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Teenagers poised to stop another Holocaust

Contributed by: Betty Abah on 6/7/2006

By Betty Abah

Kathy Bradley was born 11 years after the Holocaust. But on Monday, the images of the worst genocide in human history jolted her with fresh impact. She held back tears as she watched Karen, her 17 year-old daughter, a Range View High School senior give a talk on her group's activities aimed at preventing another Holocaust. She froze when the gory pictures of Nazi extermination camps came on screen.

"I never knew all the details when I was in school," said Kathy Bradley, an elementary school teacher in Aurora. "We were only told stories of War World II. Since my daughter got involved, I was able to fully understand the dimension of that genocide. It is a very terrible thing and people would never forget it," she said.

But neither would the other parents and persons who listened to the group's delegates and watched the Interrupt the Silence, a 30-minute Public Service Announcement (PSA) targeted at Colorado and Wyoming residents with the hope of 'promoting respect and diversity'. It was the outcome of the Robert Sturm Youth Leadership Mission which last year took a group of 20 high school students on an emotional visit to the National Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C under the direction of the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL seeks to foster understanding and peaceful co-existence among people of varying cultures.

Among the haunting images presented at the media preview of the Interrupt the Silence Project were World War II concentration camp survivors, the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany, April 16, 1945, Young Nazis saluting during a march-February 10, 1934, a Ku Klux Klan ceremony - January 1, 1997, civil rights activists on a protest march - May 4, 1963 and famous quotes by Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Anne Frank, and John F. Kennedy.

"It is our hope," said Karen Bradley, "that through this PSA we can encourage people to engage in conversations about what happens when bias and hateful actions occur".

Shawna Riley, 18, a recent graduate of Thompson Valley High School in Loveland experienced the pressure of heading the production for three months. But she thinks it is worth all the efforts.

"It was an awesome experience though it was a lot of work," she said. "The Holocaust was such a horrific experience that we can never forget it, but the best part is that we can never allow it to happen again," she said. Riley, who wants to become a producer in future, believes that such tendencies still exist in the contemporary world and must be nipped in the bud.

"Even in schools, they are some group of kids who pick on someone else who's different. I think it's a big problem that people can't accept each other. If we celebrate our differences rather than just pointing them out, we will be better off," she said.

The PSA will be sent to 53 media outfits in Colorado and 13 in Wyoming.

Courtney Dern, one of the teenagers who participated in the project was so enamored by the idea of propagating ideals such as this through the mass media that she decided to become a journalist. "I think through the media we can easily make our ideals known and we can interrupt the silence that surrounds hatred," she said.

Sturm, a local businessman who has funded the project since 1998, was excited at the presentation.

"I feel very fulfilled to be contributing towards understanding among people", he said after the preview. "Hate is still an issue today especially when you look at what is going on in Sudan". Sturm said the teenagers who are not yet 'set in their ways', are the ideal group to mold to be able to deal with bigotry.


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Betty Abah

Denver , CO

Betty Abah has posted 2 stories and 0 comments since joining on 5/26/2006. Betty Abah 's average story rating is 2.5.
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