Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh seeds Crocus Project
In memory of children killed in the Holocaust
One might say that it was the luck of the Irish that led to the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh’s latest project.
As Emily Loeb, the HCOP’s director of programs and education, recounts, the center’s Marketing and Education Associate Julia Gaetano was doing research for a post about St. Patrick’s Day and Holocaust remembrance when she discovered the Holocaust Education Ireland and its Crocus Project, an initiative to have 1.5 million students, aged 10 and over, plant yellow crocus bulbs in memory of the children who died during the Shoah.
Loeb originally thought the project might be a good activity for area Girl Scout troops — the center was working to develop a Holocaust education patch — and this seemed like a good fit.
When Nick Haberman, founder of the LIGHT Education Initiative, mentioned the project independent of the research Gaetano had done, Loeb knew it was something the Holocaust Center needed to pursue.
“You know how things can sometimes come together?” Loeb asked. “This was one of those things.”
A transatlantic meeting was soon arranged between Loeb and HEI trustee Lynn Jackson.
Jackson told Loeb that while a few teachers have participated in the program in the United States, no organization had yet shown an interest.
“They had not had any formal participation,” Loeb said, “so, we’re the first Holocaust center in America to formally participate. We are piloting it.”
The HCOP purchased nearly 600 bulbs and is working with educators from 15 area schools.
“We have some that have put the bulbs in the ground and are done, others are planting in community gardens, some that are doing crocus bulbs in terra cotta pots in their classroom, some that are actually doing installations like on a football field, the scoreboard, and some that are doing yellow Jewish stars on their grounds,” Loeb said. “It’s wonderful to see the creativity going into it.”
Scott Vensel is an eighth grade literacy teacher at Fox Chapel Area School District’s Dorseyville Middle School.
The bulbs, he said, are planted in a recently renovated school courtyard.
“The beauty of the crocuses,” Vensel said, “is that they’ll be blooming in late January, early February and March, right when we’re researching and writing and reading about the topic.”
And while he’s still working on his final lesson plan, he said, students will be reading the play version of Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl” and “Night” by Elie Wiesel. They’ll also take part in a Holocaust assembly the school has held for the last 15 years.
The students, he said, “get it.” It’s his hope that the crocuses will spark even deeper introspection.
“Maybe they’ll see the crocuses and reflect on the lives that were lost,” he said.
Abbey Nilson is a science teacher at the Shaler Area High School who teaches a sustainability course.
She was asked if she wanted to participate in the project by the school’s librarian. Nilson immediately said yes, seeing a connection between the project and what she teaches.
“It’s about people,” she said.
Nilson works with the Millvale Community Development Corporation, which has been working on a community park they’ve named Rainbow Raccoon Park.
Forty students took a field trip to the park, she said, and planted the bulbs.
The students made a sign announcing the project to community members who use the park. A blind student even created a Braille message to make it more accessible.
As part of the lessons attached to the project, Nilson said the school had Lynn Ravas, a retired teacher whose father survived the Holocaust, talk to the students.
The students, Nilson said, were thrilled to participate in the project.
“They were immediately super excited to partake in it,” she said. “When Lynn was speaking, they had some great questions. They really embraced it.”
Seneca Valley Intermediate High School English teacher Michele Russo has a passion for Holocaust education. She has traveled to Poland with Classrooms Without Borders and is a Jewish Foundation for the Righteous Alfred Lerner Fellow. She also runs the school’s LIGHT Initiative Center.
“When Emily told me about the crocuses, I was like, ‘That is cool,’” she said.
Unlike Vensel or Nilson, though, Russo couldn’t plant the flowers outside because of construction taking place. So, instead the students will plant the bulbs in pots and place them in the LIGHT Initiative’s windows.
In addition to lessons about the Holocaust, Russo is also connecting the project to Grief Awareness Day. Students will paint flat stones and place them with the bulbs. Russo said even that lesson connects to Judaism, through the tradition of placing stones on tombstones in cemeteries.
The students will also read “Survivors Club: The True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz.”
The project will conclude with students taking part in the Holocaust Center’s Waldman Arts and Writing Competition.
Russo hopes the crocuses will begin to bloom as the students are starting the competition.
If all goes well, Russo said the flowers will be planted outside once construction is completed at the school and they’ll do the project again next year.
For the HCOP, the Crocus Project is the start of a busy period.
The organization will commemorate the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht on Nov. 10 with the program “Music in Theresienstadt: A Conversation with Anna Hájková.” The event connects the outbreak of public anti-Jewish violence in Nazi Germany with the cultural production in the Theresienstadt ghetto, where 140,000 inmates played, composed and listened to music.
On Nov. 14, “A Night of Hops and Hopes” takes place at Acclamation Brewery with Generations Speaker Debbie Stueber. The program will feature Pittsburgh musician Liz Berlin as a guest bartender.
On Nov. 20, the second “Reckoning with Antisemitism: Listening to Jewish Voices” program will take place, presented by Reckoning with Antisemitism as Christians, created in partnership with the Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania and the Holocaust Center.
“We have three totally interesting, different programs taking place,” Loeb said. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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