Steen Metz, a Holocaust survivor from Denmark, will visit Northbrook Junior High on Friday to speak with students about surviving Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic.
Theresienstadt was sometimes called “the model camp,” and the Nazis used the camp as a propaganda tool to convince representatives from Denmark and the International Red Cross that they were not mistreating the Jews they were imprisoning.
Metz's presentation will explain how the Nazis created this elaborate deception and share his perspective on the actual conditions in Theresienstadt.
Metz's father died in the camp, but he and his mother were liberated in the famous "White Buses" that brought concentration camp victims to safety in Sweden.
The school's seventh grade language arts students are hearing from Metz as part of a unit on the Holocaust. The seventh grade teachers admit that learning about the Holocaust can be scary and overwhelming for some students, but added they "also believe that by reading about the Holocaust, listening to survivors speak, and discussing why it happened, we can help students begin to see how each of them has a role to play in making our world a better place,” according to a press release.
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