It seemed like a normal day at Shalhevet, with the exception of the overwhelmingly melancholy atmosphere, as students gathered in an assembly to commemorate the people that had perished in the Holocaust on April 11.

During the assembly, five students and Director of Student Life Mr. Yossi Kastan each shared stories about a family  member who survived the Holocaust, lighting a candle when they were finished.  The Bat Ami also showed a video on modern day anti-Semitism.

Later in the day,  the 10th, 11th and 12th grade classes went to the Museum of Tolerance to further commemorate lost lives and learn about the atrocities of the Holocaust.

“I especially enjoyed hearing about the program a group of high school and college students had started to spread awareness about the Shoah, and learn with Latino kids about racisim,” junior Tziporah Thompson said. “However, I was shocked that they didn’t have an actual survivor speak about the experience,”

The next day, there was a related assembly co-organized by English teachers Ms. Berkey and Mr. Danovitch. It opened with excerpts from an MTV movie that documented different diaries that were found when the Holocaust was over.

“This is an incredible testament to the power of writing,” Ms. Berkey said.

Living in fear and anxiety, all of these diaries were written by teenagers.  Some of the teens survived and some had not, while some of their fates were unknown.

After watching the movie, advisory groups read through longer versions of the testimonies seen in the movie. They wrote down words or phrases from the testimonies that were particularly interesting to them on post-it notes, then arranged the phrases and words into poems. Some advisories read their poems aloud.

One poem read: “Pounding heart. There is nobody I can talk to. Deported. My mom looks awful, like a shadow. Death.”