Today and tomorrow mark a special event here at SLOCA where our middle school students will gather to take an opportunity to learn about an event that would not otherwise be taught in middle school.
“The Holocaust is important to study because it was a significant moment in history, and it raises necessary questions about morality, human rights, human behavior, abuse of power, and more.” -Cade Newman
The students were given two different books to choose from: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry is appropriate for LMS – UMS and its content is not as graphic or as disturbing, while Night by Elie Wiesel is appropriate for UMS – HS and has graphic, disturbing content. We have over two dozen of our students participating in this book club where the following will be covered: a historical overview, a Socratic discussion, and a recorded first-hand account from Mrs. Weinschenk’s relative.
I (Cheryl) was able to read Night by Elie Wiesel and can share that this is a book worth your time. A little bit about the author from Minnesota Public Radio News:
“The late Elie Wiesel was a Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner who remained firm in his belief that we simply cannot be indifferent to the suffering of others.
Wiesel was born in 1928 in a village in Transylvania. He was 15 years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister died in that camp, his two older sisters survived. Wiesel and his father were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died just months before the camp was liberated by U.S. troops in April of 1945.
For some ten years, Wiesel didn’t speak about the Holocaust. But then he began to write about it, he also wrote about morality and intolerance. He wrote more than 40 books and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.”
The power behind those pages that Elie Wiesel penned will leave you transformed…or at the very least profoundly self-aware that,
“Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.” – Elie Wiesel
Below are some recordings of Elie Wiesel himself:
What Makes us Moral | an audio recording
The Perils of Indifference | a White House address
We encourage you, at your own discretion, to share about this event with your students. For those with younger students, you don’t have to be as graphically detailed about it as one can with an older child, but this is an incredible opportunity for a Socratic discussion in your homes.
Here are a few resources you can read through prior to starting some discussions at home:
Elie Wiesel | on what makes us moral (see his audio recording above)
The Holocaust | an introduction
What was the Holocaust | a BBC article
Timeline of the Holocaust | from Hitler’s rise to power to the Nuremberg trials
What’s Auschwitz? | an article on a survey of the ignorance of this dark time in history
Significant Lack of Holocaust knowledge in the U.S. | the actual survey with detailed findings
We found a couple more links, but given the very detailed, graphic photos in those resources, we opted to not include them in this blog post. If you are interested, you are welcome to email us and we can share them with you.
We appreciate you taking the time to learn more about his topic. If you read one or both of the books we mentioned above and have something to share, let us know in the comments below. We want to hear your thoughts!
SLO Classical Academy is not affiliated with any of the above-mentioned websites, businesses or organizations.
