AMS tenth graders paid a visit to the Jewish Heritage Museum, located in Battery Park City, in Manhattan, New York to learn about the history of the Holocaust.
This trip was coordinated by history teacher Mr.Taylor, who couldn’t have picked a better time for this trip since the sophomores are currently learning about WW1 and the interwar period. The exhibit showed students artifacts from Nazi Germany and other parts of Europe, such as clothing Jews were forced to wear, passports, documents, maps of concentration camps, and videos.
Mr. Taylor said the visit was meant to make the history more tangible. “So a lot of the students experience the Holocaust through books like Elie Wiesel’s Night and through movies like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and I think that history is best learned when you can see it.” As there are fewer and fewer remaining survivors, Mr. Taylor also said it was a rare opportunity for us to hear from one.
Seeing these artifacts and hearing their history made some students emotional.
“That museum was so sad, like it was very interesting to learn as much as we could but the stuff that was told to us by our group leader was so sad, like I genuinely cried a bit a few times,” said Mariyerlin Bonifacio, a 10th grader. Even though the material is sad, our guide Paula believes it’s important to revisit because the past contains warnings for what could happen again. “I hope you guys can understand what can happen because hate speech leads to more harmful thinking.”
