Newtown High School hosted a Holocaust Remembrance Day in-school field trip event on June 1 for freshman students.

The four-hour event included hearing from three speakers and viewing images from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum that were printed and put on display in both the NHS cafetorium and Lecture Hall.

“I believe it was a memorable day for our Newtown freshman students, a life-transforming experience, one that they had never experienced before,” said NHS social studies teacher Rachel Torres, who organized the event with NHS Social Studies Department Chair Amy Deeb.

Following the event, Deeb said Torres “spent hours upon hours helping to figure out how the day would unfold and it could not have gone better.”

The event’s three speakers were Andy Sarkany, who shared survivor testimony; Susan Unrad, who shared descendant testimony; and Ruth Weiner, who shared survivor testimony.

Sarkany and Unrad spoke at the first gathering in the auditorium, according to Torres, and a question and answer session was held after. Then students broke into two groups to visit either the cafetorium or the Lecture Hall. All of the photos on display were organized by subject, and students examined the photos and wrote responses.

When the groups returned to the school’s auditorium, Weiner shared her testimony with select students sitting at a table with her on the auditorium’s stage. Students asked Weiner questions.

Torres said NHS, to her knowledge, has never held an event like this.

Responding to an e-mail following the event, Unrad shared, “I am the child of two Holocaust survivors and as such have been involved in Holocaust education for over 20 years. I made educating young people about the Holocaust an important part of my life. I shared with the students at Newtown High School some of my experiences growing up and how I have promised myself to never forget.”

According to Torres, each of the speakers was contacted through CT Voices of Hope, a nonprofit group that, according to ctvoicesofhope.org, was “established by the families of Holocaust Survivors across Connecticut. Voices of Hope’s bold mission is to promote a culture of courage to stand up against hatred through Holocaust and genocide education and remembrance.”

“I hope students take away from my presentation the Elie Wiesel quote: ‘No human race is superior: no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.’ Don’t let hatred and ignorance stand in any form. Be an upstander and stand up for what you know is right,” Unrad said.

Sarkany, who shared during a phone interview on June 7 a story of being verbally and physically abused on his way to school as a 7-year-old in Hungary, hopes the students took away two important lessons: That the word hate should be eliminated from the dictionary and that the students need to be upstanders rather than bystanders if they witness something inappropriate.

“Hate created all the evils in the past and it is creating all the evils today,” Sarkany said.

Instead of using the word hate, Sarkany asked the students to use two other four-letter words: Love and hope.

“Those four-letter words will provide them with peace, harmony, and a successful future,” said Sarkany.

Student Takeaways

Torres asked students to fill out a feedback form following the event, and for many students the takeaway was not to take life for granted, to be grateful for what they have, and how incredible it is to hear stories in real life.

“The event helped students understand the Holocaust through the eyes of both first generation survivors and a second generation survivor,” Deeb said. “Students heard, through first-hand accounts, what the Holocaust was really like. Connecticut has a state law that mandates Holocaust education and I think we did it justice.”

According to Torres, the content of the in-school Holocaust Remembrance Day field trip was in alignment with the NHS Social Studies Curriculum and the Connecticut State Mandate, which requires secondary educators to teach about the Holocaust and genocide.

“I hope students learned and could see resilience and what it looks like,” said Deeb. “Ruth Weiner talked about sad things happening to you and you have to put them in a box, and sometimes that box needs to open and as it does you heal more and more each time. But that box does not define you. I think our students could really resonate with that analogy.”

Roughly all of the 325 NHS freshmen took part in the event.

“We believe this will enrich the lives of our students, helping them to make the essential connections between history and the moral choices they face as adolescents,” Torres said in an announcement for the event. “The opportunity to listen to survivors who were witnesses to the Holocaust will have a very meaningful impact as this will be the last generation to hear the testimony of a survivor. We believe NHS’s Holocaust Remembrance Day will turn history into an opportunity for meaningful and moral reflection.”

After the event, some students reflected on the experience.

Freshman Alexandra Dul said she was one of the students who interviewed Weiner.

“It was an amazing experience for me,” Alexandra said. “I enjoyed being able to ask her questions while being seated close to her, which made it feel more personal. I’m very grateful to have had that opportunity.”

Freshman Gus Osier also interviewed Weiner and said he wants other people to know, “that the Holocaust was very real and needs more attention. The survivors’ stories are out there in the world and if left unheard will disappear. We need to hear these stories before they fade from memory.”

Freshman Julia Camman said she learned that everyone went through different experiences and they each have their own trauma from those experiences.

“I took away from this event,” said freshman Kylie Hazard, “that we really must not take the little things for granted, and also that we use the world ‘hate’ too often. I want others to know these things because we as teenagers can be quite ungrateful and not recognize the beautiful things in life, like the sky, sun, birds, air, and even the trees.”

And fellow freshman Addison Plummer said the event “really helped to put things into perspective to show how everyone alive at that time has their own stories and their own way of telling them.”

Torres said she has “deep gratitude” for each of the speakers’ generosity of spirit in presenting themselves for the students.

“We are humbled that they accepted our invitation to speak at Newtown High School,” said Torres.

Education Editor Eliza Hallabeck can be reached at eliza@thebee.com.