A poetic tribute to a Holocaust survivor
Students in Kayleen Everitt’s eighth-grade English classes took a unique
route in using their intellectual skills to examine and understand
world history: before welcoming Werner Reich, a Holocaust survivor, as a
guest speaker, they honored him with a poetic tribute of their own
inspiring thoughts.
After an introduction by student Kyle Johnson, who thanked Reich for
sharing his firsthand account of the events of the Nazi Germany
genocide, student Kasumi Layne-Stasik read German theologian Martin
Niemöller’s well-known poem “First they came…” and explained that the
students rephrased it in their own writings to correspond with issues of
today including among other topics gun violence, conservation and
equality between men and women in hopes of inspiring change.
Student Sofia Ulinski then introduced Ella Barrett, Jordyn Capone, Kate
Carlson, Zoe Intardanado, Andrew Patterson and Abigail Rolfe who read
their own poems before Reich shared his compelling story of survival and
message of tolerance and acceptance.
“They did an incredible job and were courageous and brave for sharing
their creative work in front of the entire grade,” Everitt said. “I am
most proud of their creativity, civic awareness and leadership.”