http://www.thetranscript.com/localnews/ci_3931899

Never forget

Students making sure others know about Holocaust

By Jennifer Huberdeau, North Adams Transcript

This eighth-grade class worked on the Holocaust project at the Clarksburg Elementary School.

Tuesday, June 13

CLARKSBURG — When eighth-grade history teacher Michael Little handed out a 25-question quiz about the Holocaust to his Clarksburg Elementary School students, most couldn't answer his questions.

"I didn't know anything at all. I couldn't answer any of them," said Emily Serrano, 14. "I've learned so much in the past few weeks. It's surprising to know this happened and that nobody talks about it. It's like it's almost forgotten." [color="Blue"](WTF? Damn, this generation is stoooooooopid.)

A Hatikvah Holocaust exhibit, created by the students and featuring 250 artifacts, historical documents and photographs from the Holocaust and World War II, will be presented Thursday at the school from 6 to 9 p.m.

Hatikvah means "hope" in Hebrew.

As she glued down photocopies of Nazi propaganda onto a large piece of posterboard, Serrano said it was "sad" to know what happened to the Jews during World War II. She said she hopes the "museum" her class is preparing will help more people learn about the atrocities.

"You can't experience what they went through, but you can learn about it," she said.

The exhibit came about after Little, in his second year of teaching about the Holocaust, connected with local World War II history buff Darrell K. English.

"Darrell has about half a million dollars worth of artifacts from World War II. I went to his house to view his collection one night. That night, he volunteered to loan us 250 items, about a fifth of his collection, to view," Little said. "We wrapped this idea around it and the museum idea germinated from there."

Little, along with English, traveled to the Hatikvah Holocaust Education Center in Springfield, where they presented the idea of a student museum to Rabbi Robert Sternberg, the center's director.

"The three of us ended up forming the Hatikvah Council. I want this to be an ongoing thing, happening every year. The main goal is to bring in other schools and open a dialogue about the dangers of racism and discrimination and how those things can lead to genocide," Little said. "We got off to a late start this year, but we'd like to bring in different speakers next year."

This year, Sternberg and English will be featured speakers, along with guest of honor George Torrey, a survivor of the Lodz ghetto in Poland and the concentration camps.

"He was one of the few children to make it out of the Lodz ghetto. He was hidden away — 1.5 million children were killed by the Nazis. It's a staggering amount if you think about it," Little said.

Michael Cahoon, 14, said his museum station, which focuses on the Lodz and Warsaw ghettos, shows what the Jews went through on a daily basis.

"I was surprised by how they were treated, especially what they had to eat. They had very little — soup, bread and water," he said. "I hope people come to learn. I think a lot of older people know about this, but not a lot of younger people."

Among the seven stations are topics such as how prejudice becomes law, concentration camps, genocide and the Final Solution, rescue and protection, and why we should remember the Holocaust.

Little said artifacts on loan include items such a canister for Zyklon-B, the gas used to kill concentration camp prisoners; clogs prisoners wore in the camps, patches and a 1939 photograph of Adolph Hitler addressing high-ranking Nazi officials like Heinrich Himmler. As part of the rescue and protection station, which features Oskar Schindler, an industrialist who saved some 1,200 of his Jewish workers, the school is collecting 194 pairs of shoes to show how many students he would have saved at the school.

"The last group on why we should remember the Holocaust will feature genocides that have happened recently. It will also have something people can sign about Darfur that will be sent to the president. This exhibit provides a historical context for current actions around the world," Little said.