Students Experience Holocaust Through Powerful Cattle Car Exhibit

You may have noticed a replica of a WW2-era cattle car on campus Monday morning in front of Wight Hall - The Center for Performing Arts. The Upper School Social Studies Department, in partnership with inSIGHT Through Education, hosted the Hate Ends Now Cattle Car exhibit for a second time at Saint Andrew’s School, the first time being in 2021. 

The Cattle Car is a 360-degree immersive and interactive exhibit that depicts the transportation of Jewish people and other targeted groups via a cattle car to concentration camps during the Holocaust. The 20-minute experience is narrated by two holocaust survivors, Hedy Bohm and Nate Leipcigar, who moved to Canada after the war and are now in their late 90s. 

Throughout the day, nearly two hundred Upper School students, along with Saint Andrew’s faculty and staff, had the opportunity to visit the cattle car and view a collection of WW2 artifacts that were set up in the Parker Library. Some of the artifacts included Nazi propaganda pieces, such as postcards and magazines, a Nazi children’s book, ID cards, and a prisoner uniform, which served as a reminder of the horrors of fascism.

Josh Borthwick, Social Studies Department Chair, was thankful the Social Studies Department could sponsor the program, sharing that “it is important for students to continue to learn about the atrocities of the Holocaust in order to ensure that similar events never happen again.” 

In addition to hosting the cattle car, Saint Andrew’s remains committed to integrating Holocaust education into the PreK-12 curriculum and is proud to have a Holocaust Studies elective in the Upper School.

 

To view photos from the exhibit, click here.

To see a video of the exhibit on campus, click here.