Ghetto Talk: The Holocaust and Urban Youth

In the last week before winter break, my class fought the Battle of the Bulge, morally justified or condemned dropping the A-bomb, criticized/idolized Eisenhower, and then learned about the Holocaust. Only three students, in response to my warm-up question of “Why is it necessary to remember the Holocaust?”, asked, “What’s the Holocaust?”

We started out building on their prior knowledge about propaganda with looks at Nazi anti-semitic posters. We talked a lot, in that intro, about why anti-semitism exists, and what Jews believe, and whether Jews are white or what (a “white power” sign with a swastika had them confused—are you white, Ms. W? Erm, not really sure, kids. To you I am, but let’s find your rural Southern peers and ask them what they think). All questions to which I have no very satisfactory answers. Then we began drawing the obvious parallels between the Nuremberg Laws and segregation.

Next slide: Ghetto: segregated Jewish neighborhood.

Ghetto!

I don’t like that word.

Yo, I’m G!

So, when we say someone’s “G,” we’re calling them a Jewish neighborhood?!

I was stymied. First I threw out the kid who responded to the girl who doesn’t like “ghetto” by asking, “why, does it remind you of home?” Then I started saying something about the sociological implications of transferring the word “ghetto” from Europe where it was applied to the most loathed dregs, the Jewish scapegoats of European bigotry, and slapping it on the dilapidated neighborhoods that minorities in America are relegated to. I stopped—I couldn’t pass it through the academic jargon into their language, nor think of a way to say it that would provide any meaningful next step.

The kid who did her Holocaust memorial butterfly in Christmas colors-- hehe

The rest of class, as I taught deeply interested students about the concentration camps and Final Solution, I chewed over the parallels between Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews and contemporary America’s damning of poor children of color to segregated schools that are in so many ways simply fast tracks to incarceration. My kids get herded off the buses by guards with whistles who corral them with golf carts. Their lives are orchestrated by the bell and fear of authority. At the end of it all, they receive more an impression of an education than an education itself. I mulled the implications of teaching urban youth without doing anything material to improve their situation. If I become, say, a really great teacher, one who learns to get the point across regardless of lack of books or desks or proper heating, won’t I just be colluding in the caste system that America’s set up? People will point and say, “we don’t live in a segregated country, there’s a really good white teacher in that school.” Of mostly African American children and mostly un-experienced teachers.

Beautiful: children from the Holocaust's names above butterflies

As my kids learned about Nazi deceit and Nazi organization, I squirmed. Every time I told them to hush or start working, every lie I gave them about that “being on the test” (I’m not testing them this unit) or “helping to bring up their grade” (the kid with 35 absences isn’t passing regardless), made me feel like The Man. Like I’m part of a system that is treading the same boards as Nazi prejudice. My kids are being groomed to cut people’s hair and fix their cars, not compete with the college-bound. To service the CEOs and professors and doctors being churned out of other schools in whiter neighborhoods. Many of them are being funneled straight into prison—the ones who have been sent to Turning Point Academy are not going to come back and get on the straight and narrow. Those who are working their butts off are still receiving a sub-par education, and if they were as smart as their friends, would realize it and throw their hands in. Unless I’m facilitating a major revolution that overhauls the American education system and redistributes opportunity equitably, I think I may be part of the problem. And I’m not sure how to grapple with that.

In front of me, I had kids grappling with the Holocaust. I had to check in and help them make some kind of sense of it. I used the Butterfly Project from the USHMM to give them a chance to do something positive. Each student received a poem written by a child at Thereisenstadt and began creating a butterfly to memorialize the child. At the front of the room, I’d printed off ID cards from the USHMM site and every so often a student wandered over to read them and incorporate their lives into their project. 

Two of my students, insightful kids who sit in the back, called me over while they were working on their butterflies.

“Um, Ms. W, we’re just wondering… is it uncomfortable for you to talk about this?”

“Yes.” I thought about what to add to that answer. “It is, but I think maybe that’s why it’s important to talk about… exactly because it matters to me, because it’s my history. I mean, how many other Jews do you guys know?” They squirmed a bit in their chairs, and shook their heads. “That’s right. I’m it. So I have a responsibility to share. I think it’s important for people to share the things that are closest to them, to let everyone else see the real picture right from the source, and that makes my discomfort worth it.”

Somebody's seen The Boy in the striped Pajamas

As I walked away, I wondered how much the message I’d chosen had been determined by what I see in them: a staunchly articulate young woman whose parents are illegal immigrants and a deeply contemplative, astute young man whom I suspect has only come out of the closet to his closest friends. They will both be good advocates for their communities when and if they choose.

The last day, students learned about genocide in Rwanda. It was a fairly good lesson, with a reading differentiated on three lexile levels (that means I re-typed and bowdlerized and added parentheses with explanations and pictures for two different reading ranges), and then students required to take the role of UN inspectors writing up “special reports” on the Hutu and Tutsi genocide and make their recommendations to the UN. They connected the racist German influence on Rwanda to the Holocaust and discussed global responsibility towards human rights violations. A good ending to the week. Perhaps, just perhaps, I’m guiding them towards responsible, sympathetic approaches to the rest of humanity. The Roman aqueducts and Magna Carta be damned. Right now, I’m just worrying about cultivating humanity, dignity, and respect in my fellow human beings, even when none is being shown to them.