Students at West Junior High School were touched by history Tuesday.
Last semester during their language arts class, the students read a book called "Hana's Suitcase," about a young boy who survived the Holocaust but lost his sister and parents to the Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz.
The students were so moved by the story and a trip to the Holocaust Museum in St. Louis that they wrote to the boy in the book -- now a man in his mid-80s -- to express their sorrow for the loss of his family and to ask about his experience.
The letter, written before Christmas break, was all but forgotten by the students when, on Tuesday morning, teacher Shari Tockstein called them out of their classes to reconvene one last time.
"Remember when you wrote that letter to the man who survived the Holocaust?" Tockstein asked. "Well, he wrote back."
Sniffing back tears, Tockstein told her class that the survivor, George Brady, who now lives in Toronto, not only penned a response, but also sent each student a personally signed photo of himself with his sister when they were children.
Tockstein read the letter to her class, fighting back tears.
"Nothing can change the loss of my sister," Brady said in his letter. "But knowing that she is remembered, and perhaps even improving the world, makes an enormous difference."
Eighth-grader Josh Fitzgerald said he couldn't believe it when he heard Brady wrote back.
"I wasn't even sure that he was still alive when we sent the letter, and if he was, I didn't know if he would write back," Josh said. "I'm going to get a frame for my picture and keep it always."
Classmate Damion Phipps said he thought it was a one-in-a-million chance to hear back from Brady.
"If he was still alive, I figured we would have the wrong address or something," Damion said. "I can't believe he wrote back."
West Junior High Principal Pam Knobeloch said the letter meant more to students than Brady could possibly know.
"It's one thing to read about something in a book, but another thing entirely to touch history," Knobeloch said. "Now they can see that these events really happened to real people."
And that's important, Tockstein said. Because it's up to the kids to make sure that history doesn't repeat itself.
"Your sister's story has helped us understand and learn about the holocaust," Tockstein helped her students write in their letter to Brady. "We, as the next generation of adults, promise to never let something as terrible as the Holocaust happen again."
Contact reporter Scott Wuerz at swuerz@bnd.com or 239-2626.
