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Holocaust Inquiry Part 111: Our Journey
recipients: Lori Menning, New London High School, New London, Wisconsin
date: January 2015
After she participated in the New York City Summer Seminar, HEN educator Lori Menning developed a series of Holocaust education initiatives to bring important messages about social justice to her school. Lori, an ELL/Bilingual teacher at New London High School in New London, Wisconsin, began with an Adopt-a-Survivor program, then followed that up by creating a Holocaust inquiry curriculum. So when Lori’s class of bilingual seniors, veterans of her previous two Holocaust projects, approached her about organizing a third, she jumped at the opportunity. With a mini-grant from the Memorial Library, she launched “Our Journey,” which gave the seniors a chance to expand their own knowledge in the months before graduation, but also to leave behind a meaningful legacy at the school.
Participants, actively recruited by senior project leaders through an awareness campaign, first read the bilingual version of Ragdolls, a Holocaust memoir by Henry Golde, the school’s adopted survivor. Golde, who had visited New London before, returned to share his story with the entire school. Project leaders also presented mini-lessons to give fellow students a better understanding of the Holocaust, and produced a book of student writing and interviews about the impact of Holocaust study on the individual. “Our Journey” culminated in a trip to the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie, Illinois, where students toured the exhibits, engaged in an educational program, and heard the testimony of a Holocaust survivor.
“This was their initiative to increase Holocaust awareness in their school,” says Lori proudly of her seniors. “They have already learned that knowledge is the key to preventing a future genocide.”