Catholic, Jewish teens bond on trip to Holocaust Museum
January 26th, 2006

Special to NJ Jewish News
by Norm Oshrin

The students filed into the social hall of the Daniel Pearl Education Center at Temple B’nai Shalom early Tuesday evening, Jan. 17. Quietly. No teenage chatting or high jinks. Their mood was reflective, even somber — a mindset fitting the occasion.

The 50 or so youngsters from B’nai Shalom and St. Bartholomew’s Roman Catholic Church, both in East Brunswick, were there to talk and reminisce about their visit a day earlier to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. There were 75 in all on the trip — 45 from the temple, 30 from the church.

“It was our first try at this,” said Daniel Boyarsky, chair of the Pearl Center committee, before the official program, as he sat in Rabbi Eric Milgrim’s study. “We always wanted to have some type of program, a major interfaith activity, to teach tolerance.

“It couldn’t have worked out better,” he said. The program was initiated when Milgrim reached out to church officials — who, he said, reacted enthusiastically.

“It was a perfect fit,” agreed Rebecca Brenowitz, a congregant who supervised the organization of the event.

Milgrim shared Boyarsky’s assessment of the program.

“It was so magnificent, successful, so moving. Only a day away, we already are looking back at this historic moment,” he said.

Later, he told students seated in the social hall how the program was meant to perpetuate the legacy of Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered in 2002 by Muslim extremists in Pakistan.

Later, with gentle prodding by David Litt, a member of the Pearl Center committee, the youngsters shared their thoughts on the day. As students gave their responses, more than one said, “I felt like I was actually there.”

“I couldn’t imagine something like that happening,” said Jennifer Rollman, a B’nai Shalom eighth-grader, following the half-hour discussion session. “I remember I was moved. I felt like I was there.”

Other B’nai Shalom students offered comments. Rachel Gala recalled a film she saw at the museum. “I saw this picture of a boy, she said. “His skin looked like he was dead. He was still alive, but probably was going to die in the next day or so. It was depressing.”

Leah Schleifer was puzzled by how “people followed the Nazis so blindly.”

She also recalled seeing “the shoes, so many shoes,” of the youthful victims and “the yards and yards of [victims’] hair. It showed how many people were killed.”

Jacob Sachs compared the trip to the stories he heard directly from survivors. “Seeing it [in person] is a lot different than seeing it in textbooks,” he said. “I couldn’t fathom how cruel the camps were. In the end, when the camps were liberated, the victims were piled up like trees.”

Wearing a “Never Again” button, Chelsea Gohn called the Nazi persecution and slaughter of the Jews “so barbaric. It’s hard to think of how someone could think of doing something like that…of ways to do it.”

Maria Leonard, principal of St. Bartholomew’s religious school, was effusive in praising the experience. “We felt it was excellent all around,” she said.

“Not only did our children have an enjoyable time, but it was a wonderful learning experience. It was a perfect follow-up to what we promote in our educational program” — which, she said, includes the Holocaust and learning about different religions.

Leonard described how, before the program began, some of her students immediately walked over to the wall that had a list of survivors and read off names. “They were surprised at how many involved were teenagers, young people. That’s why it’s important to reach out to the young.”

Eighth-grader Ann Marie Maligranda remembered most vividly “all the shoes they collected and hair they chopped off.” Two of her classmates — Erica Lorenzon and Cathy Kribos — meanwhile, emphasized how they identified with the youthful Holocaust victims.

It was “the youth rallies” that moved and frightened Erica — “When all the teenagers rallied for Hitler.” Added Cathy: “How children our age were being persuaded to follow Hitler, because they didn’t know any better.”

She took it a step further, comparing then to now.

“They separated Jews from others,” she said. “Now, we are all just kids and friends.”

“They really got into it,” observed Pam Bransdorfer, B’nai Shalom’s congregational president, who accompanied the students on the trip. “It was nice to see how they all got along together.”

And the bonding was only part of it, said Milgrim. The youngsters came out of the experience understanding how evil existed “and exists in this world today and what can we do about it. It’s not just important to be tolerant of one another, but respectful of one another.”