Holocaust Remembrance

Twenty-eight students from Grades 7 and 8 travelled to the United Nations on November 9, 2017  to participate in a Holocaust Remembrance event focusing both on Anne Frank and the stories of other war-time diarists.

The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect led the day’s first student activity by screening a 28-minute film, Short Life of Anne Frank, to introduce students to Anne’s life. The film was followed by a brief discussion on Anne and the emotions and experiences she passed through while in hiding. While expressing hopelessness and desperation, the young Anne never completely lost her faith in humanity. The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme led the second student activity with a discussion to help students learn about the refugee crisis today and its impact by reading excerpts from other writers who were desperate to escape persecution. For more info on the day's events, click here.

Teacher Craig Saslow, who helped organize the trip for the Friends students, said a selection of Friends Seminary students spoke (very articulately and well) to the audience of 500+, while a few gave interviews (in Spanish and French) to UN Radio. "All students seemed to really engage well with the difficult content," Craig said. "And, they represented the school very nicely, especially since most of the other attendees were high schoolers."