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Learning from the Past
Wayne teacher Ernesto Diaz finds good stories in a dark time WRITTEN BY CINDYSCHWEICH HANDLER
New Jersey state law mandates that public school students in grades K-12 be taught about the Holocaust as aspringboard to conversations about prejudice , bigotry and bullying . At Passaic County Technical Institute in Wayne , teacher Ernesto Diaz , who co-wrote the curriculum , is wellsteeped in the subject .
In 2004 , he participated inthe Jewish Foundation for the Righteous ’ Alfred Lerner Fellowship program , attending aweek ofseminars about the Holocaust at Columbia University . And being aformer Fellow allowed him to be selected as one of JFR ’ s19middle and high school teachers and Holocaust personnel to join the organization ’ s 2017 European Study Program in Lithuania and Poland .
“ The Holocaust isnot just about Jews ,” Diaz , who hails from Colombia , South America , says . “ It could happen to any people from any society . InColombia , when Iwas young , the government used paramilitary forces to kill enemies ofthe state . The students at our school come from many parts ofthe world — they ’ re Syrian , Palestinian , Bangladeshi — and they ’ ve experienced dislocation and some type ofdestruction . Itry to focus onthe similarities , and how history repeats itself .”
The program was very rigorous , he says . JFR Executive Vice President Stanlee Stahl organized the trip , and noted history professors Sam Kassow and Peter Hayes led discussions over 11 days , guiding the group through their itinerary . After arriving in Vilnius , Lithuania , they toured the medieval Jewish quarter , the wooded site where 100,000 Jews were massacred by Nazi death squads and Lithuanian military forces , and the Kovno ghetto , where a Soviet monument to holocaust victims was erected . In Poland , they visited the former Bialystok ghetto , and Jedwabne , the site of a 1941 massacre of Jews , as well as Treblinka , the concentration camp where the Soviets created a museum during the Cold War .
“ That was the most powerful moment for me ,” Diaz says . “ It is so moving . The Nazis destroyed the buildings , so you only see rocks built as a monument to towns they destroyed .”
Though the trip was sobering , it was ultimately uplifting , too , in keeping with the JFR ’ s mission to financially support the 400 aged and needy non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust . The group took in Sugihara House , the
“ We learned how people put their own lives at risk to save others . The rescuers provided me with the human aspectof ahorrible chapter in human history .”
ERNESTO DIAZ
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site of the Japanese consulate in Kaunas , Lithuania , where the Japanese vice counsel saved 2,000 Jewish lives in 1940-1941 by issuing visas so they could escape . In Traki , capital of the grand duchy of Lithuania , they learned about a group of Jews known as the Karaites , an ancient sect exempted from the Nuremberg laws . A synagogue still stood in Tykocin , Poland .
“ We spoke to survivors who ’ re still alive ,” he recalls .“ One was 100 years old . And we met Christians who helped the Jews . We learned how people put their own lives at risk to save others .” Diaz says he will share the lessons he learned with his students . The stories show how individuals behaved with courage on behalf of others — a lesson students can remember when they witness bullying , and are called on to do the same . ■
COURTESY OFPASSAIC COUNTY TECHNICAL INSTITUTE
12 HOLIDAY 2017 WAYNE MAGAZINE