Campus students visit Museum of Tolerance

The sophomore class is taking a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance, located in Los Angeles, California, Oct. 17. The group of 53 students are planning to leave campus via bus at 6:30 a.m. and return that evening at 7 p.m.

The Museum of Tolerance (MOT) is the educational arm of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an internationally renowned Jewish human rights organization. This museum is very unique in their dedication to challenge visitors in understanding the Holocaust in both historic and contemporary contexts and confront all forms of prejudice and discrimination in our world today.

Sophomore students in English 10 are in the midst of studying books focused on the Holocaust. The first one, “The Hiding Place“, by Corrie Ten Boom and recently started reading, “Night“, by Elie Weissel. 

Sophomore Carston Saelzler interviews English teacher Andrea Donaghe in the following podcast about why she believes it is important for students to visit the Museum of Tolerance.

Campus English teacher Andrea Donaghe shared why she believes it is important for students to be exposed to events like The Holocaust and visit a museum like the MOT. Donaghe has completed this trip several of times and plans on keeping this tradition years to come.

“I believe it is important because the Museum of Tolerance doesn’t just focus on the Holocaust,” Donaghe mentioned. “Although, that obviously is the biggest genocide that’s ever occurred in the present day. What I appreciate about the Museum of Tolerance is it just shows the diversity of how hatred is bigotry and ignorant. Just because we don’t know or understand something doesn’t make it wrong.”

Chaperoning with Donaghe will be her husband, Scott Donaghe. After a three-hour tour of the museum, Donaghe plans on eating lunch at The Grove in Los Angeles. There, the students will get a bite to eat, and if time allows, do a bit of shopping.

Junior Rebekah Micu journeyed to the MOT last year with her class and was amazed with all the information she was exposed to. Micu explains why she enjoyed it so much.

“My favorite part was when we got to the museum, they gave us this pamphlet of a kid that lived during that time,” Micu said. “You would go throughout the entire Museum and read about them at certain checkpoints. And then at the end, you would figure out if they survived or not and it was fun just to be a part of that. It was like a real experience.”

Zane Munoz, ’21, shares what he is looking forward to seeing and why he is excited to go. 

“I’m excited to go more in depth with what happened to the Holocaust,” Munoz said. “I’m looking forward to all the artifacts and stuff. It will be cool to share the experience with my class.”

Make sure to check The Feather social media on the day of the trip to view updates. 

To read last years recap of this trip, read Sophomores reflect on Museum of Tolerance. For more articles, read Game creator Kyle Friesen shows passion for hobby.

Carston Saelzler can be reached via email.