Our juniors traveled with Theology teachers Mr. Haardt, Mr. Bowen, and Mr. Sudnik to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC. This experiential learning follows a class reading of Elie Wiesel's memoir Night and a unit on social psychology and moral responsibility as well as the roots of antisemitism, human rights, and Christian-Jewish relations. 

A few reflections from our juniors on their experience:

"It's an incredibly impactful exhibit. The idea that something like this, a state-sponsored genocide, happened only 75 year ago fascinates me. Something like this sounds like it would have happened hundreds of year ago, not in the 20th century. It is one of the worst things to ever happen to humanity, and the museum exhibit does a great job recognizing that and explaining the process of which it took place. The most powerful part of the museum to me was the final section, where you have time to reflect on what you just experienced. The Hall of Remembrance lets you completely take in what you just experienced and deeply impacts you emotionally. "- Marty Russo

"'Six million Jews were not killed. A Jew was killed six million times.' This quote resonated with me because it made the Holocaust into an individual event instead of a statistic. I think that too often people today make the Holocaust into a statistic about 6 million Jews died, but in reality, 6 million times a Jew went through the suffering and pain of death and the family of that Jew through the unfathomable pain of losing a family member forever." - Jack Rhoa

"There was a quiet room where a book recorded the voice of survivors. Those people actually experienced the Holocaust and survived, and their testimonies were trustworthy and valuable. I saw desperation and pain. Most of them believed they were in the wrong place when they got out of the wagons. Some people thought they were in hell. By reading it, one can easily have a sense of what they had suffered." - Alex Wang