Grade 10 Engages With Holocaust History Through Literature and Guest Speaker

Trompetter came to Rivers through the organization Facing History & Ourselves. The organization’s speakers present to audiences who have some shared background on the subject matter at hand, so Grade 10’s experience reading Maus drew Trompetter to speak with them. The talk came a few days after the Rivers community heard from Holocaust survivor Sami Steigmann at an all-school assembly organized by the Jewish Affinity Group in observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

Trompetter’s visit also followed the conclusion of the Grade 10 intergenerational Sages & Seekers program, with students presenting tribute essays to their Sages. After Trompetter’s talk, Katie Henderson, director of diversity, equity, and inclusion programming and support and a teacher in the Grade 10 English program, reflected that it felt fitting to have him speak to the students after their Sages & Seekers experience, since that program emphasizes listening to somebody else’s story and learning from elders. “A lot of the same skills that they had been practicing and a lot of the same values that are emphasized in Sages and Seekers were present in the exchange between Jack [Trompetter] and the students,” Henderson noted. 

 

Henderson said a few words before Trompetter’s talk, encouraging the students to bring the same energy they had brought to their Sages and Seekers presentations and to remember their experience reading Maus. “We encourage you to lean in, to listen to understand, and to ask curious questions when the time comes,” she said in her introduction. 

Facing History & Ourselves representative Jeff Smith introduced Trompetter and gave some background on Facing History & Ourselves. “What we try to do is not only give you a grounding in the history of an event, in this case, the Holocaust, but also the ethical and emotional issues that are raised by that history,” he explained. He shared one of the organization’s slogans—“people make choices, and choices make history”—and encouraged the students to be active citizens. “Today, you are already making choices,” he said. “You’re making choices in your community—in your small community, in your greater community—of what kind of community you want, what you think would make it a better one.” 

Trompetter, born in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam in 1942, began his talk by asking the audience to think of his story as their own. He proceeded to tell his story and the story of his parents, painting a full picture for the audience by supplying broader history and context throughout the detailed personal narrative. “Fear was like wallpaper—like furniture,” he said early on, referring to the omnipresence of the feeling at that time. He told the audience about being separated from his parents as an infant to go into hiding. He lived with a Christian family on a farm while his parents hid elsewhere. They were reunited when he was three years old, and much of what he has learned about what happened to his family during those early years of his life came from his mother, who spent years writing the whole story down. 

At the end of the talk, Grade 10 students and members of the professional community in the audience took advantage of the opportunity to ask questions. One came from Jack Burkhead ’27, who asked, “As an artist, have you ever made any art pieces related to trauma or traumatic experiences?”  

Trompetter responded that he constantly asks himself whether he should do that, but that ultimately he has not made art about the Holocaust. A refrain for him when he is making art is the question: “Is this beautiful?” He said that although he has thought a lot about whether he could make an art piece that reflects his experience of the Holocaust, he has not been able to reconcile that question of beauty with the subject matter. “It’s such a nightmarish topic—I go to my studio to get away from that stuff,” he added. 

Trompetter does, though, feel a responsibility to tell his story, which is why he speaks to audiences like the one at Rivers. History, he commented, is not over—it is one thing after another. He added that when he finds himself thinking the worst of people, his family’s story reminds him that human beings are complicated and that compassion is crucial. Because of his family’s story, he said, “My appreciation for my own complexity and other people’s is greater, and I want to be a positive example for kindness.”

Henderson closed the talk by asking: If the audience were to leave with one takeaway, what would Trompetter want it to be? “Four things,” he responded. “Love learning. Be kind. Be kind. Be kind—to yourselves and the rest of us.”