LYNN – Lynn Public Schools (LPS) collaborated with Hate Ends Now to provide an immersive history lesson on the Holocaust for 8th grade English Language Arts students, who studied the Holocaust for the last unit of the year, and high school World History and Genocide students, who have been studying genocide and Holocaust studies all year.
Kristen Tabacco, LPS assistant director of history, said this was made possible through the genocide education grant from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary (DESE). She added that LPS is “lucky” to have this funding, “and with that, we’re able to help support genocide education, not just Holocaust, but genocides all over the world.”
“This is part of the student experience that we are providing to help students who are studying the Holocaust learn more about the survivor experience,” Tabacco said.
Hate Ends Now brought a collection of about 20-25 artifacts, which are on loan from the Darrell English Collection, and a replica cattle car to Lynn Vocational Technical Institute Monday. The organization also provides students with a video presentation about two Holocaust survivors sharing their stories.
“It’s really important for us to learn about the Holocaust in order to recognize patterns within history and in the current day, and in order for us to combat the hatred and discrimination that we see,” Jori Reiken, lead educator at Hate Ends Now said. “There’s a famous quote. I don’t know who it’s by. But it essentially says, ‘Those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it,’ and I think that by us taking the time to go through this history with students and for them to be able to see and hear Holocaust survivor testimony, puts it into perspective in a way that learning in a classroom just can’t.”
She added that this education does not only center the Jewish people who died in the Holocaust, but also the disabled people, the LGBTQ+ people, the Black people, the Roma people and more in order to properly educate students on all the people targeted and all the lives lost by the Nazi regime.
“Students having the opportunity to almost step into history and see and hear and touch the walls of the replica cattle car gives them a perspective of what it was really like because oftentimes, when you hear ‘cattle car with 100 people in it,’ you can’t picture it. You don’t know what it feels like. You don’t know what it would look like,” Reiken said. “But by stepping in with your class of 25, the students are able to picture it a little bit more. It makes it more real, and it engages students on another level.”
Hate Ends Now will be coming to Lynn Classical High School Thursday.
