed similar results.
With few exceptions, the students are eager to discuss their novels, and participate
actively in their discussions, and even in the summary activities. They also work
very hard to produce journals of their experience in Literary Circles. The biggest
surprise, however, comes from my “guinea pig” group. These six girls had chosen
their novels from my vast collection. Their impressions are strikingly dissimilar
from their counterparts in the non-experimental groups. While all of these students
enjoyed the literary circle discussions, they did not all choose books which fitted the
assignment as well as they would have hoped.
Breanna was delighted with her choice; Eva’s Story, by Eva Schloss is the
story of a young girl and her mother; together they survive a number of
concentration camps, only to be liberated from Auschwitz after several years of
misery. Breanna took great pleasure in telling us that after liberation, Eva’s mother
met and married the recently widowed Otto Frank; in fact, Eva had been a friend of
Anne Frank before the war! Eva lives in western Canada, a fact that further
impressed Breanna. She said that some day, she would like to meet Eva and talk to
her about her experience; for Breanna, Eva’s Story was the perfect choice, and an
excellent “sequel” for her study of Anne Frank.
Tannyce is a wonderful mixture of Jewish and Catholic parents.
Her
participation in our group added a distinctive flavour to our discussions. She chose
a book called Torn Thread, by Anne Isaacs which tells the story of two young sisters
whose father arranges for them to be taken to a labour camp as seamstresses. This
father seems to believe that by choosing the camp his daughters go to, he may be
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able to ensure their survival. Together, the girls do survive, though they work very
hard on complicated and dangerous weaving looms.
The “torn thread” also
represents the girls’ lives, as they try to maintain some connection with the old lives
from which they have been so rudely separated.
Tannyce was overcome with
emotion when she read this book. Again, she said it was a perfect choice. In an
interesting aside, it was only after participating in our literary circle that Tannyce
began to wear her Star of David necklace on the outside of her school uniform!
Chloë chose a book unknown to any of the group. Shortly after I left Yad
Vashem in 2002, a friend of mine there sent me a copy of Cry Little Girl, by Aliza
Barak-Ressler. Chloë loved this book, and especially loved knowing that she was
perhaps the only person in Canada reading it. She was fascinated by the detail in
the book, like the time when Aliza underwent unnecessary surgery just so that her
family could avoid deportation. Chloë also enjoyed learning that the Slovak family
who sheltered Aliza’s family during the war also offered them refuge during the
Gulf War.
Mikaela read Hostage to War, by Tatjana Wassiljewa. She was impressed by
the courage and resilience of this ten year-old Russian girl whose ordinary life in the
Soviet Union was so rudely interrupted when the Nazis invaded. Tatjana survived
her ordeal, despite hunger and forced labour. Mikaela found this book so wellwritten, she had completed reading it in the first week of the unit. When I suggested
she choose a second book to read, she chose Milkweed, by Jerry Spinelli. This book
was only recently published; it is the story of a Gypsy child named variously “Stop
thief” and “Misha.” Misha does not know his real name; somehow, however, he is
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trapped in the Warsaw ghetto where he steals food and coal, “black pearls”, for the
group of orphans cared for by Dr. Korczak. Although this book is a work of fiction,
Mikaela believed the truths it contained. She was especially delighted to learn that
Misha eventually became a father and a grandfather as well. It was good to know
that he survived.
Aisleen’s choices were a mixture of success and disappointment. Her first
book, Never Far Away, by Anna Heilman, proved to be unsatisfactory. Although I
liked it, Aisleen did not, and she was reluctant to finish reading it. Her second
choice, Friedrich, by Hans Peter Richter was much more successful. She especially
appreciated how two boys who were such good friends before the war could become
so distant once the Nazis came to power. Friedrich went from comparative wealth
to abject poverty in a very short time; his parents died, and he was left to fend for
himself.
Through everything, his Gentile friend and his family try to protect
Friedrich. The story is told from the point of view of that friend, the narrator, who
tries to understand why people feel compelled to abuse and torture the Jews with
whom they had lived in comparative peace and cooperation such a short time ago.
Aisleen was unhappy about participating in our literary circle group; she believed
that her experience would have been far better if she had been a member of a
different group, one where all the members were reading the same novel. Her
participation in the group discussions was, however, enlightening and insightful.
She displayed a knowledge and understanding far beyond her years. In future, she
will choose not to participate in an experimental group; her suggestions for
improving the unit were, however, very interesting. She also suggested that our
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group lacked a male perspective, and that a mixed-gender group would have
provided a more balanced point of view.
In retrospect, perhaps I gave the girls too much freedom in the books they
chose to read. Claire also chose unwisely, perhaps, because she did not like her
book, Dancing on the Bridge of Avignon by Ida Vos. Claire said that the book was
boring and did not lend itself to this sort of study. She would have preferred to read
a different book. Nonetheless, Claire brought a unique insight to our discussions,
because she had read a number of books about the Holocaust before she began
Grade 8. She expressed “outrage and anger at what the Nazis had done to these
poor innocent people.”
She wrote that “I was already aware that this had
happened, but now more than ever, I know so much more about what it was really
like.” It was Claire who first noticed the striking similarities between the novels we
were studying, and Claire who recognized similar themes and settings. It was also
Claire who, several weeks later, wrote poetry about her impressions of the
Holocaust.
