Judson STEAM Academy Eighth Grade Students Visit the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum in Dallas

By Kay Ray, Longview ISD Foundation executive director, who interviewed students following the academic field trip
 
Great teachers work to bring life to their instruction.  Allyson Morgan, eighth grade English/language arts/reading teacher at Judson STEAM Academy, accomplished that mission through an academic field trip grant that took students to the Dallas Holocaust and Human Right Museum in Dallas.

As the museum’s website says, “History survives through memory. through stories that are heartbreaking and hopeful, terrifying and true.”  She wanted her students to remember through experiential learning. 

Before the field trip, students spent time in the classroom, ensuring that their trip would reinforce their learning.  Mrs. Morgan’s goal was to expose students to historical artifacts while developing academically, open-minded, empathetic people.  Her field trip idea grew from her own personal history:  her own family, while not Jewish, suffered in German during World War II.  She created a dynamic visual presentation for the students to show her connection to the Holocaust as she worked to show the persecution of the Jews and the suffering of the German population to students, especially showing people their age.  Then students extended the learning about the Holocaust to persecution and prejudice since World War II.

Mrs. Morgan’s grandmother was Marrianne Messinger, known by her grandmother name as “Oma.” Her life in Germany was simple but wonderful for the first decade of her life, but then Hitler rose to power. Although the Messinger family members were not Jews, Oma and her family’s lives turned upside down when Hitler began his persecution of the Jews.  Oma’s family had many friends and relatives who were killed for no reason, and they lost their home and lived in poverty for quite some time in their destroyed town, many times without food for long periods of time.  They lived in Germany during the entirety of WWII and saw horrific things that Mrs. Morgan’s Oma never spoke about to any of the family in America.  At one point, Oma and her two brothers were taken away to an orphanage, and her mother, Mrs. Morgan’s great-grandmother (great-Oma), didn’t know where they were for three years.  To this day, Mrs. Morgan’s family still doesn’t know what happened to her great-Oma during those three years.  Oma met Mrs. Morgan’s Grandpa Leo who served as an American soldier during the occupation period, the time following the war when American soldiers and other allies helped to reconstruct Europe.

Because life had become so difficult for Oma during and after the war, she married Grandpa Leo and moved to the United States.  

Ms. Morgan showed students pictures of her relatives to connect her to history and to show that suffering reached all people in World War II.  She pointed out to students that her relatives did not support Hitler; however, they saw that at the beginning of Hitler’s government that the economy had improved and jobs were plentiful, helping the German people after their defeat in World War I.  However, as she pointed out to students, they did not see the “red flags” that led to worsening conditions for all, especially the persecution of Jews.  Like many Germans, they were helpless to stop the Nazis.

The students also learned vocabulary that helped them understand the museum’s displays such as Nazism, Aryans, Fuhrer, genocide, propaganda, stereotype, concentration camp, dehumanization, deportation, indifference, gas chambers, cremation ovens, and anti-Semitic.  During the discussion as students explained the trip, Khloe Ghant Ross admitted that the term “anti-Semitic” was still confusing, thus leading to a discussion of anti-Semitism in the world today as seen daily on the news.   Many students had read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Borne, so they understood a concentration camp from the perspective of a young boy whose father was the Nazi head of the camp.  She said visiting the museum brought the reality of the killing to life. 

Zoie Eschenfelder personally felt the reality as she and other students walked through a railroad car used to deport the Jews to concentration and labor camps.  She felt cramped with only five other students beside her, yet she learned that the car would have carried at fifty people.  She learned that the Jews would have had little or no water, a bucket only for a toilet, and very little room to move.  Many died enroute to their destination. 

While at the museum, the students learned about “red flags” that both the Jewish and non-Jewish population of Germany should have noticed.  They did not, however, until it was too late to resist or leave the country.  They also learned that while some Jewish families fled Germany, traveling to neighboring countries, they often found themselves again in Hitler’s clutches as the Nazis invaded more and more European countries.  They also learned that the United States did not accept mass numbers of Jewish refugees, although Eleanor Roosevelt, President Franklin Roosevelt’s wife, encouraged him to receive them and enter the World War II on their behalf. 

The “red flags” they noticed were the Nazis’ requirement that Jews wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing; the requirement that Jewish businesses be marked with the same yellow star or the word “Jude” to discourage Germans from doing business with them; the disappearance of Jews; and the starving Jews in the streets. Macy McWilliams pointed out that the requirement for Jewish identification was the first “red flag” that everyone should have alarmed the Jews and the rest of the German population.  They also discussed a picture of a starving young Jewish boy sitting on a street curb while bystanders, all non-Jewish, watched him but did nothing to help.  They then discussed the same indifference that Americans see today as people watch attacks on big city subways yet do not intervene to help the victims.  Instead, they are more interested in filming violence on their cell phones.  Students learned that young people their own age were forced to work in labor camps while many were exterminated upon arrival at the camps because they were not useful.  Families were separated, and many children saw their parents led from the train depots, never to see them again.  While many young people died, many survived to adulthood and became witnesses about the Holocaust.  The students heard survivors’ stories at the museum.

The students saw the belongings that were stripped from the Jews upon arrival at the campus:  clothing, shoes, jewelry, and money.  They even saw mounds of silverware and housewares that the Jews had brought with them because they often believed that they were being “relocated” to have better jobs.  Scarlett McGhee said she found the pictures and posters throughout the museum to be disturbing. 

After learning about the Holocaust, students also learned about struggles against prejudice in the United States, specifically the Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.  On May 20, 1961, an integrated group of twenty-one young college students from Nashville arrived at the historic Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station. These Freedom Riders met mob violence with non-violence and courage. Their actions helped end racial segregation in all interstate transportation.

They also saw the similarities of the Holocaust’s segregation of Jews into “ghettoes” within cities and racial segregation in the United States.  The museum also taught them about the protests and legal cases that led to the end of segregation.  The ability to take the lessons from the 1930s and 1940s in Europe and apply them to American history is an invaluable history lesson for students. 

Perhaps this trip will help today’s students notice “red flags” and remember their history, the stories they heard, and the artifacts they saw.

The Longview ISD Foundation, Inc. is proud to have provided the $7,000 funding for this chartered bus trip to Dallas.  It is especially proud of Mrs. Morgan for wanting to provide this learning opportunity for Judson’s students and taking advantage of the John W. Harrison, Jr. Academic Field Trip Grant Program sponsored by the Foundation.  As this trip exemplifies, quality learning experiences begin with a dedicated, innovative teacher.