Leesburg Elementary Students Create Holocaust Garden
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
LEESBURG – Sixth-graders at Leesburg Elementary School were so moved by what they learned about the Holocaust that they wanted to do something to remember its victims.
To that end, the students in the sixth-grade classrooms of Teresa Jordan, Jason Roller and Nate Polston created a Holocaust Remembrance Garden behind the school.
“For the last couple of years, Jason Roller and I did a Holocaust unit,” said Jordan. “This was Polston’s first year as a sixth-grade teacher as he taught various different grades. Jason found a video called ‘Paper Clips’. In it, a school in Tennessee collected paper clips, one for each victim of the Holocaust. A lot of people got involved and sent the school paper clips, including celebrities. Our kids saw that and wanted to do something.”
At first, Jordan found a worksheet where students could draw on a tile what they thought about the Holocaust. Roller then suggested they use real tiles. They ran the idea by Principal Randy Dahms, and he told them to go for it. Walmart and Staples donated Sharpies® for students to use on the tiles.
On Special People’s Day in April, the sixth-graders created their art on the tiles. Some of the parents got excited about the project and donated money to help with the garden.
Needing to come up with more money for the plastic and gravel, the students ran a mobile mini-mart where kids could purchase healthy snacks and drinks after lunch.
“We made about $400,” Jordan said. “We also had parents who would donate $10 for their child to purchase snacks for others.”
Friday, the students laid down the plastic. The gravel was delivered and students began spreading it out for the remembrance garden. Once the gravel was down, the students put their tiles in place.
Jordan said the tiles will remain there for a year. Next year’s classes will put down theirs, and this year’s students can return and pick up theirs.
“We would love to hear from survivors of the Holocaust or family members of survivors of the Holocaust to be guest speakers next year,” Jordan said.
She said the Holocaust unit was intended to be six weeks, but because of the students’ interest in the subject, the unit lasted nine weeks. It not only covered the Holocaust, but World War II as well. The students read books about the Holocaust and watched videos like “The Kid in the Striped Pajamas,” “The Devil’s Arithmetic” and “The Wave.”
“The tiles truly were phenomenal because they told us teachers that the students really got it,” Jordan said.
One student’s tile uses imagery from the videos the classes watched. Many reference the number 6 million, the number of Jews who were murdered during WWII. Others state “In Loving Remembrance,” “Freedom” and “Never Forget.”
“We thought they did just an amazing job,” she said. “We’re so proud of them. They’ve been so excited about (the project).”
Each tile is 12 inches by 12 inches.
“Some of the students asked why we do this. We tell them that it’s through them that we’ll keep it from ever happening again. If they don’t know about it, they can’t prevent it,” Jordan said.
Parents also have been really supportive of the garden project, she said. Some even provided the shovels and wheelbarrows for the work on the garden.
“I think it’s cool to let people know we’ve been studying it and the Holocaust will never be forgotten,” said sixth-grader Madison Charlton.
“I remember most that it was just terrible that they tortured and killed them in a lof of different ways. It made me want to cry every time I thought about the Holocaust,” Joe Anderson, student, said.
Tommy Meier said he had his mom and dad help him with his tile. He put on it how the Jews probably felt, like pain, misery and injustice. He also put paper clips on his tile as a reference to the video.
“I remember most there were so many souls lost and families were torn apart. I would cry if I lost my family that way,” said Adora Gigous.
“I’ll be very proud (of the garden) because all the work is going into something we should never forget,” said Autumn Proudfoot.
“That so many people, so many Jews, to be exact 6 million, died,” Tyler Garza said of what he’ll never forget. “They were tortured in so many ways, it’s unthinkable.”
For his tile, Kyle Kuhn said, “I was trying to express the idea of what the Jews could have, would have thought to keep themselves fighting, to keep going on.”
“I’ll be very excited to come back and look at this (in the future),” said Jake Kaufman.
Kylie Rick said to teach the students about the Holocaust, teachers “showed us videos about how all the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals died. They explained to us how Hitler brainwashed the people, saying the Jews weren’t superior. They told us about it, they read books to us and showed us videos. It’s sad because they were people, too, and they didn’t deserve to die.”
Cheyenne Gibson said, “I think this is something to do because we are remembering the forgotten people and no one else is and it’s really cool to do that this year.”
On what he remembers most about the Holocaust unit, Elian Mejia said, “It’s real hard to say because we learned so much like 6 million Jews died and they were innocent. I don’t think that should happen to anyone because we are all different and no one should judge anyone else.”
