Local Students Gain Profound Insights at Illinois Holocaust Museum
Sid Shroyer shares student reflections on the impact of Holocaust education
“Eye opening.”
That’s how New Prairie High School sophomore Riley Ernsperger described a field trip last month to the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie.
With financial support from the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley, the Okon Family Fund for Holocaust Education, the Schurz Foundation, and the Kurt and Tessye Simon Fund for Holocaust Remembrance, five area schools have this semester sent around 400 students to museum. The Federation support went to New Prairie and Penn High Schools, Penn’s Discovery Middle School, and the LaSalle Academy of the South Bend Community School Corporation. South Bend Adams High School students were sponsored by the Simon Holocaust Fund.
The field trips are the culmination of expansive teacher-led Holocaust study units.
As a retired Holocaust educator at New Prairie, I was especially pleased to accompany my former student, teacher Erica (Melton) White, and her 80 New Prairie AP social studies students to Skokie on April 8. Riley told me that Ms. White prepared her class well for the experience.
But with the visit to the museum, also, Riley said, “It brought a new light to my world and how I saw things, from a first-hand perspective.” Some of the imagery is “horrific,” she told me, but that in recognizing the reality of the situation we better understand the significance of our responsibilities.
Jewish Federation Community Relations Director Bob Feferman, a leader of the field trips initiative, told me that Holocaust education, and with it the field trip experience, “sensitizes young people to the issues of bigotry and hatred and helps to prevent the spread of antisemitism and racism.”
Sid Shroyer
Holocaust Speakers Bureau,
Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley
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