(above) Rahway students visiting the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Photo by Debra Maller.
Rahway High School Students Visit United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Despite the frigid temperature and the prior day’s blinding snowstorm, 38 high school students from teacher Debra Maller’s Holocaust Genocide class made the journey on January 15 to Washington DC for its annual visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Along with chaperones Adams Issaka and teachers Chris McNicholas and Jeff Romano, Ms. Maller and her students were touched by the personal accounts offered by Holocaust survivors Fred Heyman and Peter Fleichman during the bus trip to the nation’s capital.
Trip coordinator Mr. Michael Rubell, who runs these trips through his organization “The Morris Rubell Remembrance Journeys,” showed a video about his father, Mr. Morris Rubell, who was himself a survivor of several camps. Students then made their way through the museum viewing the many pieces of history depicting examples of antisemitism as well as of the horrific rise of Nazism. “Most of the students commented that the exhibit of the ‘shoes’ was the most memorable and the most upsetting for them,” notes Ms. Maller. The students were also able to view the new exhibit “America’s Response” along with an exhibit about the current genocide in Syria, reinforcing the fact that ‘genocide’ does not remain an atrocity one only finds in history.
After the museum visit, students and chaperones gathered at the Lincoln Memorial where they read the Gettysburg Address and the individual names given on the ID cards distributed at the museum. The trip concluded most poignantly at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial, as it was nearing both his birthday and the holiday weekend.
Ms. Maller’s wish for her students was both heartfelt and awakening. “I want the students to see the victims of all atrocities as individuals, with each having a single story…stories that have to be told when the victims have no voice.” Senior Brianna Simoes admits, “Seeing things up close and personal like this had more of an impact than seeing this in a movie.”
Submitted by Rob Kinch
