AUGUST 25 • 2022 | 21 was like to endure a hot day. I was not prepared to have those (testimonies) coming back at me. It was very overwhelming. ” In Warsaw, the group toured the Nożyk Synagogue — the only pre-war synagogue in the city to survive the war — which was used as a stable by the Nazis. “ As we toured this synagogue and touched the very bricks where Jews lived and prayed for hun- dreds of years, I thought about the Jewish families and the generations that should have come after them that were lost, ” Sepetys said. “I felt this sense of obligation to make students understand that these cities were such important centers of Jewish life, that there was all this life before the Holocaust. ” Sepetys said the painstaking efforts to preserve artifacts in Auschwitz contrasted with what little remains of the original footprint of the Warsaw ghetto. Remnants of the ghetto’s walls meld into apartment buildings where today’s residents of Warsaw now live out their lives. “The residents of these apartments know they are living in the footprint of the Warsaw ghetto because visitors like us frequently walk by on tours, ” Sepetys said. “But that’s how people live there now. I looked down at my feet and there were sewer grates, where Jews hid below from the Nazis. Now people just walk past them without giving it much thought. There were no signs or any markers explaining that this was the place where Jews hid. ” Sepetys received educational tools to supple- ment her teaching, but she hopes her own photos and vivid memories will inspire her students to engage with the material and not forget. EDUCATING THE NEXT GENERATION In 2020, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany released an unprece- dented 50-state survey about Holocaust knowl- edge among Millennials and Gen Z, revealing that 63% of respondents had no knowledge that 6 mil- lion Jews were murdered during WWII. Thirty- six percent thought the number of Jews murdered was “2 million or fewer, ” and 48 percent could not name a concentration camp. Beginning in the 2016-2017 academic year, Michigan mandated that public school students beginning in the eighth grade in their social studies curriculum should receive grade-appro- priate instruction about genocide, including the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. The legislature recommends a combined total of six hours of this instruction during grades 8-12. Sepetys surveys her students at the beginning of each semester to see how familiar they are with the Holocaust. While many claim to know a great deal about the subject, she advises them there is always something new to learn. “I begin each semester by telling my students how long I have been teaching and reading about the Holocaust, and I’m only beginning to scratch the surface. I tell them that every survivor tes- timony is unique. Every survivor has their own story to share and each one is important. ” To Sepetys, it is vital for her students to under- stand not only the atrocities that happened in the ghettos and the concentration camps, but also the centuries of Jewish culture and life the Nazis destroyed in a very short amount of time. As she approaches the new school year, Sepetys wants to impress upon her students that the Holocaust only ended in the concentration camps but began years before with carefully planned propaganda and scapegoating against the Jews. “Most of my kids have heard of the Holocaust, ” Sepetys said. “What surprises them most is the history of antisemitism in Europe, the amount of propaganda and how much effort went into scapegoating the Jews to a point that genocide was committed against them. It’s important for them to have that backstory. ” West Bloomfield High teacher tours Poland as an Auschwitz Legacy Fellow. Jennifer Sepetys in a court- yard filled with arches where a scene from the movie Schindler's List was filmed Remnant of the Warsaw Gehtto wall at 62 Zlota Street The white button in the rubble that moved Jennifer Sepetys to tears. The Nozyk Synagogue in Warsaw