Lessons from a dark chapter in world history
Holmdel teacher tours Holocaust sites in Europe
BY ERIN O. STATTEL Staff Writer
The atrocities of the Holocaust during World War II may be covered in history courses throughout the United States, but for one high school teacher, a trip through Europe was a real education.

ERIC SUCAR staff Holmdel High School teacher Jill McCracken stands outside the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Center at Brookdale Community College, Lincroft.

Jill McCracken is a teacher at Holmdel High School and educates her older students in psychology, international relations and modern European history. But her students will have a better chance to get an indepth look at one of the most-written-about events of the 20th century when school starts this fall.

"I was always involved with Holocaust education in some way," McCracken explained last week. "I grew up Catholic and my father was a World War II buff, but my best friend was Jewish, and [the Holocaust] was something that I was always conscious of."

McCracken read her first book about the Holocaust at age 13.

"I read a book about the medical experiments doctors did on concentration camp prisoners," she said. "It probably wasn't the best way to get into Holocaust education, but from that point on, I had to find out more."

Below: An underground bunker where Jews hid from the Nazis.

McCracken was further impacted after watching various television programs on the Holocaust. She pursued an education at The College of New Jersey, Ewing, and later became an instructor at the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Center at Brookdale Community College, Lincroft. She would later attend Norwich University in Vermont.

"I got involved with Brookdale about 27 years ago, and in 2000 I received a scholarship to go to Yad Vashem in Israel," Mc- Cracken said. "At that time Serbia had launched air strikes against Kosovo, and I had planned to stop in Kosovo. I didn't even know if American civilians could get in the country, since the airport was closed, so I emailed NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]."

McCracken's e-mail paid off, and she was allowed to join the 358th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment with the United States Army.

Cages filled with shoes that belonged to victims are a stark reminder of the lives exterminated at Majdanek.

"I was basically embedded with them, in the Kevlar vest and helmet and everything," she said. "I learned so much, and after that, I went to speak at schools about genocide and human rights."

Since her initial trip to Kosovo, Mc- Cracken travels frequently to Europe with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on election observation missions. She has been back to the region six times, most recently working with teenagers in Kosovo.

So it is not unusual that McCracken took a summer vacation abroad, taking a tour that basically shadowed the timeline and locations of an event that defined a time and region during the course of world history.

"I left July 9 and returned the 23rd on a trip sponsored by the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education," McCracken explained. "We started off in Berlin, went to the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands and Holland."

During the course of her trip, McCracken was taken on tours of various concentration camps, death facilities and factories built for Hitler's purpose of exterminating Jews in Europe.

McCracken traced the Holocaust with a tour group, guided by Maude Dhame, a Holocaust survivor who had been hidden by families in Holland during the war.

"We started out at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and saw the Holocaust Memorial there," McCracken said. "We saw the 4 Tiergartenstrasse, which was home to the T4 program, the murder of handicapped people" and the mentally ill.

McCracken went on to explain that the group proceeded to the Wannsee Villa where, during a 90-minute meeting in 1942, the Nazi government decided the "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was to exterminate the Jews of Europe.

"It was absolutely chilling," McCracken said. "From there we went to Prague to visit the village of Terezin."

McCracken described the village of Terezin in the Czech Republic as a model town that was used to dupe the Red Cross and other organizations that had launched inspections. According to McCracken, the false-façade village actually served as a concentration camp.

"It blew my mind that Terezin is still a viable town; I mean, there was a bicycle race going on there when we were there," Mc- Cracken recounted. "But I guess for them, life goes on and it is different for an American."

McCracken said that the entire trip really brought the reality of the Holocaust and its complexity to her.

"It is not an ocean away," she said. "I was walking where the things I had read about happened. This was my first trip to this kind of Europe."

From Terezin, McCracken and her group ventured into the well-known Schindler's factory in Krakow, Poland. They traveled farther and toured Plaszow, a forced labor and eventual concentration camp in Poland.

"When we were touring the grounds and seeing these gas chambers and barbed wire, I couldn't help but ask myself, How did we let things get this far?" McCracken said. "As we went along and through Krakow and Auschwitz, it seemed to get worse and worse."

For McCracken, her Holocaust experience seemed to come full circle with her arrival at Auschwitz, where many of the medical experiments were conducted that she had read about with horror at age 13.

McCracken said that a fellow teacher on the trip, one of 22 who went, recounted how his father, a Greek Jew, was taken to Auschwitz with his wife and young son. His wife and son were executed while the teacher's father managed to make it out of the camp. His father went back to Greece and married the only other Jewish girl in his town and moved to America with his new young bride and young son, starting a completely new life.

