By Colleen Tambuscio USHMM Mandel Teaching Fellow Midland Park High School New Jersey, United States
Our student population is unique, in that Midland Park High School houses a program for deaf high school students. Both deaf and hearing students had the opportunity to apply for the experience of going to Prague, Krakow, and Warsaw, to study Holocaust sites. During our time before our journey and throughout our site visits, we developed a framework designed to enable our students to gain the most that they could from this unique experience. One of our goals was to expose students to the specific events of the Holocaust, as well as to allow them to understand the underlying attitudes and abdication of personal responsibility that allowed the Holocaust to become such a horrific tragedy.
Futhermore, we wanted students to examine the events of some sixty years ago in relation to the undercurrents of exclusivity, racism, and intolerance that exist, both covertly and overtly, in our society today. A deaf culture within a hearing school provides our deaf students with a very well-defined framework for understanding these issues. The product of our journey was most evident in the shared reflections of each student. Each student was required to keep a journal in order to document his or her own travel and personal growth:
The trip to the Czech Republic and Poland has changed my insights into the Holocaust. I have reflected upon my views of the Holocaust, mainly because of the power of this experience. Until this trip, I never realized how vast and real the Holocaust had been. I learned more history in one week than I have ever learned in school. Our resident historian brought to life the stories of Holocaust survivors, which had a profound impact on my understanding of the Holocaust. The most emotional site for me was Birkenau. I still can't believe how such a beautiful place was used for the near destruction of the Jews, Poles, and others. Birkenau actually spooked me because we were actually standing on ground which people had been murdered upon. Birkenau was also a very vast concentration camp, which housed many Jewish people before death. The ruins of the crematoriums got to me because I couldn't believe how inhumanely people were treated. This experience was life changing. I believe it will help me become a better person. I realize that sometimes, when people do not understand or fear someone or something, they wish for destruction of that someone or something. The Nazis wanted a so-called better world with an "Aryan race." This experience has made me more compassionate toward everyone, and I realize we must all do a little bit just to make the world a better place. It is like the singer R. Kelly said, "How can we help each other if we are killing each other?" Israel Rivera, Grade 10
The trip to the Czech Republic and Poland has changed my insights into the Holocaust. I have reflected upon my views of the Holocaust, mainly because of the power of this experience. Until this trip, I never realized how vast and real the Holocaust had been. I learned more history in one week than I have ever learned in school. Our resident historian brought to life the stories of Holocaust survivors, which had a profound impact on my understanding of the Holocaust.
The most emotional site for me was Birkenau. I still can't believe how such a beautiful place was used for the near destruction of the Jews, Poles, and others. Birkenau actually spooked me because we were actually standing on ground which people had been murdered upon. Birkenau was also a very vast concentration camp, which housed many Jewish people before death. The ruins of the crematoriums got to me because I couldn't believe how inhumanely people were treated.
This experience was life changing. I believe it will help me become a better person. I realize that sometimes, when people do not understand or fear someone or something, they wish for destruction of that someone or something. The Nazis wanted a so-called better world with an "Aryan race." This experience has made me more compassionate toward everyone, and I realize we must all do a little bit just to make the world a better place. It is like the singer R. Kelly said, "How can we help each other if we are killing each other?"
Israel Rivera, Grade 10