A year of study, topped by a memorable assembly, ensures a powerful message to end discrimination will not be lost on these Branford students, members of the last generation to hear live testimony of Holocaust survivors.

On May 19, Team 8-1 eighth graders at Walsh Intermediate School (WIS) sat in hushed silence for over an hour, listening intently to first-hand recollections of child Holocaust survivors Agnes Vertes and Judith Altmann. 

Emotions rippled through the audience; especially during Altmann's heartbreaking, vivid descriptions. She talked about being separated from her parents, who were put in line to go to their deaths minutes after arriving at Auschwitz; and the answer given when she asked what was causing a horrid smell: "...your parents burning."

As a child in Hungary, Vertes saw her 90-year-old grandmother pushed and beaten into a cattle car bound for Auschwitz. In hiding, she described how her sister saved a group of Jewish children, beguiling away the suspicions of a German soldier who said she could be nothing other than a beautiful Aryan child.

Speaking out to educate others about discrimination and how it ushered in the horrors of the Holocaust is an important mission for Vertes and Altmann; president and vice president, respectively, of Holocaust Child Survivors of Connecticut.  

Following their talk and a luncheon with students on May 19, Team 8-1 decided to try to help them spread their message. They've set up a Go Fund Me webpage (here) with a $5,000 goal to help Vertes, an award-winning Holocaust witness documentary filmmaker, complete a new documentary about a Holocaust survivor.

Altmann, a native of Czechoslovakia, endured living in two different ghettos before being sent to Auschwitz at the age of 14. She and her family were picked up on the day after Passover and crammed onto train cars for four days.

Arriving at Auschwitz, Altmann said the sign which greeted them read,"Work will liberate you." Her parents were immediately separated from her into a line of those to be killed. Altmann told the students the last words she heard her father say were, "Judy, you will live."  

Altmann's extensive knowledge of several languages helped her survive several labor camps and a death march. She was in the Bergen-Belson concentration camp, near-death with typhus, when the British liberated her.

After describing her ordeal, endured as a child the same as age many of those in the room, Altmann urged the WIS students to always "stand up" against discrimination, wherever they see it.

It's been an impactful year of learning and understanding for Team 8-1 thanks to a unique, cross-curricular (English and Social Studies) Holocaust unit taught by teachers Tara Knudsen and Kathleen Wagner. The two planned the unit after participating in "Echoes and Reflections," a workshop hosted by the Anti-Defamation League at Quinnipiac University.

In acknowledging the importance of bringing Vertes and Altmann to WIS, both teachers pointed to the words of Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel, "When you listen to a witness, you become a witness." 

Weisel, who became known around the world for his efforts to share his experiences as an Auschwitz survivor and end discrimination, died in July 2016. With fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors able to share their experiences, Knudsen and Wagner said their students were extremely fortunate to cap off their year of learning by hearing stories of some of the last remaining survivors.

"We did a pretty good job of teaching them about the Holocaust and World War II, so I think their depth of understanding was strong in coming to the presentation," said Knudsen. "But to see the photos they shared, and to have a living person in front of them that experienced these things, definitely provided for a more powerful and impactful experience for them."

On May 19, both teachers knew their students would want to continue to think about and discuss what they'd heard that day, added Wagner.  The students wrote essays, thank-you notes and compiled a graffiti-board word wall to help express what they took away from the presentation.

"We had them complete a reflection activity; and the pieces they produced were so poignant and moving," said Wagner.

In one note, a student thanked Altmann for "surviving," adding, "Whether or not you were doing it at the time for yourself or your family, or someone else, it means something to me today to hear your story. The part about the guard telling you that the smell was of 'your parents burning alive' really got to me, and made me think. I'll have to act on feelings more, while I have this reminder of the world's cruelness so evident, before I forget about it again."

Another student thanked Vertes, writing, "I liked your story about your little sister asking to try on the soldiers hat. It seems like such an innocent, childish thing to do, and because the soldier showed such a human response, you were all saved. It really sends a message about the power of innocence and how it's best to never lose it completely. Thank you for surviving."

"A lot of them said it's one thing to read about it in a book, and another thing to experience it first-hand from people who have come through the experience," said Wagner. "The overwhelming trend in responses and thank you notes was students saying how fortunate they are, as one of the last generations to hear those stories, and that they will continue to share them."

To learn more about Holocaust Child Survivors of Connecticut visit http://hcs-ct.org/