Not every kid gets a chance to query an author or peek at personal mementoes of someone they’ve read about, but some Grade 6 and 7 students in Toronto had the opportunity on Tuesday at an event marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Dozens gathered at the Toronto District School Board’s headquarters — while others in the area watched a livestream — for a conversation with Kathy Kacer about her book To Hope and Back, which recounts for younger audiences the 1939 voyage of the St. Louis, a ship of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany ahead of the Second World War.
The ship was refused entry by multiple nations, including Canada, before being forced to return to Europe.
“I read a lot when I was your age, and older,” Kacer told the crowd of youngsters. “But when I read about the St. Louis many, many years ago, it just stayed in my mind as one of those important, pivotal stories … This is one story I knew I was going to write at some point.”
Kacer’s book explores the tale from the eyes of two children who were on the voyage — Lisa and Sol — based on historical research and her interviews with the two survivors decades later.
Lisa — Lisa Avedon — has since passed away. But her daughter Madeline Avedon and granddaughter Talia Mirkin were also on hand to share their personal stories about black-and-white photos, a well-worn children’s book, a beloved chair and a sturdy trunk that made the voyage with Lisa and have been lovingly preserved in their family.
Students queried the trio on a wide array of topics: from what food the passengers ate to how long the trip lasted since the St. Louis was turned away from port after port.
Responding to that curiosity in a school setting is important, since many students now learn about the Holocaust through social media, says Marilyn Sinclair, founder of Liberation 75, a Holocaust education group that has sent free copies of Kacer’s book to schools throughout Ontario.
“When you have an event where the kids all come together, you get to hear what they’re really concerned about, what are the questions that are on their minds. And in doing so, when you see them so inquisitive, they stimulate conversation with other kids. We want them talking about these difficult subjects,” Sinclair said.
In the past four years, seven provinces and territories announced Holocaust education would be compulsory in the curriculum, though most put the lessons in high school and a few have yet to implement them. Liberation 75 is among those who believe learning about the Holocaust and antisemitism can start in Grade 6, when students are shaping their social development and critical thinking.
When one young participant asked Kacer about ensuring accuracy in her story, for instance, “they are questioning whether something is real, credible and can be trusted. And we really want our students to think that way,” Sinclair said.
Similarly, at the Toronto Holocaust Museum, elementary students learn through age-appropriate first-person stories, according to executive director Dara Solomon.
“They’re really too young to start learning about the details of the concentration camps and the atrocity in that way,” she said. “Instead, they’re really learning about Holocaust survivors who experienced that atrocity and made their way to Canada and how Canada responded to the war and to the Holocaust.”
“It’s important for students to learn through that history how they can be responsible citizens and what they do when they see hateful things, and to also be able to wade through all the misinformation online that they’re seeing in social media.”
Getting to see artifacts up close and hearing from Lisa’s daughter and granddaughter makes the book more tangible and helps with modern-day connections, says TDSB teacher Sharon Alexander, who attended with several of her Grade 6 classes.
“We’re getting farther and farther away from these events and yet they’re closer and closer to what’s happening,” in the world today, Alexander said. Hate is on the rise and students are “sort of inundated with this horrible news on social media all the time.”
Hearing about the real-life Lisa, “you kind of understand [the story] more and it feels a lot more like it’s actually happened,” said student Sadie Krzyzanowski.
Tuesday’s event also helped crystalize the message for another student.
“We need to treat everyone as equals because we are all equals. Nobody’s better than somebody else,” said Elia Kim.
“The world has become better in the sense that we … have learned to become a little less racist, treat people more like equals. But there’s still more racism and things like that in the world.”
