Holocaust Experience in Eighteen Hours?

Christian school wants to simulate Anne Frank’s hiding with sleepover
> Posted by Akilah Johnson on October 9, 2009 01:29 PM (Mentioned in Tablet Magazine online)

The eight-grade class at Bethany Christian School is having a co-ed sleepover. The goal is help students better understand Anne Frank, the Jewish girl made famous by the posthumous publication of the diary documenting her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

Jennifer VanHekken, or Mrs. V as students know her, said her class has been studying "Anne Frank: Diary of Young Girl" and thought it would be a good idea for them to spend 18 hours together in her classroom.

So starting at 4:30 p.m. today, her 14 students will turn over their cell phones, iPods, laptops and other gadgets that must be plugged into the wall. They also can’t bring any snacks because they’ll be eating potatoes, bread, carrots, coffee and oatmeal — pretty much what Anne’s family ate during their two years in hiding.

The kids aren’t allowed to leave the room, other than bathroom breaks, until noon on Saturday. Boys and girls will be separated during sleep time.

“It is my desire that through this project, our students will better appreciate the difficulties faced by many Jews who were in hiding during WWII and have a fresh view of Anne Frank’s life,” Mrs. V said in a letter sent home to parents.

There are problems with this "Holocaust Experience," even though the exercise was a possibly well-meaning attempt to help students understand the Holocaust which ended the lives of over six million people during the 1930s until 1944.

Eighteen hours of deprivation for students in the twenty-first century may be difficult, but there are elements missing in this "experience." Unlike Anne Frank and others who experienced that dark period of history, even with food and technological deprivation, the students could realize that at the end of eighteen hours, they would be able to walk out of this experience and return to a normal life without the dehumanizing "processing" done at concentration camps, crowded conditions, illness, and the constant fear of death, uncertain times of restriction, abuse, separation (often permanent) from loved ones.

While I am fairly certain that the teacher meant in no way to minimize the suffering of those who endured dehumanizing conditions and terrifying experiences, I feel a better way to approach this would have been to have a survivor talk to the class. Granted, the survivors are slowly becoming few in number as the years pass, but they have the best way of discussing their experience with students and gauging what is age appropriate in the telling of their memories.