Julie Taggart,
SEELB Advisory Officer for
History, addresses the Board
members of 'Facing History and
Ourselves' during their visit to
Friends' School, Lisburn.
A SURVIVOR of the Holocaust and a man involved in the
liberation of a Nazi concentration camp have told pupils at
Friends School of their experiences.
The two Americans were members of an 88 strong group from a
project entitled 'Facing History and Ourselves' which offers an
online campus, which is used as part of the school's History
Syllabus.
Their talks, which everyone present found
'amazing and very emotional', came after the visitors watched
two Powerpoint presentations about the pupils' response to the
course.
Since February all Year 10 pupils at Friends
have been studying events in Germany under Hitler and the Nazi
Party.
Having already read novels connected with the
Holocaust in English classes during Years Eight and Nine they
had some knowledge of the basic facts.
The course concentrated on the issue of why
the Holocaust was allowed to happen.
The young people learned it was not only Jews
who were persecuted by the Nazis - others suffered horribly too.
Year 10 also looked at how after the Second World War the United
Nations was created and a list of basic rights was drawn up that
would apply to the world's entire population.
In Citizenship classes they looked at these
rights in more detail and found it reassuring that nothing so
terrible would ever be allowed to happen again.
However, their reassurance was short lived when
the final part of the History project led the pupils to the
computer rooms where they had to search for information about
two countries: Rwanda and Darfur.
They were shocked to discover the Holocaust
wasn't the last time man's inhumanity to man was expressed in
violence. It is still happening.
neil.greenlees@jpress.co.uk
Ulster Star
27/06/2008
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