Promotional Video

The project is now ready for students.  We ran a pilot last year and I am hoping that the learning and power of this project can continue.

This video was created with the help of Sophie Dopheide from the Netherlands who did the amazing voice work.

Show Them the Light

Description
A few of the thousands of wedding rings the Germans removed from their victims to salvage the gold. U.S. troops found rings, watches, precious stones, eyeglasses, and gold fillings, near Buchenwald concentration camp. Germany, May 5, 1945. T4c. Roberts. (Army)
NARA FILE #: 111-SC-206406
WAR & CONFLICT BOOK #: 1130
I am about to make a presentation to my colleagues and supervisors. I thought it would be helpful to perhaps write down my presentation first to make sure it has what I need to persuade a group that is highly tech savvy, yet probably as pessimistic of any group as to the merits of this project. Here goes:

To understand this project you must understand its motivation, its genesis. To do that, I have created a one slide presentation. Yes, one slide. One slide...one title... one picture says it all.
This picture is of a box of rings: Rings taken from Holocaust victims at Buchenwald concentration camp. At first blush you may look at the picture and think, "Wow, those are a lot of rings". You may reflect further, that it is by extension, a lot of victims. Yet, what this project is really all about.... essentially about, is that the rings represent so much more. Many of us have rings. With few exceptions rings are a token of wonderful things, weddings, friendships, anniversaries, loved ones past. During our quietest moments we think of our rings and reflect on these good memories and times. They are our hopes, dreams, and happy times. Yet here in this picture, we see a box of rings, but don't we see more? When we think deeply about this picture we come to understand that here lies peoples hopes and dreams.... shattered, by a hatred and cruelty that is STILL hard to fathom.

You see, to understand history, to love history, to appreciate all its meaning and nuances, we must see into it. We must look into history through our own minds eye.

And that, is what this project is all about.

It is about not just learning about the Holocaust, but as the title suggests, Understanding the Holocaust.
It is my wholehearted belief that by giving kids the tools to view history simulations through a virtual environment, that it will give them one more level of understanding as to the context and minds eye view that is essential to deeper understanding, and by extension, the higher order understandings of compassion, of bias, of bullying, of power, of leadership, and on and on.

I'm going to show you the elements of the project, but before I do, let me finish this one slide presentation with a quote that I came across from watching television on a rainy Saturday. To quote from the movie, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium,

"Unlikely adventures, require unlikely tools"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457419/quotes?qt=qt0429664


I present... the Understanding the Holocaust Project.

Understanding the Holocaust using Virtual Environments

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Understanding the Holocaust using Virtual Environments

View more presentations from WNYRIC.

Rebuilding in a Virtual World

And so building begins....

The Tree

The tree outside the Anne Frank Annex

This is a picture of the tree that stood outside the Secret Annex.  Anne mentioned it several times in her diary.  One such quote from February, 1944, "Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs. From my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind. As long as this exists, ... and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies - while this lasts I cannot be unhappy." The simplicity of a tree.  How often we look upon them and think nothing.  Yet this tree for Anne gave a view of the nature and freedom that she so longed for.  This tree, like the shoes at the U.S. Memorial Holocaust Museum symbolizes such powerful imagery.

Sadly, this tree finally succumbed to nature and fell after 150 years of dedicated life.  Another reminder I suppose of life's circle.  It seems as though another piece of Anne has departed.  But hopefully its imagery will inspire more hope, more dedication to our efforts to help end human suffering from hatred.

Let us plant a new tree...  that will grow and continue to reach for a sun of human kindness.

And so it begins...

Maybe a wrong can be righted in a small step forward.... here's to hoping.

August 4th

August 4th, 1944, Anne Frank was taken from the secret Annex, betrayed by an unknown informant.  Her diary, left behind, will no longer tell of the hopes, dreams, frustrations, and momentary happiness of a young girl in hiding.  One can only imagine the terror, drudgery, and hardship that must follow Anne, leading to her death of Typhus in March of 1945 in Bergen Belson. 

When I told a friend about the bitter anniversary this day is, she replied, "Well it makes my problems seem pretty small".  And so it does for so many of us, doesn't it?

The bread crumbs that Anne left us are so powerful.... yet where they ended tells us such a horrific tale.

From this day on, I vow to remember August 4th as a day of tragedy.  And hope to inspire kids to listen to her tale from the diary and beyond.