Diversity Club goes to Holocaust Museum

On Monday April 30, the Diversity Club took a trip to Washington D.C. to visit the Holocaust museum. The purpose of the trip was to educate the students on the history of the Holocaust and show the effect it has left.

Eighth grade teacher, Kristin Fazio, organizes the Diversity Club and their trip to the Holocaust museum.

“The Celebrate Diversity Organization has been taking students to the National Holocaust Museum for the past 24 years. The museum demonstrates how prejudices and hatred against groups of people could lead to a genocide and what we can do as humans to stop this,” Fazio said.

The Holocaust museum contains many rooms that have memorials and exhibits that display actual clothes, names and shoes of those who died in the concentration camps.

“My favorite part of the museum is the Remembrance Room where all the different names of the Concentration Camps are shown and people can light candles to commemorate the lost lives at these camps during the Holocaust,” Fazio said.

Seventh, eighth and some ninth graders go on this trip. members are only permitted to go if they attended each of the diversity meetings throughout the year. There’s a new experience at the museum every year.

“This year we were able to talk to two different Holocaust survivors. I think that students listening to accounts first hand was the most educational and inspiring part of the trip,” Fazio said.

Ninth grader, Reece McManamy, was given the opportunity to attend the trip to the Holocaust museum for the first time.

“When I went I learned how horrible the Holocaust really was. It was a realization of how cruel the Germans were to the Jewish people and showed me how much of an impact it has left on our world,” McManamy said.

With all the rooms in the museum, everyone tends to pick a favorite.

“I like the picture hallway; you get the chance to see how many people were involved, and it is just crazy to think that something like this happened in history,” McManamy said.

Although this was McManamy’s first year in diversity, he stated that he enjoyed being in the club.

“I recommend more people doing diversity, I like it a lot, over the course of a year you actually learn stuff that you might not have known before,” McManamy said.

The museum gives students the chance to get a glimpse into the history of the Holocaust. Seventh or eighth grader students can check out joining the diversity club next year for the opportunity to attend this field trip. If anyone is looking for something to do this summer check out the Holocaust museum website to get tickets.

Gallery • 2 Photos

Reece McManamy

A big poster stands in the one room of the Holocaust museum, it is a map showing where the Germans had expanded to during the Holocaust. Photo by Gianna Ciavarella