By BARBARA ANNE GREENE
Front view of the railcar on display at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Edward Owen
Staff reporter
What would you do if your neighbors were treated like the Jews were during the Holocaust? Would you speak up or just stand by? Those are the questions Heather Pasquinelli, language arts teacher at Cloud Peak School had to ask herself when she went to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., this past summer.
Pasquinelli applied for a 2012-13 Teacher Fellow for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She was awarded an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. There are more than 300 teacher fellows worldwide; 20 are chosen yearly and only two of those are from Wyoming.
The fellowship program was established in 1996. It was to develop a national corps of skilled educators who could teach quality Holocaust education in secondary schools. During the five days teachers are immersed in historical and pedagogical issues. They also meet and speak with a survivor of the Holocaust.
When asked what touched her the most, Pasquinelli said, “The museum itself is such an emotionally-charged experience that it is difficult to not be touched while going through the exhibits. There is a new exhibit called ‘Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration and Complicity in the Holocaust.’ That really made me look inside of myself and think of how I would have reacted under similar duress. Always the most touching to me, though, is the survivor testimony. I heard a survivor speak there last year when I attended the Western Educators Conference and so I truly looked forward to this year’s experience of meeting another survivor. Nesse Godin was our speaker this year, and she told the story of being a young girl during the Lithuanian genocide. Her grace and compassion were so inspirational … and hearing the events that she witnessed as a young girl was just devastating. I cannot help but think of my own children living through such horrific events and extreme prejudice. The survivor generation is getting much older now, and soon there will be no living survivors to speak to in person. The museum has done a wonderful job in recording all of the survivors for their testimonies to be available for generations to come.”
The testimonies are available to watch on the museums web site.
Pasquinelli said she wanted to go because of her passion about tolerance education in her classroom “Which goes hand-in-hand with the language arts curriculum and thematic units of literature.” Every year in her 10 years of teaching she has taught the Holocaust through literature, “Teaching about the Holocaust and its atrocities, along with the humanitarian issues and those individuals who show tremendous courage and grace is really foundational in helping students to understand their importance in making a difference in this world.”
While Pasquinelli found the entire experience amazing she felt the best part was the bonding with her class of fellows. “We truly had a phenomenal connection with each other and kept in touch almost daily. Even though we had 10-12 hour workdays and almost no time to tour D.C., we all regarded it as one of the most wonderful experiences we’ve ever had.”
Though well versed in the different aspects of the Holocaust and how to teach it, the experience showed her how much she still didn’t know. “We were introduced to different methodology in teaching that I had never considered. Plus, there are so many things that occurred that I had never realized or read about.” She was so inspired she is now pursuing her graduate degree in Holocaust and genocide studies.
After the summer institute the teacher fellows are to return to their schools to create and implement an outreach project. Next July they will return to the museum for a followup program to assess their efforts and continue studies. For her project, some of her students will be participating in a cross-cultural education program where they complete a research project with students in Liberia, West Africa. Her students will work with the Liberia students to create a book on heroes of humanity. “I think it will be an amazing opportunity for the students involved. Next year, I will again be awarded a trip to D.C. to present the project to the museum. I am hoping to share the experience with other local educators so that they may replicate that kind of global connection in their classrooms.”
While Pasquinelli went on this trip alone two other teachers from the district had just been there for a Belfer National Conference for Educators — middle school special education teacher Patrick Pasquinelli and high school language arts teacher Jenn Simmons.
Heather Pasquinelli and Simmons are working to complete a comprehensive English curriculum that includes Holocaust education for teaching each year in grades 7-12. They are also working to include local history into the curriculum using literature and informational text from the Japanese experiences at Heart Mountain.
Patrick Pasquinelli went to a three-day Arthur and Rochelle Belfer National Conference that was also held in the Holocaust Museum. He went to the conference for social studies teachers but the instructors for the English conference were also there. They were able to discuss how they teach the Holocaust in English classes as well as work with other teachers to make a cross curricular program.
For him the part that touched him the most was the museum itself. He found it sobering and eye opening. He too spoke about the exhibit “Some Were Neighbors.” The exhibit shows and discusses how friends, co-workers and neighbors would turn in Jewish families to the Nazis or take matters into their own hands to rid the world of Jews. “Seeing this exhibit and the additional knowledge that I gained from it gave me ideas on how to use what I learned. Not only to teach about the Holocaust but also how to teach about modern day genocides. I can use the information to reinforce anti-bullying and show how there are many similarities to the beginnings of genocides and bulling.”
Patrick said he wanted to participate in the conference to get a better understanding on how to teach middle school students about the Holocaust and how to relate it to things happening today.
The best part for him was the whole experience of the museum and getting to work with teachers from around the country and Belgium. He came back with great ideas and fantastic resources. “As part of the conference, you most definitely learn about the Holocaust in great detail, but you also learn about modern day genocides and other atrocities in the world from the past to the present. But most of all, you learn about how to take this information and teach compassion and caring for other people in the world, whether it be your neighbor to a person 3,000 miles away. That was the most important thing I took out of this conference and the most important thing that I will share with my students. “
The United States Congress established the Day’s of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust and created the Museum as a permanent living memorial to the victims. This year the theme was “Never Again: Heeding the Warning Signs.”
To find out more about the museum and/or the resources available for teachers go to, http://www.ushmm.org/.