Oak Mountain Middle School social studies teachers Christy Holt, Carla Higginbotham and Leslie Wheeler recently created a “Holocaust Experience” for their sixth-grade students, constructing a railroad boxcar to demonstrate the space available to Jewish people being transported to concentration camps during World War II.

Students walked into the classroom, took off their shoes, and were seated in the boxcar to view a multimedia presentation. The growing pile of shoes in the center of the floor signified the multitude of shoes recovered from concentration camps after the war.

The boxcar’s walls featured yellow stars like those Jewish people were forced to pin on their clothing. The multimedia presentation included biographical accounts from survivors of Jewish concentration camps. The students learned about life in the camps and the horrors of gas chambers. The students also learned they must never forget the lessons learned from this terrible tragedy in history.