KDES Middle School's Field Trip to the Holocaust Museum

We are deaf and hard of hearing students at Kendall Demonstration Elementary School. We are seventh and eighth graders in the Middle School department. We live in Washington, D.C, Maryland, and Virginia. Our school is located on the campus of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. In School we have been reading Daniel's Story by Carol Matas. Also, we have been studying about the Holocaust in Social Studies. We are doing research, too.

On March 15, 1996, We went to the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington. D.C. This is outside the museum. The museum is new and very modern. The architecture is unusual to create a serious mood and give the feeling of the concentration camps.

First we went to the Daniel's Story exhibition.

This is a picture of Daniel's room before Daniel left his home in Frankfurt, Germany to go to the Lodz Ghetto in Lodz, Poland. Daniel was fourteen years old when Daniel left Frankfurt, Germany. Daniel liked to play soccer, ski, and take photographs. On the bookshelf next to the globe is a camera, with which Daniel took pictures. There is also a picture above the camera which shows Daniel playing soccer, one of his favorite sports.

Even though Daniel lived in the 1940's, his teenage life was not much different from ours. The only thing that was different, was that Daniel had to survive the Holocaust. Daniel liked to play sports just like the boys in our class do. Daniel liked photography, some boys in our class do, too. Daniel, a jewish boy who survived the holocaust, was not any different than many kids in America and other places in the world.

When Hitler came to power, Daniel's life began to change. Jewish children couldn't go to school with other German children. Daniel could not play on a soccer team with his German friends or go swimming with them. This reminded us of the rascism we learned about in the segregated South in the United States.

The situation became much worse. Laws were passed forbidding Jews to own businesses. It was a crime for a German to marry a Jew. Finally Jews were not permitted to stay in Germany. They were sent in freight trains to Poland. They had to leave their homes and everything they owned.

The Lodz Ghetto

When Daniel's family was forced by Nazis soldiers to move from their home in Frankfurt, Germany, they went to live in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland. Daniel's family lived in one small room during the Holocaust. Daniel's family had an old kitchen in the room. They all ate, slept, and lived in one room. It must have been very crowded. Daniel wrote in a diary. We saw it in the exhibit, and read it.

We saw a movie. It talked about Daniel, his sister, Erika, his mother, and his father. It talked about how hard it was for Daniel to survive. His sister Erika and his mother died. Daniel and his father survived . They were in a hospital. Daniel's sister had died of starvation. His mother had died, too. After their deaths, Daniel and his father were disoriented. The Nazis had put them in a concentration camp. They tried to escape, they tried and tried, but they couldn't. That camp was called Auschwitz. They both had their heads shaven bald. Daniel and his father were suffering and in pain. But they wouldn't tell the Nazis because they would kill them if they were in pain. Daniel was scared. Later, Daniel made a friend named Peter. Peter's brother had died in front of Peter, so, Peter wanted revenge. He suffered so much, that he finally committed suicide. He flung himself at the fence, which was electrified. He died in front of Daniel. Daniel had suffered so much. His wounds hurt so much.

Here is a picture of us using a special computer in the computer lab of the Holocaust museum. It has a program that uses no keyboard instead we used a touch-screen. After we went through Daniel's exhibit twice, we went to the computer lab. The computer had different topics about the Holocaust. Some children survived the holocaust, and when they got older they told about their memories. The stories are all in the computer. We entered the identification numbers of survivors first, then we could learn about those people's experiences during the holocaust. Some survived, and some died. We felt sorry for the victims that had to go through the holocaust for six whole years.

They had films in the computer. It was unbelievable! We never saw films on the computer before. We watched some of the films about the holocaust. Some scientists tried experiments on Jewish bodies that were very gross, and some scientists cut up Jewish bodies. That was very unfair.

We researched about the Nazis ,too. We saw so many Nazi soldiers! Hitler was the person who started the holocaust and World War II. Hitler also convinced most of his soldiers to eliminate many Jews and other races that differed from Aryans. Hitler made German children look up to the Nazi flag. These German children became soldiers for Germany. Nazi soldiers forced Jews to take off their clothes to go to the shower, but the Nazis lied to them. Really it was not a shower, but gas! Many thousands of people died. Some handicapped people were killed and some Germans who married Jews were killed, too. People of different races were killed, too. Many millions of Jews had died because they had no place to sleep, eat, or go to the bathroom. Many died in gas chambers.

We were very angry because Hitler thought Jews were not important and he called them vermin and inferior species. This holocaust tells us in the USA what happens with racism. We need to confront different kinds of racism.

We must understand what it means. We have to respect different races. All people are the same human beings, so why disrespect when you can respect? Why do people want to be racist? Use your common sense and respect people.

We are watching interviews with people who survived the Holocaust. Some were easy for us to understand because they were captioned. They were very interesting. We saw some photos of concentration camps, but it seemed that Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp, because there were tons of photos of Auschwitz. Most of the photos were very interesting like the photo a of washroom which was separated from barracks. It was about 50 meters away! No mirrors or sink. Can you imagine that? You couldn't brush your teeth for about 6 years! We couldn't survive it. We would rather kill ourselves than suffer about six years of nightmares!

When we finished using the computers we went downstairs to see the tile wall. When we went downstairs we saw a lot of pretty drawings the kids had done that show many of the same feelings we had. Other kids drew pictures on tiles and sent them to the museum. These many tiles were made into a wall. We saw many different pictures. Some of them said peace and other things, some said they hope that the world will be better after all that happened, and some were sad about the things that happened during the Holocaust. We felt very sad about what happened during the Holocaust, too.

We also went to see the exhibit, Schindler There is a movie about Oscar Schindler called Schindler's List. The exhibit talked about Oscar Schindler. He wasn't Jewish. He helped many of Jews escape death. Then we had to leave. We went to the bus to return to Kendall School. We really learned a lot on our trip to the Holocaust Museum. It was really interesting, but also it was depressing.

We learned about children and adults who suffered and died because of racism.

Here we are writing about our trip. We would love to receive your comments and feedback. Send e-mail to our teacher Yetti Sinnreich, Yetti.Ssnnreich@gallaudet.edu