Poland, personally
Although hate and injustice may not always look as devastating as the horrors of the Holocaust, our goal should remain the same: to speak up for each other.
After completing my second year as a high school English teacher, I was fortunate to participate in Classrooms Without Borders’ “Poland Personally” seminar. During our visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, I was asked to read at our candlelight memorial service.
The quote looked familiar; I realized that it was the same one that I photographed when I was a student 10 years ago visiting the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. It reads:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
— Martin Niemöller
As an adolescent, these words opened my eyes to the perils of staying silent, or even indifferent, in the face of injustice. How would I feel if I was being persecuted and there was no one left to speak for me? Or worse — they simply chose not to speak out because it did not affect them?
I also considered this quote’s extension to daily life and the importance of addressing hate or unkindness of any magnitude. Now that I am a teacher, this quote is even more significant to me as I carry the responsibility of demonstrating advocacy and kindness to my students and teaching them about what can happen if hatred is unaddressed.
Since returning to the United States, I’ve reflected and grappled with my experiences, but my main question remains: How do I use my voice to commemorate the lives lost and to denounce hate in any capacity, especially in the classroom?
This seminar provided me with countless experiences, all accompanied by a Holocaust survivor, Howard Chandler, which I can share with my students and integrate into my district’s Holocaust curriculum. This will preserve Howard and the millions of other victims’ memories
long after they are gone.
Visiting Jewish ghettos, Auschwitz I, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Majdanek, as well as Howard’s hometown with him transferred a responsibility to me to bear witness to his suffering to help my students feel more personally connected to events that took place before they were born.
As I reflect on this experience, the word “personally” has stuck in my mind. Going into this trip, I did not give much thought to the seminar’s name: “Poland Personally.” I assumed the “personal” aspect of Poland was to visit the sites of the Holocaust and bear witness so that I could deliver a firsthand account to my students.
But I came to realize that understanding this hatred’s relevance to the world today to speak out against present/future injustice is just as important as preserving the stories of Holocaust survivors, as well as those who perished. An educator at the seminar emphasized the importance of being proactive rather than reactive in teaching our students about hate and injustice in the world.
Being proactive minimizes the probability of hatred becoming catastrophic as it did during World War II. It prepares our students to respond to it. This personal connection adds to our individual responsibility to speak out for any victim of injustice, as Niemöller encourages us to do in the opening quote.
While at Treblinka, we had an unexpected opportunity to interact with a group of archaeologists and to watch Howard’s impromptu interview with a news team. After his interview, a seminar participant asked him if the death of his mother, sister, and father gave his life meaning and
purpose after the war. He responded that a true sense of purpose is to live a normal life — something that no victim of the Holocaust would be capable of doing. It is important to acknowledge the unfortunate amount of hatred present in the world today.
Although hate and injustice may not always look as devastating as the horrors of the Holocaust, our goal should remain the same: to speak up for each other and to allow each person to safely be their authentic self.
Each of us has a responsibility to stand up to hate and injustice wherever we see it. This seminar’s importance is immense, especially today. Sadly, this same sense of hatred that destroyed millions of stories 80 years ago is still present. Personal connection to narratives of others facing hate and oppression, and understanding just how dangerous this can be, will hopefully set the precedent for my students (and others in our lives) not to tolerate any hate or unkindness in a school setting or anywhere else.
At our core, we are all human beings worthy of respect, love and protection, no matter how our backgrounds or beliefs may differ. PJC
Carley Cavaliere is an English teacher at Avonworth High School.
comments