By Scott Brinton
The roughly 100 students before him, in grades 10 to 12, were laughing hysterically, particularly when Rath raised his tightly clenched fist and bellowed with greater oomph.
With his flamboyant gestures and quasi-militaristic intonation, Rath could have been Adolf Hitler. And that was precisely the effect he was going for.
Rath was performing excerpts from Dada artist Kurt Schwitters's "Ursonata," a 40-minute "sound poem" that makes no sense. The 1924 piece, which is nothing more than babble, is intended to be humorous. At the same time, it perfectly mimics the hateful, bellicose rants of the fascists like Hitler, said Rath, who was born in 1945 in Germany during an Allied air raid.
Rath was one of five musicians from the Long Island Philharmonic who came to Calhoun to perform "Forbidden Music: Music from the Holocaust." The 45-minute show ran through a handful of works by artists and composers who were banned in Germany during the Nazi era, including Schwitters, Viktor Ullman and Gideon Klein.
The quintet finished with the "Terezin Ghetto Requiem." Written by Czech composer Sylvie Bodorová in 1954, the piece incorporates Jewish Hebrew psalms and Latin Catholic liturgy in paying homage to the victims of Terezin, a walled city in Czechoslovakia that the Nazis turned into a concentration camp.
The Calhoun students were mesmerized. They came from 10th-grade global studies classes and the Voices of the Past course, a yearlong elective developed by Calhoun social studies teacher David Goldberg and English teacher Julie Beth Walz in 2005. The class examines past genocides, including the Holocaust, with an eye toward protecting human rights in the future. Goldberg arranged for the Long Island Philharmonic performance, with a grant from the Nassau Board of Cooperative Educational Services.
Goldberg, who is in a social-studies education doctorate program at Columbia University's Teachers College, said Voices of the Past aims to show students the horrors of genocide and war to help them understand that the world can be a very dangerous place, and that they must stay abreast of current events to ensure that human rights are preserved across the globe.
To prevent future genocides, Goldberg said the "solutions are awareness and political pressure. Those are the forces that have changed history."
Walz, who earned her master's in English education from Columbia, said, "Every kid at Calhoun High School should take this class. It's life skills. It's one of those real-world courses."
Walz believes the course imbues students with a greater sense of empathy. She tells them that they need to inform an adult if they see bullying, noting that all genocides have begun with smaller violent acts that eventually led to widespread slaughter.
Lorraine Lupinskie-Huvane, Calhoun's social studies chairwoman, said the Holocaust and other genocides are taught in global studies classes, but she said Voices of the Past, which is open to students in grades 10 to 12, looks at issues of human rights with far greater depth. "The opportunities that the teachers can provide through this course aren't necessarily what they can get through their other classes," she said.
In addition to the Holocaust, Voices of the Past examines:
n The Armenian genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman Turkish government during World War I.
n The Rwandan genocide, in which nearly a million members of the Tutsi and moderate Hutu tribes were butchered by extremist Hutu militias in 1994.
n The Darfur genocide, in which 400,000 civilians have been killed by the Sudanese government since 2003 in an ongoing conflict between Sudanese military forces and two rebel groups in Darfur.
Voices students meet daily. One day they study with Goldberg and the next with Walz. Goldberg focuses on the history of genocide, while Walz looks at the feelings of individuals caught in war through poems and newspaper articles. Goldberg said the course goes beyond textbook study with hands-on learning experiences such as the "Forbidden Music" concert. He added that a Holocaust survivor and Rwandan genocide survivor recently spoke in his class.
The course also looks at efforts to achieve world peace. On Feb. 28, seven students telephoned a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer stationed in Zambia, in southeast Africa. The Peace Corps paid for the conference call through its Coverdell World Wise Schools Program, for which Goldberg applied to participate.
Gregg Hayward, an agricultural and environmental education Peace Corps volunteer from New Hampshire, spoke about the challenges that he faces living in a remote village in a developing nation. He also encouraged students to learn about other cultures. "Keep your eyes open," Hayward told them as they sat in a circle around a speakerphone in a small social studies office on Calhoun's second floor. "The one thing no one can take from you is your education. Keep getting educated, and always be open to being educated by other people. You open your own doors."
Students said the course has changed their global outlook. Senior Kristen Rudkoski said, "I sort of thought I knew what was going on in the world." But now Rudkoski realizes she has much to learn. "Children are the future, and we're going off to college soon," she said. "We need to be aware of what's going on in the world."
Senior Brittany Onorato said the visit by the Holocaust and Rwandan genocide survivors, in particular, affected her. "They explained their stories, their struggle, how they overcame their struggle," Onorato said. "It really opens your eyes to what happened. You could see the emotion in their faces."
And junior Kathryn Perafan described Voices of the Past as a "life-changing" course. "It makes me feel I need to do more to help out other people," she said.
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
