Today is Yom HaShoa, and Milken honors Holocaust Remembrance in many ways. This article refers to a field trip 9th grade students took earlier and after reading the work of Elie Wiesel.
To align with the ninth grade English classes, which are reading Elie Wiesel’s Night, and to further learn such significant history all of the ninth grade students spent the day at Holocaust Museum LA on Milken’s second service learning day.
Milken service days take place three times a year for students to participate in various off-campus learning activities. During the service day, students explore more about Jewish values, memorials, and communities, while relating back to what is taught in their classes, and developing a clearer image of the ethnically and / or religiously Jewish background.
English teacher and 9/10 Service Learning Coordinator Sophe Comfortes arranged the field trip to the museum and came along with the students as well. She stated how she chose to go to the Holocaust museum to give students a stronger understanding of the history and of what they were learning in English class.
“[The students] had their experiential day going to the Holocaust Museum, which coincides with their English studies curricul[a]. They are finishing reading Night by Elie Wiesel, and in Jewish studies, they just finished learning about Jewish laws, and that is something that people in the Holocaust had been faced with dealing with [ in addition to everything else],” Comfortes said.
Service days ask students to have active involvement in an activity of giving and / or learning. During a portion of the trip, students had the privilege to hear the story of the experience of a survivor from the Holocaust. In the museum, students saw some of the items belonging to the victims and to have a small sense of what it felt like to be in the cattle car.
Also within the museum, there were multiple rooms with different stories in each one. Graphic pictures, taken belongings, and flags were displayed amongst the rooms for people to witness.
Freshman Nikita I. shared, “I found the Holocaust exhibition very moving because I saw a lot of very graphic images of the dead bodies, and it was really horrifying to see that such things could happen.”
Twins, Monika White (neé Monika Bayer) and Gitta Morris (neé Brigitte Bayer) shared their story of their life during the Holocaust. They were one of two sets of twin sisters born in the Shanghai Jewish Ghetto. They lived there until they were eight-years-old in 1948, and then they immigrated to the United States.
“[Monika White and Gitta Morris’s] story was very interesting because I got to hear about the war from the view of Jews [from Shanghai], which I have never heard before,” Imas said.
Visiting the Holocaust museum educates visitors about the atrocities that happened. With only a limited number of survivors still living, it is important to share and listen to the stories they have to share. Hearing what they have to say from a first person experience emphasizes the importance of making sure history does not repeat. .
“Going to the museum was an amazing opportunity, and it is important to remember the genocide the Jews had to face, to make sure it never happens again,” Ben S. noted.