BY JENNIFER AMATO
Staff Writer
NORTH BRUNSWICK – The seventh-grade students of Linwood Middle School have created a Holocaust Remembrance Wall to commemorate the execution of over 11 million people by Nazi Germany in the early 1940s.
Over 300 students created 5-by-8-inch index cards with diary entries, sketches, letters, narratives and poems, a selection of which are displayed in the front lobby of the school.
“Kids see other displays and then discuss them. It reminds them of the lessons of the Holocaust, of how uncontrolled hatred and prejudice can go to the depths of inhumanity,” said Marion Felberbaum, who coordinated this program with her fellow seventh-grade social studies teachers Eileen Trimarco and Kristine Schilder.
Felberbaum instituted this for the first year, using her association with the Master Teacher Institute of Holocaust Education at Rutgers University.
“We teach the Holocaust every year, but we really delved into it even more so this year by not only teaching the Holocaust, but by teaching the lessons of the Holocaust,” she said.
In their literature classes, the students read “The Diary of Anne Frank” and in their social studies classes they learned about the righteous people who helped their neighbors survive. They discussed immorality, intolerance, scapegoating, hatred, prejudice and fear, as well as courage and morality of those who survived.
“As awful as this was, there were still people who stood up and did the right thing,” Trimarco said.
David Grau decided to include a Star of David on his poster and write about how the people died.
“I learned they had to wear the Star of David and whoever was not German in [Adolf Hitler’s] way was sent to concentration camps,” he said. “I thought it was only Jewish people that would go, but it was other people, like homosexuals, so this was new to me.”
Colin Daingerfield also drew a Star of David, but included the words “Work will set you free,” with a sketch of people running out of the concentration camps when they were set free.
“I think it represents the end of it, which is the better part when they were set free, which was a better time than the middle,” he said. “It shows their spirits were not always up, but they wanted to get through it and wanted to fight for it.”
Jason Seidman took the opposite approach, writing the words “Work will not set you free” on his card, since the Jewish people were told that the camps were a happy place but were being lied to.
To further enhance their studies, the students discussed how the lessons from 60 years ago are applicable to today’s society.
“We have to learn from history and just can’t let it happen again to anyone,” Seidman said.
Besides the lessons taught by the actual event of the Holocaust, the project also served as a community builder within the school.
“It was kind of nice because the kids don’t usually get to see the whole work of the seventh grade. … They get to see what their classmates do but not always the whole grade level,” Trimarco said. “I think this is one of the units that has the greatest effect on kids. It has a powerful lesson.”
To view the remembrance wall, contact the school at (732) 289-3600.