By Megan Ma

Wiesel’s book “Night” stirs student discussion of hate crimes of the past and today.

To commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day, eighth-graders at Egan Junior High School in Los Altos are doing their part to comprehend the atrocities.

Recognizing the power of literature as a historical tool, English teachers at Egan for the past six years have assigned Elie Wiesel’s acclaimed memoir “Night” as a discussion piece for their three-week Holocaust unit.

Wiesel’s first-person account tells his story of being herded into the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald, as a teenager.

“Most of the students are very, very moved and totally affected by the experience of this young man,” said Egan teacher Katie Beman, who admitted to being apprehensive about teaching such an emotionally difficult topic but thought it essential.

“I thought it would be emotionally tough to teach; but it’s important, I think, if you can counter the poignant moments and also see the bigger picture,” Beman said. “This is not just confined to the past.”

Following a brief history of the socioeconomic conditions and political atmosphere that led to the Holocaust, Beman and her colleague Rosemary Garcia assign the novel and discuss its sociological effect in a broader context.

“With this age group, there seems to be a psychological need not to imagine you could be a part of this - they tend to focus on Hitler’s pathology, and not on the fact that millions of people were complicit in this,” Beman said.

For the two teachers, applying knowledge to the present-day world is just as crucial for understanding as becoming privy to the psychological horrors of the event itself.

Garcia said, “It’s hard sometimes for students to see a world beyond Los Altos. They can learn the ability to connect this and see it in the world around them, and connect it to humanity.”

The Holocaust curriculum also makes connections to other case studies of the group-think phenomenon, including the recent prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

More immediate perhaps, the lesson draws parallels to school bullying - with the underlying message that acts of abuse can occur in one’s own back yard.

Supplemented with a spate of well-known video documentaries - including “One Survivor Remembers” - the course also aims to open up students to further avenues of research.

Beman said several students have been moved in such a profound way that they took the initiative to learn more about the historical repercussions of the Holocaust and its survivors.

Egan English teacher Rachelle Friedman read the book aloud to her students, emphasizing the need for tolerance in a society divided by hate groups and discrimination. The Holocaust unit serves as a springboard for such wider application, she said.

“We want to think this is going on far away, but it’s happening here, now,” Friedman said.