On Tuesday, Oct. 24, motivational speaker and Holocaust survivor Sami Stiegmann visited St. Louis to speak to students and teachers at Ladue Middle School and Ladue Horton Watkins High School.
The event at the high school was in a question-and-answer format, with Stiegmann telling his story and the audience chiming in with questions. The session was moderated by the co-presidents of the Jewish Student Union (JSU) at Ladue, Audrey Roberts and me. The JSU leaders, along with club sponsor Alyson Levine, were in charge of planning and organizing the event, which was sponsored by Maryville University Hillel.
Roberts is a junior at Ladue and new to the district for the 2023-24 school year. But she has jumped right into a leadership role at JSU, volunteering to work on the Holocaust speaker event.
“I love working in collaboration with people like this, hearing their stories, learning [about different] experiences, so I just thought it’d be a really great opportunity,” Roberts said.
Roberts is also involved in leadership opportunities outside of JSU. She is a member of StandWithUs, an organization promoting education about Israel and fighting antisemitism.
“I am very familiar with hosting programs, organizing events and things like that, so I think that’s also what made it really fun for me [because] this is something that I do frequently and I enjoy doing,” Roberts said.
In America today, antisemitism rates are up 388% largely due to the Israel-Hamas war, according to the Anti-Defamation League, making the world a dangerous place for thousands of Jewish people. Consequently, the need for education about Jewish history is becoming more important for young people.
“I think that this is an incredibly important event to have at every school because obviously a mass genocide is a very big event, but all the little steppingstones or building blocks that [can] lead to it are not so far off to experience in a high school,” Roberts said.
Levine, who has been the club sponsor of JSU at Ladue for five years, grew up without in-depth education on the Holocaust and believes in the relevance of education for people of all ages.
“[We need to understand] how we can take the lessons from the Holocaust, as unfortunate and devastating as it was…and prevent something like that from ever happening again,” Levine said.
Another crucial facet of understanding the horrors of the Holocaust is connecting with the people willing to share their stories beyond what happened to them.
“I just tried to make an effort to get to know (a Holocaust survivor) as a person because truly they are so much more than just their story and their experience,” Roberts said.
Events that involve hearing a Holocaust survivor speak live about their outlook on life and answer questions about their past are a good way to spread education about Jewish history in schools, where the topic can be neglected.
“A lot of times when you’re learning about the Holocaust, it feels like a very far out idea because it’s something that I could never fathom experiencing in my lifetime,” said Roberts. “So hearing the story of someone who actually lived it and had repercussions and is still experiencing the long- term effects makes it so much more real. It really tugged at me a little more.”
