TEENS TACKLE GENOCIDE, HOLOCAUST ISSUES
By Nathan Whelan-Morin
Bristol Press
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June 26 2009
CT
BRISTOL — "You learn or you die," said Peter Stern. This was his
childhood.
Stern told a Bristol Public Library gathering Thursday the story of
his growing up as a Jew during the Holocaust. His talk was part of the
Teen Advisory Board’s Holocaust Memorial and Genocide Awareness Day.
Stern was contacted through the Holocaust Child Survivors of
Connecticut.
The exhibit featured posters, photos, poems, quotes and books about
genocide. The posters enumerated many genocides across the globe,
including those in China, Burundi, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia,
Armenia, and Rwanda, as well as the current crisis in Darfur. Visitors
expressed themselves with a button-making station. Questions about
genocide adorned the walls.
The library also screened "Paperclips," a movie about a rural Tennessee
school that collected six million paper clips to represent the Jews
killed in concentration camps.
"There are thousands of genocides we tend to ignore," Stern said,
noting that the U.S.’s relationship with the indigenous population was
"not that good."
Stern also pointed out that many indigenous populations no longer
exist to keep their memories alive.
He felt that we are more aware of the Holocaust than other genocides
because of guilt. "It was such an embarrassment for all the countries
that hadn’t done anything beforehand," he said, specifically citing
the U.S.
Stern told of his time in a notorious ghetto in Riga, Latvia. Even
outside the camps every day was dangerous.
"People were being shot all the time," he said. Stern was 5 years old.
Stern’s father eventually died in Buchenwald. Stern and his family
were hidden for a time because his father had once saved a Nazi
general. To this day, he does not know why.
"That’s one of the questions I’ve always had," he said.
Nazis found Stern and his family and they were sent to Ravensbruck
Concentration Camp for a year. They survived the horrors of the camp,
but even liberation wasn’t the end of hardship for everyone.
"We were in bad shape," he said. He and his family had to be nursed
back to health for six months.
Others were even less fortunate. English and American soldiers gave
out their K rations to the starving prisoners when they liberated
them. Little did they know, the sharp change in diet actually killed
some.
Stern and his family returned to Nuremberg in Germany, but later
moved to the United States. He learned English when he was 11.
Stern likes to help students.
"There is a curiosity and a lack of guilt," he said.
The students’ efforts impressed Susan Theriault, a Young Adult
librarian who works with the Teen Advisory Board. "I am blown away,"
she said. "They did so much more than I expected."
Theriault admits she was nervous in the beginning because she wasn’t
sure the project would take off. Now she knows what the students
can do.
"They seem to like to do service projects," she said.
The exhibit also impressed Stern.
"I loved it," he said. "I think they did a beautiful job."
He also felt the students’ dedication said a lot about the library
and their teachers.
School inspired Liz Hanan, a junior at Bristol Eastern, to make the
presentation.
"Our teacher showed us a clip of these kids working on a project,"
she said. She asked herself why she couldn’t do the same. "Night"
by Elie Wiesel and "The Sunflower" by Simon Wiesenthal pushed her to
learn more about genocide.
When she began research, she was surprised at the number of genocides
she hadn’t learned about.
"It took us three months to get the posters done," she said.
Hanan said she spent five hours at the library most nights. Other
students helped her.
Kyle Donahue worked on the presentation.
"I wanted to learn about the other genocides there were," he
said. "Everyone put their time in and it came out really great."
Tess Clark came to the library Thursday with her family to see the
exhibit.
"I knew there was more than one [genocide] but I didn’t know how many,"
she said.
"It is something that has happened too often for far too long,"
Stern said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
