It Wasn’t Just History to Them

These weren’t questions about history. They were confessions about the present.

Dalia Baldor Giving a Holocaust Presentation

When the last slide faded and the applause ended, I watched as the students carefully stood up and progressed through the Holocaust timeline, and went to get their ID cards. My work for the day was done. But that’s never really the case. The most powerful moments happen afterwards, when students and teachers come to share their own stories.

After one of my recent school presentations, a group of Jewish students approached me. They thanked me, their voices quiet but steady, and began to tell me about the hate they had been experiencing. They said my talk didn’t just explain what their ancestors had endured, but they believed it also helped their peers understand the true repercussions of the Holocaust, and how antisemitism is still prevalent today. One of the students shared something that stopped me in my tracks. In his history class, after he mentioned he was Jewish, a peer turned to him and said, “I don’t like Jews. Free Palestine.”

He told me this not with anger, but with the kind of weariness no one should have to carry. That’s when I was reminded that what I teach isn’t just about history, but also about the present.

Later, a teacher approached me. Tears filled her eyes. She said it was one of the most important presentations she had ever witnessed. She wished her spouse had been there, as he is Jewish, but had never learned much about his own history. She wanted him to feel what she had felt in that room: a deeper understanding of who he is, and the legacy he carries.

On another occasion another teacher came up to me, visibly moved. He told me that what I shared touched on subjects that were never even mentioned in his university classes. Despite years of formal education, he had never encountered those stories before. He said they were important stories, ones that should be impossible to overlook, yet so often are.

Then there was the history teacher who pulled me aside. He said it meant a great deal that I spoke about Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker who rescued over 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto. Hearing her story gave him hope. As a non-Jewish person, he realized that he could also confront hate and make a difference.

Irena Sendler Rescued Jews During the Holocaust (Yad Vashem)

These are the moments that stay with me. They are why I do this work. Holocaust education isn’t solely about memorizing dates or reciting statistics. I carry this education forward to open hearts, build empathy, and to give people the knowledge to speak about both the past and the present.

We owe it to the six million murdered, the survivors, and to ourselves to keep telling these histories. Because when we share them, we aren’t just remembering but also equipping the next generation to stand against hate, in all its forms.

If you want to understand how antisemitism operates today, and how to challenge it, download my FREE GUIDE on recognizing and responding to antisemitism here.