Holocaust class challenges studentswith powerful lessons
By:Sally Goldenberg
Toby Kansagor tells it like it is.
Hillsborough High School students enrolled in her Holocaust and Genocide course are exposed to firsthand accounts from survivors, as well as stories of prejudices that exist in their community today. And while they may not leave class smiling, students said the learning experience is invaluable.
Ms. Kansagor, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, initiated the semester-long class five years ago to enhance student understanding of the Holocaust in World War II and other genocides that have occurred worldwide.
After returning from a tour of concentration camps in 1996, Ms. Kansagor asked the Board of Education to incorporate the elective into the high school social studies department curriculum, which already included state-mandated lessons about the Holocaust in regular social studies courses.
"I came back feeling very strongly that it would be of benefit to students to learn more," said Ms. Kansagor, who recently won the Make a Difference award sponsored by the Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Raritan Valley Community College.
Though she had been exposed previously to firsthand accounts of concentration camps, Ms. Kansagor said her trip to Europe and Israel affected her so deeply that she saw a need to incorporate that firsthand experience into her classroom.
"Even with my background, I was still shocked by what I saw," she said.
And she does not shield her students from details.
John Moro, a senior who took the class last semester, said Holocaust and Genocide provided information excluded from the "brief overview" most social studies courses incorporate.
"It has more of an impact," John said. When the class ended, he compared his emotions to "a giant sigh."
"It’s hard to believe that all that really happened," he added.
First-person accounts and Ms. Kansagor’s relationship to the Holocaust gave students a moving depiction of genocide, said John and other students enrolled in the class last semester.
"It hits home a lot more," said Ben Schweitzer, a senior who took the class last semester.
Ben said he was interested in the subject matter before taking the course, but didn’t know much about specific cases of genocide other than the Holocaust.
"You realize how lucky most of use are … espe- cially living in Hillsborough, we have it pretty good," he said.
But prejudice exists right around the corner, though students may not know it.
Ms. Kansagor presented a published report from the April 30 edition of The Star-Ledger to her class on Thursday. The police report from Readington read: "Township police are investigating an incident of vandalism at Or Chadash Synagogue in which anti-Semitic words were scratched onto the front doors, authorities said yesterday."
The report stated that police found a swastika over a cross made out of mulch on the entrance to the temple.
"Why a swastika on a synagogue? What’s the message?" she asked the class. One student called out: "You’re not welcome."
"The time it would take to play with mulch this took somebody time. You need to know what you’re doing to do something like this," she explained to the class.
Ms. Kansagor began class May 1 by asking students to share facts they learned about the Holocaust during the past week.
Some students focused on the deaths of 5 million non-Jews, including Gypsies, homosexuals, political dissidents and others, which often falls under the radar when Americans discuss the Holocaust.
Though the answers differed in content, the common thread linking the responses was the uncensored, nightmarish reality of the Holocaust, which was remembered internationally on April 29.
"The biggest thing that I tell my students is that this is not a Jewish issue. It’s a human issue," she said.
To illustrate that point, students also learn through reading materials and videos about the 19th century Irish Potato Famine and the Cambodian genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s, she said.
Some read "Night," by Eli Wiesel a personal account of life in a concentration camp. Others read "The Cage," an account of life in the Lodz Ghetto and concentration camps by Holocaust survivor Ruth Minsky Sender.
On Thursday, Ms. Kansagor focused on living conditions in the ghetto.
"The ghetto in Europe during World War II is the place you can’t get out of," she said.
She showed her class authentic photographs of the ghetto taken by Holocaust victim Mendel Grossman that were printed in a book about the Lodz Ghetto after Mr. Grossman died in 1945.
The pictures ranged from emaciated bodies to children pulling large wagons typically dragged by horses.
"Basically the food you got was bread," she explained.
In order to illustrate the starvation Jews endured, consuming about 183 to 250 calories a day, she held up a Balance energy bar with 210 calories.
"This would be your day’s food," she told the class.
"What happens to people eventually?" she asked her students. "They die."

