DIANE MAKAR MURPHY Pupils express feelings about the Holocaust

Delores Kirsch's pupils sit in neat rows, looking young and attentive. (I had forgotten how small sixth-graders are.)
"What did you think of this project?" I asked.
"It was sad. Sad and interesting," a couple of them said.
The Boardman Center Middle School pupils are holding white plates, which have just returned from a library showcase. For a month, these specially glazed plates halted Boardman library patrons and told them about Holocaust children.
"We read 'Number the Stars,' and as we got into it, we decided to do more," Kirsch said, referring to a novel about a Danish family that hides a Jewish girl from the Nazis. Using the Internet, the children each read a biography, then created a plate in memoriam of one child.
Comments: I asked them to write about the experience. Many echoed pupil Jamie Mulichak's comment. "It's important we learn about this because we've got to make sure that nothing like [it] ever happens again." But, I'll let them speak for themselves:
"It was very sad. A lot of kids lost their families. And it is sad that most kids had to go through that. It is amazing that some survived. They were lucky. But just thinking about it could make you cry." -- Michael Yatsco
"The child that I had was Natan Abbe. He was taken to the ghetto gate by the Nazis and was later shot to death in 1940 when he was 16. Natan was one of 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis." -- Paige Aron
"Baroulsh Bentitou and most of his friends and family were sent to Auschwitz and perished in gas chambers. He died just after his 13th birthday ... It hurts me to know that people want to hurt other people with a different religion." -- Dana Infante
"I thought it was sad because Alexander Hornermann died when he was only 8 years old." -- Hayley Sabo
"Lilly survived, and I'm happy she did. She was 17 years old and was very lucky ... Lilly was going to Auschwitz death camp, but the train tracks were bombed in an air raid, blocking the path. Instead, she went to Strasshoff concentration camp and was worked to exhaustion, but survived. ..." -- Danielle Williams
"It was very, very important to me because it made me realize how lucky me and my family are to have each other, food, shelter and many other things." -- Kimberlee Barrella
"It was sad because Ulrich Wolfgang Arnheim was murdered with his parents. Ulrich was a very good boy in school and smart ... You could feel what those kids went through." -- Trevor Donnelly
"It really touches you knowing that something so terrible happened to so many innocent people." -- Jamie Mulichak
"My person was Stella Klingerova, and she died in a death camp in Poland. She was 14 when she died." -- Samantha Valentini
"Eva Beem died in a death camp with her brother Abraham Beem. Eva Beem was only 11 years old when she died ... Eva Beem sounded like she was a very nice girl." -- Jessica Grizinski
"I think it was very sad that many children, such as Hans Ament, who were our age, had to go through this ... This was especially hurtful to me because I have a good friend who is Jewish, and I wouldn't want her to experience that." -- Jen Brown
"My person's name was Bronislaw Honig, and he got ... shot when he was only 5 years old. It is sad because he had such a nice life." -- Mark Planey
"My person ... was just 12 years old when he was sent to a concentration camp with his mother. When he got there he was injected with tuberculosis diseases. About a month later, all of the extremely ill children were put on a train and sent to a school in Hamburg where they were shot and hanged. ..." -- Katy Schmid
"I think it's important to learn this so that this won't happen again. If it does, it might not happen to the Jews; it could be Christians or Buddhists. ..." -- Greg Knight
"I remember that it was sad because the father of the child I wrote about was a tailor, and his store was always busy, and they shut the store. He couldn't make any money, and the family suffered. ..." -- Emily Lautner
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