
Hella shows students the serial number tattooed on her arm, inflicted upon her while in Auschwitz. PHOTOS COURTESY OF MANATEE MIDDLE SCHOOL
As the Holocaust Museum of Southwest Florida’s traveling boxcar made its way to Manatee Middle school, eighth grade students were busy preparing a Holocaust Museum of their own. During the week of May 7th, students and their families visited not only the boxcar, but also a museum made up of unique projects by the eighth grade class.
“During eighth grade Language Arts, the students spend a unit focusing on the Holocaust. Most of our eighth graders have read ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ and have done some research by reading ‘The Boy in

Hella and Heinz Wartski sign autographs for the students.
Another class studied the

Hella visits the Holocaust museum made by eighth grade Manatee students.
“The projects are a culmination of literature study. It’s also a cross-curricular activity throughout the entire eighth grade,” adds Siers. Eighth graders learn the history of the Holocaust through

Hella and Heinz Wartski, Holocaust survivors, spoke to Manatee eighth graders on Monday, May 7th.
The students also heard survivors of the Holocaust speak. “Hella and Heinz Wartski came in on Monday to speak with the students,” explains Siers. Both survivors of the Holocaust, Hella and her entire family were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Hella and her two older sisters survived, but the rest of her family perished in the death camp. Heinz and his family escaped to Italy, where

Hella greets students after the assembly.
Students were in awe of the couple’s harrowing stories of survival. The 200-plus eighth graders sat in pure silence as the Wartski’s shared their experience. “You could hear a pin drop,” adds Siers.
During the presentation, Sara Gottwalles, Education Program Manager of The Holocaust Museum of Southwest Florida, also spoke with the

Hella stressed the importance of staying in school to the eighth grade class.
The Boxcar, itself, echoes the sentiment of genocide throughout time. Posters lined the boxcar, describing the term, “genocide,” along with atrocities similar to the Holocaust. A Polish-Jewish lawyer by the name, Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide in 1944 from “the Greek

This poster, from the Holocaust Museum, shows people boarding a boxcar, just like the one parked in front of the school.
Other posters outlined genocides from across the world. Countries such as Bosnia, Rwanda, Guatemala, Paraguay and Darfur, Sudan have experienced genocides since the Holocaust.
Prior to the Holocaust, millions of American Indians were murdered during the European settlement of North America. They were removed from their land, forced on death marches

Hella and Heinz Wartski address the eighth grade class.
During World War I, over 1.5 million Armenians were murdered by the Turkish government. According to the boxcar’s poster, “Using forced marches and the newly established Istanbul-Baghdad railway, the government deported hundreds of thousands of Armenians from their homes into the Syrian desert, where they were left without shelter, food or water. Hitler used the lack of outrage about Armenia as his justification for the invasion of Poland in 1939; ‘who after all, speaks today of the

Dr. Seuss was an advocate for speaking out against isolationism and injustice.
Today, the boxcar speaks of the Armenians, Native Americans and the Jews. It tells the story of the killings of millions of people around the world due to indifference. As students throughout Southwest Florida have a chance to see the traveling boxcar and hear from survivors like the Wartski’s, the message of hope begins to spread. Through education and involvement, students at Manatee Middle School will be able to say that they are no longer indifferent to these sufferings.
- Dr. Seuss was an advocate for speaking out against isolationism and injustice.
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