Bringing the bully message home
Skeptical? Without a doubt.
No, Iwasn’t skeptical about JanMalecha and his credentials or his background. The 32- year- old is a guide at BuchenwaldMemorial in Germany, and if he talks about theHolocaust, there is no doubt he brings an educated perspective.
But Iwas in an auditorium at Cypress Bay High School in Weston for three hours, listening toMalecha talk to students as part of a five- month visit to classrooms in Broward, Palm Beach, Miami- Dade and Orange counties.
And herewasMalecha and CraigWeiner ofWeston, who broughtMalecha to South Florida through his non- profitHolocaust Learning and Education Fund, talking to the students about how theHolocaustwas a lot about making choices. Just like bullying.
Relating theHolocaust and bullying? Yeah, I thought itwas a stretch.
But it all makes perfect sense— and itwound up being a great and important lesson for several dozen10th, 11th and12th- graders.
“The German SS had choices every day. . . they could beat you, or they could keepwalking,” Weiner told the students.
“We all have choices to make every day. Whether through the Internet, social media, whatever, bullying is a big issue. It comes down to the choices you make.
“If you stand up and do the right thing, and not just stand by, you will be a leader in life.”
Seeing as he is a guide in a concentration camp, Malecha has the particular chops to make students listen to his message.
He showed photos of concentration camp prisoners being dehumanized. He talked about people having their dignity and identity stripped.
But he really hit home when he talked about the sitting back and doing nothing when you know something is wrong.
“After thewar, people in the town ( nearWeimar, by Buchenwald) said, ‘ Howcouldwe know what theywere doing? How couldwe know?’
“Corpseswere being burned in the city. People sawthe smokestacks. But the people denied knowing anythingwas going on. Civilianswere involved, making money. Therewas a company producing ovens. They had a choice. They could say no, we won’t be able to do it. They had choices. But they did it.
“Ordinary people making small choices is so important.”
The studentswere particularly attentive whenMalecha talked about the peer pressure of going along with the group, even if it meant inflicting brutality.
“Everybody had hard choices to make,” 12th grader Angelic Roberts told me after the presentation. “It does showyou aspects ( about bullying) that you didn’t think about.”
I have no doubt the message registered with students. I doubt they had heard a lesson about the dangers of bullying and going along with the crowd presented in such a thought- provokingway.
By the timeMalecha heads back to Germany and his job at Buchenwald this spring, he will have spoken to about 5,000 students at 150 schools in South Florida.
He will have shown them actual artifacts and photos from concentration camps. He will give voice and texture to something they knew about mainly from a distance in history books.
But most importantly, he helps make students understand that the choices they make each day, the choices that might seem small, can be very profound.
And he makes them understand howimportant it is to have the courage to say “no.”
Just one of the important lessons learned from theHolocaust. And enough to make an impression on this skeptic.