Local 5th graders experience Holocaust ed.
By Enid Weiss
June 20, 2008
Normally on a hot June afternoon, 5th grade students fidget, chat, and lose their focus as they eagerly await the end of the school year.
But on June 3, they asked Maud Dahme questions about her adjustment from child of a Jewish family to hidden as a Christian farm family, listened to stories she and Jack Ratz told, and looked at photos Ratz provided depicting the concentration camp bunks and others showing him wearing a jacket with the infamous yellow star sewn on the lapel.
Dahme talked about living in fear she and her sister would be found out; eating eel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; changing her name and identity so much she didn't recognize her parents when they reunited after the war; and how she went to school for the first time at age 9. (Dahme also is a past president of the New Jersey State Board of Education.)
Holocaust education is part of the state curriculum, but at Washington Elementary in
Only the roughly 80 students in the 5th grade sat in as Holocaust survivors spoke.
Fifth grade teacher Sharon Russell-Fowler organized the visit as part of the Holocaust education unit. She is an African-American who teaches an ethnic, racial, and religious mix of students including African American, Hispanic, Indian, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and white. Several are learning English as a second language. Many of the students listening to survivors tell stories of their youth in war torn
"Tonight I'm going to think about it, because it was really sad," said Juliana Ocampo. The 5th grader thought of how Dahme had no toys, no friends to play with, and had never tasted white bread until she was 14 years old. "She had a sad childhood -- if it was me -- I'd be sad when I remembered and talked about it."
Both Juliana and classmate Alexis Berry had little knowledge of the Holocaust before studying it in school. They said their parents also had little knowledge.
"I almost cried," Alexis said after the program. "I had a whole bunch of questions and I wanted to know more. I will remember everything. It was sad and (what happened to the survivors) was bad but hearing it, I'll remember it. Having a live person -- then I know it's really real. Coming from a person who's been though that makes it more. I told my stepmom about what I learned and she said 'Oh my gosh'."
They asked Dahme and Ratz questions about their families, whether they wanted revenge against Nazis after the war and what their lives were like. Several walked out teary-eyed after listening to Ratz describe his experience in a ghetto in
They talked about the death march as they entered their classroom:
"Only two out of 500 people lived," said one boy.
"No it was 20," said another boy.
"No, he said two," said a girl.
The teacher confirmed the correct number was two out of 500.
"My dad's Jewish, but I don't know about it," said Brianna, one of two girls in the class with a Jewish heritage. "This makes me feel different and if he was in a concentration camp I'd be really upset. I can understand (the survivor's) point of view."
Anthony Coppola said, "I was thinking about why Hitler would do that."
Before the lesson, Coppola said he'd known some Jewish people, but thought of them "as just people. Now I know they were tortured because of their religion. It's upsetting. I'm always going to remember I met an actual Holocaust survivor."
Likewise, Isaiah Andrews had formerly just thought of Jews as people, the same as any other person. Now he has more information.
"I feel bad because of what they went through," Andrews said.
Russell-Fowler was involved in creating the school's 5th grade social studies curriculum and designed it so that students learned about the Civil War and slavery just before starting the Holocaust unit. It's another way for students to connect to the history and the lessons of man's inhumanity to man and prejudice reduction, she said.
"I'm trying to give them another perspective," Russell-Fowler said. "I know it's lacking in their textbooks."
Even today, many social studies textbooks only have a paragraph or two about the Nazi persecution and systematic murder of Jews in a chapter on World War II, she said. She includes reading novels and watching videos to give her students a greater understanding. She also includes her personal experiences with racism.
"We were the first black family to move in," Russell-Fowler said. "We moved into the rabbi's house. There was a petition to get us out... I think it's important to hear oral experiences. When you tell them, they relate it back to you and they remember it forever."