Heschel School Students Interview Holocaust Survivors

The idea for this project was to create an opportunity and learning experience for students to discover personal narratives of individuals that were part of history.

Did you ever feel that you were excluded or disliked for being Jewish before the war?

Can you describe the streets and what it looked like?

What were you feeling upon arrival?

That's a question that was never asked.

What point did you start telling your story to other people?

Can you describe what it felt as you said goodbye to the parents?

My father was a big believer in education. And he always said to me don't forget the only thing no one can take away from you is what you put in here.

Instead of teaching about history, my students are having the chance to make history themselves. This documentation is history. We are making history by recording these stories.

We were walking towards the camp, my mother looked at me she said, "my child, you see the chimneys, you see the smoke. We will come out alive." And we did.

The goal was for students to be witnesses to history, to listen to these stories, and reflect on their own choices and their own capacity to take action.

It is now up to us to tell our story to our children so that they might keep it alive for generations to come.