By Doug Miller
Her inspiration became infectious, and her whole classroom soon wanted to know more. And that's how long it took to go from homework to a labor of love.
A student in Mrs. Parada's third grade class at the Lindell School began reading "The Diary of Anne Frank." Touched by the story of this Dutch girl who was murdered seemingly forever ago, she began to ask questions.
So Mrs. Parada said, she began to sate that curiosity. Soon her class was reading the students other age-appropriate Holocaust-related books. "Rose Blanche" by Roberto Innocenti, "Yesterday" by Hadassah Rosensaft, "Six Million Paper Clips" by Dagmar and Peter Schroeder.
They invited a guest speaker, Maurice Vegh, their gym teacher's father, who survived the Holocaust but lost most of his family. He told of the unexplainable circumstances that led to his survival, which were either providential or lucky.
One day, he and his father got in the wrong line, he said, and as a result they lived. His mother and sister didn't.
Mrs. Parada's third grade class was silent.
Later, the class played a game. Everyone was assigned a color, either blue, white, yellow or green. The green people were isolated and excluded, and the class was asked why. Nobody knew, but they got the message.
Asked what that message was, Mrs. Parada's third grade class knew the answer.
"No matter who you are, we're all the same inside," said one student
"Cultures are different, but we should celebrate the different things," said another.
"You shouldn't judge people," added a third.
All these ideas were collected and written down. But surely others must know more, so Mrs. Parada's third grade class began writing letters to Holocaust museums and to Holocaust survivors. The responses were immediate.
Survivors wrote in with their memories and stories and poems and prayers. It soon became too big for Mrs. Parada's third grade class, so they began collecting the letters and poems and drawings, and made a book out of them.
That book is now in the Lindell School Library, along with "Rose Blanche" and "Yesterday" and "Six Million Paper Clips."
Why?
"So other people can learn what we've learned," said another student, speaking for all of Mrs. Parada's third grade class.
Comments about this story? DMiller@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
