Palm Beach County lecturers journey overseas to find out about Holocaust

NORTH PALM BEACH, Fla. — Chuck Hagy is one among about 20 lecturers from Palm Beach County who will return to the classroom this college 12 months with an intimate perspective concerning the Holocaust.

Hagy has been a historical past trainer for 35 years and at the moment works because the Head of Middle School on the Benjamin School.

WATCH BELOW: WPTV’s Jamie Ostroff sat down with Chuck Hagy after his journey overseas

‘Learning by doing’: Palm Beach County lecturers journey overseas to find out about Holocaust

WPTV’s Jamie Ostroff sat down with him shortly after getting back from a visit throughout the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden.

“I can say it changed the way that I view myself and my career and my role as a teacher and a school leader,” stated Hagy.

He believes attending to stroll within the footsteps of the Holocaust and to see what they noticed will assist carry the teachings of the previous into present-day school rooms throughout Palm Beach County.

“It’s the ultimate example of learning by doing,” he stated. “The emotions are deep and they’re life changing.”

Hagy, like the remainder of the group, is an Alfred Lerner fellow by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. The group has spent years intensely finding out the Holocaust and the curriculum culminates within the journey overseas.

“We had followed the trail of Anne Frank and her sister, Margo, so we had visited the Frank family apartment,” Hagy stated. “I was able to see Anne Frank’s room where she started her diary.”

“We were able to go to the annex where the Franks hid before they were discovered, and then we ended our day at Bergen Belsen. [That was] the most difficult experience of the trip. We stopped and we prayed.”

Hagy stated he felt the heaviness of the tragedy whereas touring the mass graves on the Bergen Belsen focus camp.

“If that’s not a lesson, then I don’t know what is,” he stated.

Hagy was additionally impressed by a few of the lesser-known tales of people that took nice dangers throughout the Holocaust.

“The rescue of 98% of the Jews of Denmark when the Danish people — Jewish and non-Jewish — worked together to orchestrate a boat lift from the coast of Denmark to the coast of Sweden. It’s an amazing story that I can’t wait to tell my students.”

The lecturers toured buildings in Denmark the place Jewish individuals hid on their strategy to security.

“There’s no way to equate being there with the sights [and] with the smells, actually touching the bricks and listening to the scholars unfolding the story in front of us,” stated Hagy.

Even although these paths have been walked generations in the past, Hagy believes they assist us look ahead as we navigate our personal path.

“If we don’t study and take these opportunities to discuss this history with our students, we miss out on valuable lessons,” he stated. “How are you going to actually participate in your world to create a kinder, more compassionate, more humane place?”