Thursday, Jan. 10, the sophomore class of St. Louis High School went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Farmington Hills. Arriving with previous knowledge about the Holocaust tragedy, many students surprisingly absorbed new-found information while ambling around the memorial.

For example, Chloe Baxter gave her thoughts and feelings about traveling through the tour of the memorial, “Before I went to the Holocaust museum, I was honestly expecting to be retaught all the information that I already knew, like the basic points of the Holocaust. However, when I actually went through the tour, I was shocked that I was learning so much new information about it. The room with all of the photographs and footage from the camps really interested and impacted me. It was by far my favorite part of the tour because of how much it made me really realize what had happened and the conditions that the Jewish people were in while they were in those camps.”

Delainee Zacharko added, “I was expecting it to be kind of boring and not as realistic as it actually was. I thought the tour was overall very interesting, and I thought our tour guide was very good at explaining things. She told the group some personal stories about how she is Jewish and about her family history. I personally thought that the most interesting part about the tour was seeing how realistic everything was. For example, the barbed wire that was hung above us or the brick that was not laid well on purpose.”

Alexandra Pawliz added, “When we arrived at the museum, what stood out to me the most was the fire that was lit to honor the ones who have passed. My favorite part of the tour was learning about the Holocaust at a different perspective. Our tour guide has family that are Jewish so he told some information that we would have never learned if we wouldn’t have went there. My least favorite part of the trip was the bus ride because it was so long, but besides that, the trip was amazing and I learned lots of interesting information and I really enjoyed myself! Our tour guide was very helpful and I found it amazing that the musume had real things from the Holocaust.”

Overall, most students enjoyed the tour of the memorial. There was a lot new information that different students and even teachers picked up. However, there was some fallout about the tour.

Logan Koutz stated, “The part that I disliked was not being able to hear from the survivor, and the fact there was nothing on Oskar Schindler, who we learned about. What could have made it better was to have more interactive things to put us in the place of a Jew, and to really show you what they dealt with everyday.”