Shoa seminar reinforces lessons of museum visit
At Whippany event, middle schoolers confront intolerance
, NJJN Staff Writer | 05.22.08

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Months after their eye-opening trips to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, middle and high school students and their teachers gathered in Whippany to reflect on ways that the visits changed their lives.

	Michael Rubell, director of the Morris Rubell Holocaust Remembrance Journeys, leads a student discussion of lessons learned at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Photos by Robert Wiener

For nearly five hours, the students were reminded of past and present genocides and urged in many ways to take action against bullying, hate, and violence.

The 260 students came to the Gebroe and Hammer Conference Center at the invitation of Michael Rubell, a Morristown resident who sponsors monthly tours of the museum in tribute to his late father Morris Rubell, a Shoa survivor.

With the full and ongoing strong assistance from the Holocaust Council of MetroWest NJ, the Morris Rubell Holocaust Remembrance Journeys program takes middle and high school classes to the museum each month during the school year, followed by a daylong seminar at the end of the second semester.

"When we bring them back here, it is totally convincing that they've got it," said Rubell, referring to the follow-up session. "They know the lessons of the Holocaust. They know how important it is not to be a bystander when they see something wrong."

Setting the tone for the seminar was Ursula Pawel, a German-born survivor who now lives in Bedminster.

Pawel mesmerized her young audience with a tale of slaughter and survival. While she managed to stay alive in the concentration camps at Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, her father and brother died in the gas chambers. She described how she miraculously reconnected with her mother in a small Dutch town after World War II.

"Be yourselves," she urged the students. "Don't be followers, like the Germans. If somebody tries to influence you to hate others because of their religion, the color of their eyes, or the texture of their hair, don't follow people like that."

	Concentration camp survivor Ursula Pawel lights a candle to honor victims of the Holocaust.

At age 24, Joel Rosenfield of Roxbury Township has faced a different set of serious challenges, and he shared them with his audience.

Rosenfield suffers from the chronic intestinal ailment known as Crohn's disease, as well as apraxia, a learning disability that affects his ability to write coherently.

One day before his graduation from Centenary College in Hackettstown, Rosenfield said, "I have made a life for myself, and my challenges have not held me down. In fact, they have made me work a bit harder to accomplish all that I have accomplished to this point."

His message to the teenage audience: "All of us can make a difference if we can lend a hand to other people, like other people have handed out to us. If everyone helped each other, the world would be a better place. Helping out others can make all the difference in another person's life."

Then, Rubell cited two other students whose extracurricular activities exemplified Rosenfield's words.

One was Elizabeth Sauchelli of Dover, a student editor whose activism against the genocide in Darfur was inspired by her class visit to the museum.

	Speaker Joel Rosenfield and his mother, Sandy, who received a plant for her work as an associate at the Holocaust Council of MetroWest

"It breaks my heart every time I think about the millions of people who died," she told the students. "But frankly, I don't have time to be sad. Instead of using the Holocaust as an outlet for grief I decided to use it as an outlet for change — not changing the world, per se, but just trying to make it a better place."

Gabrielle Flaum of Short Hills, a senior at Millburn High School, organized Save Our Soldiers — SOS — a group dedicated to securing the freedom of the three Israeli soldiers held captive by Hamas and Hizbullah since the summer of 2006.

Flaum testified before the New Jersey legislature in support of a resolution calling for the soldiers' release and addressed a rally at the United Nations on their behalf.

"I challenge you to find your own SOS — anything that you are passionate about," she said. "It is easy to get wrapped up in the material parts of our everyday lives. I believe our generation is committed to making the world a healthier, safer place."

After the five-hour session ended, Rubell said, "I wish I could tell you how I'm feeling. You have all of the kids cheering for each other. The way they listened to each other, they way they thanked me for the experience and for giving them the opportunity — it just makes this so worthwhile. I will sleep very well tonight with a big smile on my face."

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Participating schools

Central Middle School, Parsippany
Christopher Columbus Middle School, Clifton
Dover High School, Dover
Eisenhower Middle School, Succasunna
Long Pond Middle School, Andover
Mt. Olive Middle School, Budd Lake
Washington Middle School, Harrison

Local stories posted courtesy of the New Jersey Jewish News