"I mean, these stories we were sharing while we were at these places were just incredible," McCracken said. "This touched so many people. I don't think people realize the extent of the Nazi regime. There were concentration camps in Libya in Africa."

McCracken resumed recounting her trip with the group's arrival at Majdanek in Lublin, Poland, yet another concentration camp.

"The Nazis had blown up the gas chambers at Auschwitz to hide what they were doing, but Majdanek was fully intact," Mc- Cracken said. "I had this creepy feeling while we were there because really, the place could be up and running in a matter of 24 hours."

McCracken said that the impact of this trip was very profound for her and that the material needs to be taught to students with sensitivity.

"I have been learning about this piece of history for about 20 years, but what I did not know is incredible," she said. "We visited museums and synagogues in Warsaw, and there are so little Jewish populations left in these areas. They were once thriving communities and their graveyards were filled with tombstones of people who had lived there for generations. With two-thirds of the Jews in Europe killed during World War II, the loss of a vibrant culture is just staggering and evident in those parts of Europe."

McCracken made her way to a small transit camp called Camp Vught, a camp where a Holocaust survivor who has been working with McCracken at Brookdale, was held.

"There were 1,600 children at Camp Vught, and this man I have been working with was somehow not made to get on the train that took the rest of them to be killed," she said. "His friends Jetty and Isaac Memist were killed, and their names are on the memorial there. I wrote on the cards inside the memorial that I would never forget them and neither would my children or my grandchildren. They never grew up and they never had anyone to remember them, so I will. And in that sense, the Nazis did not win, because we are remembering these people."

On the last leg of the trip, McCracken said the group was able to focus more on rescue, viewing homes where Jews were hidden by non-Jewish families.

McCracken said it is important for educators to instill in their students at a young age a sense of doing what is right.

"It starts with teaching elementary students to respect different holidays and stopping bullying on the playground," she said. "I want my students to be the kind of people who step in and not let bad things happen to others. If we would stop things before they escalate, no one would have to ask themselves to risk their own safety or their own families."

Modern-day instances of human rights issues can be seen in Georgia (Eastern Europe) and in Darfur, The Sudan, McCracken said.

"We need to teach our students about this," she said. "And there is no reason why we should ignore it. There is so much curriculum in New Jersey for educators to download now."

McCracken said that there are curricula on the Irish potato famine; the Ukrainian famine; the experience of the Native Americans; Nanjing, China; and Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge.

But closer to the Holmdel area, Mc- Cracken said, will be an exhibit at the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Center at Brookdale, displaying the tales of 12 Holocaust survivors. The stories will come in the form of a kit in a suitcase, complete with photos, stories and videos from the Holocaust survivors' experiences. The kits are available for teachers to take into the classroom. The exhibit, which will premiere in March, is titled "A Journey to Life."

Overall, her trip through Europe brought a feeling of validation, McCracken said.

"It makes me feel what we do in Holocaust education is so critically important," she said. "I never want a student to get to that point of risking their family's lives to save others. If we can raise awareness in children that we have a tendency to not get involved and to reject that notion and to be the person that is willing to stop bad things [before they happen], we will get somewhere."

McCracken said that it is important for educators to instill in their students at a young age a sense of doing what is right.

"It starts with teaching elementary students to respect different holidays and stopping bullying on the playground," she said. "I want my students to be the kind of people who step in and not let bad things happen to others. If we would stop things before they escalate, no one would have to ask themselves to risk their own safety or their own families."

Modern-day instances of human rights issues can be seen in Georgia (Eastern Europe) and in Darfur, The Sudan, McCracken said.

"We need to teach our students about this," she said. "And there is no reason why we should ignore it. There is so much curriculum in New Jersey for educators to download now."

McCracken said that there are curricula on the Irish potato famine; the Ukrainian famine; the experience of the Native Americans; Nanjing, China; and Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge.

But closer to the Holmdel area, Mc- Cracken said, will be an exhibit at the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Center at Brookdale, displaying the tales of 12 Holocaust survivors. The stories will come in the form of a kit in a suitcase, complete with photos, stories and videos from the Holocaust survivors' experiences. The kits are available for teachers to take into the classroom. The exhibit, which will premiere in March, is titled "A Journey to Life."

Overall, her trip through Europe brought a feeling of validation, McCracken said.

"It makes me feel what we do in Holocaust education is so critically important," she said. "I never want a student to get to that point of risking their family's lives to save others. If we can raise awareness in children that we have a tendency to not get involved and to reject that notion and to be the person that is willing to stop bad things [before they happen], we will get somewhere."