Last week, speakers bureau member Marie-Anne Harkness spoke to students at Charles Wright Academy in Tacoma. Several days later she received the following letter from one of the students:
Dear Marie Anne,
Thank you so much for taking the time to come to our school and teach us about your family's experiences. Hearing the story of your grandmother Celine was enthralling, and it provoked me to ask question of myself and of the rest of the world. You explained that Celine thought it was normal to save all those Jews and that she saw no choice but to do so, but so many others in Paris at the time thought that it was perfectly normal to turn in their very own Jewish neighbors to the Gestapo. I asked you about this, and you replied that some people just aren't very naturally empathetic. I asked you if empathy could be taught, and you said yes, and that this was the reason why you shared your story with classes like ours. Hearing that seemed to have completed for me the "puzzle" of the Holocaust, and why everyone should study History. In the days since your visit and our class discussions about the Holocaust rescuers, I have felt a stronger moral obligation to stand up for what is wrong that society has accepted nonetheless. So far, I have taken some small steps to improve the world around me. I have been standing up to someone who has been bullying my friend and calling out those who use derogatory language. I have always known these behaviors to be wrong, but the courage to do something about it has been in a sort of locked box inside of me. Your talk helped me open that box. Thank you so much for teaching my classmates and me such an important lesson.
Love,
Hayley
Bingo! Hayley nailed it: Holocaust education at its best is the key that opens that locked box inside us and gives us the courage and empathy and agency--jewels we forgot we own--to do what we know is right. Yay Hayley! Yay Marie-Anne!
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