Here's what students had to say about the presentation:
Charlton P.S. recently had members from the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center bring the “Tour of Humanity” to our school. The tour is a bus with a built-in classroom, 12 large screen T.V’s and seating for up to 30 students. The goal of this tour was to teach us about racism, inequality, judgement, and freedom. The “Tour for humanity” taught the students of Charlton about the many times in history where hatred and racism led to violence and war (e.g. the Holocaust, Japanese internment camps in Canada). The tour also had us reflect upon ourselves and how we can ensure that these events in history never happen again.
Max K.
Combined with our Holocaust survivor visit earlier in January, this was a powerful learning month for our more senior students.
Remembrance of the Holocaust
During the first weeks of January, Mrs. Faigie Libman and the Tour for Humanity were welcomed to educate Charlton’s intermediate students on the Holocaust. We faced and learned one of the world’s most horrifying tragedy; the Holocaust was a catastrophe as six million Jews were executed by the hands of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi army (1933 - 1945). On January 6th, 2016, Libman spoke of her experience as a prisoner of a concentration camp - death camps created by Nazis to massacre Jews. She introduced to us forced labour, gas chambers, death marches, and many significant heroes and villains of the World War II. The following Wednesday, on the bus Tour for Humanity, we watched a documentary and learned of the mistreatment, starvation and punishments the Jews experienced because Germans felt hate and intolerance towards differences. However, through the devastating and dark times of our history, there have good-hearted heroes - Gandhi, Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr, Simon Wiesenthal, and many more - who risked their lives, wealth, career positions, time, money, and most importantly, their own safety, to bring aid to suffering victims. After the two educational visits, I’ve come to understand that wars begin due to miscommunication, misunderstandings, prejudice and detestation. Humanity needs to stand up to racism, the will of assimilation, and violence in order to tame our demons, to prevent history from repeating itself, to create a better world, to accept dissimilarities and find peace.
Hilary T.
