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Author shares Holocaust diaries with Center students
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Author Alexandra Zapruder visited Boardman Center Middle School on April 23 to speak to the school about her book "Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust." Zapruder read selections from the diaries of teenagers and young adults in the Holocaust during her visit to BCMS, sharing the stories of some writers who survived and others who did not.
By SARAH FOOR
Since January, Boardman Center Middle School teacher Jesse McClain and his students have explored the Holocaust through many different kinds of literature.
During a visit to the school on April 23, author Alexandra Zapruder added a new dimension to the work of McClain and his students as she presented her research on the writings of children throughout the Holocaust for her book “Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust.”
During her presentation, Zapruder said she started researching Holocaust diaries in 1992, starting with arguably the most famous, “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
“As I found more diaries, I was amazed at how interesting, powerful, poignant and unique each work was. Every writer had already found their own voice, at very young ages, and this came through in each word,” Zapruder explained.
Zapruder read a collection of excerpts from the diary of Yitskhok Rudashevski, who wrote from the Vilna ghetto in Lithuania before his death in 1943.
However, the author said a common theme ran throughout much of the writings she found in her research.
“The children often wrote about hunger and shame; they looked at impossible moral situations that they faced in order to survive. I call them the ‘impossible choices,’ but I think that when we face them, we find out who we really are,” Zapruder said.
McClain said the reading of “Salvaged Pages” and the visit by Zapruder was important to his students.
“When the students read the stories of these children, with many being close to their age, it resonates with them. I think it also teaches that at any age, in any generation, the best way to share our feelings is to write,” the teacher said.