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Lesson will look at the effects of the Holocaust on its most innocent victims

Courtesy Xochitl Mora, 

(Laredo, TX – August 27, 2010)  The Laredo Public Library’s Wall of Tolerance Center & Museum continues to explore the topic of genocide in the 20^th century; specifically, the Holocaust and the extermination of six million Jews by the Nazis.  The next lesson will be “The Children” and will take place on Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. at the Laredo Public Library, HEB Multi-Purpose Room, located at 1120 E. Calton Road. 

 The purpose of this lesson is for students to understand the effects of the Holocaust on its most innocent victims – the children – since targeting babies and children was an important step in the attempt of the Nazis to erase the Jews and their future.  The Nazi belief that they needed to murder babies and children was central to their racial ideology.  This ideology claimed that Jews were guilty of ruining the world the minute that they were born or even conceived and therefore they should not be “allowed” to live.  The murder of children is characteristics of genocides – it is the most effective way to ensure the destruction of a group. 

 Full statistics for the tragic fate of children who died during the Holocaust will never be known.  It is estimated that 1.5 million Jewish children and youth were murdered.  In addition, tens of thousands of Sinti-Roma children and thousands of children institutionalized with mental and physical disabilities were murdered.  With the onset of war, Jewish children in occupied Poland and later throughout Europe were confined with their families in overcrowded ghettos and transit camps, exposed to malnutrition, disease, exposure and early death.  Nazi persecution, arrests and deportations were directed against all members of Jewish families, as well as many Sinti-Roma families, without concern for age.  Most children upon arrival at extermination camps were selected to be put to death immediately.  Not only in the camps, but in the ghettos, in hiding and in all of occupied Europe, Jewish children were often the first to die.

 In this lesson, students will also research post-Holocaust genocides and analyze children’s rights violations.  In addition, students will be provided an opportunity to develop a position on whether an event the magnitude of the Holocaust could happen again and to consider the role and responsibility of the individual in seeing that it does not. 

 Anyone wishing to participate in the Wall of Tolerance Center educational lessons is welcome to attend.  The lessons are free and one only need to take an open mind and heart, and possibly, a tissue, to the classes.  Students of all ages are welcome; however, because of the nature of the topic, parents should consider the maturity of the child before allowing them to attend.  After the lesson, questions and topics for discussion will be posed and attendees will discuss. There are no tests or projects tied to the lessons, nor is attendance at every lesson required.  However, these lesson are scheduled so that as many people can attend and participate.  While most of the lessons will be conducted in English, accommodations will be made to those who speak Spanish and would like to participate, as well.

These lessons are also developed to spark conversations and dialogue in the Laredo community.  The lessons are the first outreach of the Wall of Tolerance Center & Museum, which will house, for its first exhibit, artifacts and memorabilia related to the Holocaust.

For more information, please contact Pam Burrell at the Laredo Public Library at (956 0795-2400, x2268.