Watkins Mill High School’s class of 2026 sophomores visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., for a field trip on Thursday, February 29, 2024.
English teacher Sonya Shpilyuk organized and led the trip, which allowed over 200 sophomore students to explore the museum and observe the extensive history and atrocities committed during World War II through images, videos, artifacts, and personal stories. These included everything from testimonials from Holocaust survivors to anti-Semitic propaganda posters.
As a requirement to be able to attend the field trip, students were required to read the book “Night,” a memoir written by Holocaust survivor Ellie Wiesel. The memoir provided readers with detailed accounts of Wiesel’s experiences at two Nazi concentration camps.
“This trip was an amazing opportunity for students to experience a different approach to learning about a historical event as a supplement to reading a novel,” Shpilyuk said. “Reading a book is one thing, but seeing photos, witnessing first hand accounts, seeing videos and actually interacting with the artifacts of the Holocaust.”
