Sisler only school in Canada to participate in Holocaust project By: Skye Anderson Posted: 5:51 PM CST Monday, Jan. 27, 2025

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This article was published 27/01/2025 (564 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Shocked, speechless and overwhelmed.

That’s how Orysya Petryshyn felt when she found out her students were from the only school in Canada to participate in a global project to spread awareness about the Holocaust.

“I didn’t know. I thought everybody participated,” said Petryshyn, who teaches Canadian history at École Secondaire Sisler High.

Petryshyn and her 36 Grade 11 students spent more than a month researching and putting together projects to submit to the “My Hometown” project. It was launched by Collingwood Learning and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2024.

It invites schools across the globe to have students work in groups to examine their communities to find connections to the Holocaust — the murder of six million Jews in Europe by the Nazis — and research the effects it had on survivors and the world. The “My Hometown” website displays the students’ work.

“This was a worldwide problem and discrimination is still present in modern day,” Sisler student Elisha Bautista said. “It was really important to learn.”

Learning about the Holocaust isn’t only an academic exercise, Bautista said, but also a way to prevent history from repeating itself.

Bautista’s classmate, Aliza Quiroz agreed.

“Doing all of this research really helped us get a better understanding of what happened in the past and how we as young people can help the world move forward,” she said.

“I didn’t know. I thought everybody participated.”–Grade 11 teacher, Orysya Petryshyn

The Sisler class was divided into three groups of 12, each working on a different project.

One group created a dramatized documentary about the lives of Holocaust survivors Ruth Zimmer, Anne Novak, Sally Singer, and Sol Fink — siblings who grew up in southeastern Poland during the war. Their grandparents and brother Eli Fink, as well as dozens of extended relatives, were killed by the Nazis. In 1948, they were sponsored by a relative and emigrated to Winnipeg.

Another created a hand-drawn poster in which prisoners are shown walking through the gates of a concentration camp, then forced to wear striped suits and locked behind bars.

The third group produced a film about Belle Jarniewski and her experience as the child of Holocaust survivors.

Jarniewski, executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, shared her past in a presentation for the students before giving them a chance to interview her.

“From the time I was very young, I realized the impact the Holocaust had on my life and my family’s,” she said. “I didn’t have grandparents or extended family because they were murdered in the Holocaust.”

Jarniewski said she still witnesses antisemitism today.

“Antisemitism is the oldest form of hatred, and that sadly continues to exist, and it constantly changes and adapts to whatever is happening in society… including right here in Winnipeg.

Jarniewski said she is proud of the school for participating in the project and impressed with students’ insightful and mature questions.

She also said she was quite surprised to hear Sisler’s was the only submission from Canada.

“I felt like I was doing something good by shedding light on this topic — a topic that is really emotional and disturbing at times.”–Elisha Bautista

“I do hope that schools understand the importance of (Holocaust) education,” she said.

She acknowledged information about the project didn’t reach schools until “fairly late in the game.” A few educators she communicated with said they would have loved to have taken part but didn’t think they had enough time.

The three students that spoke to the Free Press said they were grateful for the experience, even though it was emotionally heavy at times.

“I was very proud to showcase all of the information we learned as a group… I felt like I was doing something good by shedding light on this topic — a topic that is really emotional and disturbing at times,” Bautista said.

De Vera was nervous to present a film he had edited about the history of the Holocaust, but said as the presentation went on, he felt more confident and proud of the work.

Petryshyn said she looks forward to taking on the project again next year.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca