Bishop Lynch students from Dr. Parnell's Holocaust Studies and AP European History classes visited the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance last Friday.
The exhibit gave the student visitors a view of the Holocaust by focusing on one specific day during the Holocaust—April 19, 1943. On this day three important and very different events happened: The 20th Deportation Train from Belgium was attacked by partisans, The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began and The Bermuda Conference met.
These events illustrate wartime heroism, Jewish resistance against all odds, and government and diplomatic indifference to the fate of Europe’s Jews. They show that the decision to do the right thing—to stand up against the forces of brutality, hatred and evil—can be made under the worst conditions. They also demonstrate that the decision to stand-by and do nothing can perpetuate human suffering and cost lives.
The exhibit also highlights the first European box car brought to the US. This car was likely used to transport Jews to concentration or extermination camps. Dallas-area Holocaust survivors often speak at the Museum, which the BL students were fortunate to witness upon their visit.
Pictured are seniors Hannah Duettra (senior, AP European History) and Ellie Fowler (senior, Holocaust Studies) with a Jewish Holocaust survivor.
In her story, she recalled her experience as a part of Kindertransport, a name for the efforts that got thousands of Jewish children to Britain, mostly in 1939, to escape Germany or German persecution. Hearing the survivor's story first-hand made an immediate and lasting impression on the Bishop Lynch students, and was an experience they will not soon forget!
*Museum information retrieved from http://dallasholocaustmuseum.org/experience/main-exhibit
Photo by Hannah Jaggers