Learning about Holocaust shakes Sudbury students (Sudbury Star)

Emma Vellow wasn't sure what the Holocaust genocide was.

"I didn't know much, but I knew about (Adolf) Hitler," Vellow, a Grade 7 student at Marymount Academy, said. "Now I know lots more about it."

And that's the aspect organizers hope to get across with the Tour for Humanity - the education.

The tour takes place on a bus and allows students to participate in 45-minute workshops titled The Canadian Experience.

This workshop, which Marymount Academy students took part in on Monday, covers a variety of topics in Canadian history, including the Indian Residential Schools System and the systemic internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.

Following a review of past injustices, current issues, including cyber bullying, modern-day examples of intolerance are examined and discussed.

The tour is put on by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, a non-profit group based in Toronto.

The bus and tour travels around Canada, teaching students about the Holocaust, Canadian history and other genocides.

"Sometimes bad things happen," Elena Kingsbury, the organizer of the tour, and an education associate, said. "Here are people we can take example from and fight against that kind of attitude.

Continue reading...