By that time, we had finished our study of Holocaust literature, and a unit on
essay writing as well. When we began our study of poetry, my students began
writing poetry of their own. Simple haiku and cinquain were easy for these students
to create; diamantes were a little more difficult. As part of this unit of study, I
asked each student to prepare an album of his/her own original poetry. They were
to write eight poems that followed the prescribed rules of haiku, cinquain, and
diamantes, and two additional poems of whatever form they chose.
submitted a poem entitled Love:
Claire
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Love I Do Not Have
For It Is Lost Among The Thorns Of
Hate and Disdain
Claire’s final poem, We Will Still Be Heard, struck me to the core. I wondered if
she had perhaps copied it from another source, and I found it difficult to believe
that she had written it herself. In fact, to my amazement and shock, I received a
letter from Claire’s mother attesting to the authenticity of her daughter’s writing.
She too was impressed at the clarity and perceptive nature of the poem:
We Will Still Be Heard
We hear the black monsters thundering toward us as we walk in
thick, noisy columns.
We are squeezed together like sardines in a can. With packs in frozen hands.
The monsters begin to roll. Babes crying, as they do not know where they
stop.
Lurch, we are pushed off the great beast.
Barbs line this strange place as well as our frightened souls.
Clinging to each other are the families.
“Women and children this way and men to the left!!!” a Gendarme bellows.
Women and Children;
We walk silently, frightened by our own shadows.
A smell so putrid reaches our cold nostrils as we see a beautiful orange fiery
sky before us.
The Gendarme suddenly stops at a cold looking door. He tells us that this is
“the shower” and that we are to take off our star ridden clothes.
Men;
They take us to the cold filth that is to be our home, for God knows how long.
Lice and disease cover the skin and bone of the motionless clumps lying on
the slender mats they call beds.
Our things are gone taken away never to be seen again.
Pictures of loved ones lost and our most prized possessions being counted
and appraised.
We walk outside to see ditches filled with the dead and decaying; men,
women, and children.
Humiliated, starved, and degraded; are we really this horrible? What did we
do?
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Being hung and tortured are the people around us.
Men, Women, and Children;
“Where are they? Where are my MOST prized possessions? Lord, please
watch over them as I may never see them again!” We think to ourselves
solemnly as the screaming pierces our ears and the cold starts to bite.
World War 2 (The Holocaust)
1933-1945
My studies in Holocaust education have been an exhaustive and lengthy
journey. Each year, I am forced to defend my methods and philosophy. Each year,
I win a little more support from a few more colleagues who begin to recognize the
importance of this unit in Holocaust studies. This year, after the suicide of a young
student at our school, it was suggested that my students not attend the annual
Symposium on the Holocaust. After all, reasoned some, students should not be
forced to deal with more death at such a difficult time. I persisted, however. I
stated that this Symposium is the very antithesis of suicide, that it teaches students
to continue to struggle, to overcome obstacles, no matter how difficult they might
seem.
The Symposium on the Holocaust is about survival in spite of life’s
difficulties. Furthermore, I explained, this year’s symposium was planned and
organized specifically for students in this age group, and it would give the students
an opportunity to hear from two presenters whom they had studied. George Brady,
the brother of Hanna Brady of Hanna’s Suitcase was one of the keynote speakers;
Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, of The Old Brown Suitcase was the other. Together, both
speakers would address the students, and their presentations would complement the
work we had done in class.
My students had already asked their parents to
accompany our group, and I was determined to take them. Finally, after two days
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of pleading my case, the principal agreed to allow the trip to take place. Ninety
students, five teachers, and four parents witnessed an amazing day at the University
of Victoria.
The final speaker of the day was Professor David Blades of the University of
Victoria. He explained to a crowd of 1100 young people, what it is to be a Jew in a
community of non-Jews. He showed us how he wears his kippah and his tallith, and
he explained the meaning of the knots in the fringe of his prayer shawl. Then, he
asked the ushers to give each person in the crowd a piece of string, about 20 cm
long. He instructed everyone to tie a knot in the middle of their piece of string. This
knot, he told us, represents our covenant with God. Then Dr. Blades asked each of
us to share that covenant with someone else; he asked us to tie that piece of string
around the wrist of
the person sitting beside us. In this manner, all of us were joined in a covenant to
treat each other with dignity and respect before God. The impact of Dr. Blades’
presentation was unbelievable; he held 1100 souls in his hand, and all of them
applauded his efforts. For the rest of the week, my students wore their string
bracelets, and when other students in other grades asked them what the bracelets
meant, they were proud to share that covenant once again.
One student was especially moved by the day’s events. Angela, the little girl
who had exchanged e-mails with Lillian Boraks-Nemetz had her dream fulfilled. I
was indeed able to take her backstage where she did in fact meet Lillian in person.
When I showed Lillian this student’s journal about The Old Brown Suitcase, she
was speechless. She read the journal one page at a time, holding it up to the light
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because we were in the wings of the stage. As Lillian began to read, she also began
to cry. She was touched to see the impact her work had had on a student. I realized
then that just as it was important for Angela to meet Lillian, it was equally
important for Lillian to meet Angela.
My colleagues who attended the Symposium with me were equally impressed
with the presenters. They commented at the next staff meeting that indeed I had
been right in promoting this event, and one even said that he thought the entire
school should have attended.
And so, I have been vindicated. My efforts are being recognized, and my
unit in Holocaust education is becoming known. In July 2004, and again in May
2005, I will be studying at the Imperial War Museum in London, England, where I
have been awarded a fellowship in Holocaust Education.
Next April, I am
presenting a paper in Victoria, BC, on using Literary Circles to promote literacy
and as an antidote to racism. I am currently about half-way through my course
work for my Master in Education degree at the University of Victoria; I am
majoring in curriculum studies, and my goal is to create a Holocaust Education
curriculum which can be used across Canada. I believe that Literary Circles are a
wonderful means of delivery. The students seem to agree.