Local High School Students Experience The Holocaust Museum
By: Chelsea Pompeani
Updated: February 19, 2013
February 12, 2013
Our nation's capital holds an enormous amount of history, and one local school teacher wanted to give his students just that.
David Hoderny took his tolerance class to tour the Holocaust Museum, the class is about combating hate, and touring the museum was the perfect way to get the point across.
The day started before the sun came
up, as close to 40 McDowell juniors and seniors made the 6 hour trip to
Hoderny wanted to enrich their lives and take them on an eye opening journey
They got a taste of history, at the Martin Luther King Memorial, the World War II Memorial.
Other students gazed at the sights
of the Reflecting Pool and
But the main reason for the trip was to understand the stereotypes and the way of life for those six million Jews who were brutally killed in concentration camps during World War II, also known as the Holocaust.
Nikitha Rai has been to the museum before, but she expected to be shocked.
"Shocking you out of the norm or the status quo. What goes on really within the borders of your own city and showing that these bad things happen and what you can do about it"
The students spent close to three hours touring the four floors of the holocaust museum, seeing artifacts and looking at pictures of the Jewish men women and children that spent suffering for their religious belief.
These high schoolers now understand the amount of respect that's needed when going into the museum and the horrific acts that occurred at that time, but seeing it again for their own eyes made them understand it that much more
11th and 12th graders can use this experience as a lesson to address some of the issues we have in the world today
Katie Casella tells us, "it made you realize this really did happen and what were learning about is more serious and needs to be paid attention"
And for some of the kids, like Austin Smith,coming to the holocaust museum hits close to home.
"How kids could go through that losing parents, siblings, their whole family my uncle is Jewish and that hits my heart his grandma went there it's just really sad"But for Hoderny, he knows this is a difficult experience, but he hopes this helps his kids grow.
"What's interesting is seeing them come to you perhaps a month or so later wanting to talk about something they saw maybe a light bulb goes off."
Hoderny has been taking his students
to the museum for years... Nearly 2,000 McDowell students walked through the
This year, a total of seven buses in
Jewish Community Council of Erie in partnership with The Erie Community Foundation is continuing to raise funds to provide trips to The National Holocaust Museum because of the historical and educational value
to young adults in our community. If you'd like to donate to this educational
bus fund,
please visit the link below.
http://www.eriecommunityfoundation.org/donate-today/donate-to-a-nonprofit/?organization=305
