Speaking on the Holocaust to 4th grade students.
On May 6, I had the opportunity to teach a fourth-grade class at the Hayward intermediate school. One of the subjects for the day was the holocaust. Since the number 6 million is hard for the children to grasp, I explained that 6 million minutes was roughly 14 ½ years and that 6 million people were every man woman, and child in Wisconsin plus another 200,000 from Minnesota. When I entered the class, I noticed a rug approximately the size of the narrow-gauge boxcars used by the Nazis the transport Jews to the death camps. I had all the children stand on the rug and then told him to imagine that they were in a very small boxcar. However, in addition to their classmates, their mother and father, their sisters and brothers, their aunts and uncles, and many of their neighbors and friends would also be stuffed into that same boxcar. I then told them that they would be in that boxcar for three days with no food, water, or bathroom facilities. After three days they would be let out and then the Nazi guards would separate the people into workers and non-workers. Based on the looks on their faces, I believe the children understood at least a small part of what the Jews had to go through during the holocaust.