After experiencing intolerance throughout her life, Emily Bengels has strived to model kindness and acceptance for her students at Readington Middle School in New Jersey. Participating in USC Shoah Foundation and Discovery Education’s professional development program Auschwitz: The Past is Present will, she hopes, guide her teaching of the Holocaust and inspire her students to stand up for humanity.

After a competitive application process, Bengels and 24 other teachers from the United States and around the world were chosen to travel to Poland and attend the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 2015. While in Poland, they will learn about teaching with testimony and lessons of the Holocaust that they can share with their students.

Bengels said that growing up, she was always curious to find out more about the “ordinary people” who lived through historical events and did extraordinary things. In addition, after being bullied a lot as a child, she constantly looks for examples of kindness in literature and history to share with her students to guide them to choose generosity, tolerance and bravery over meanness.

Being part of The Past is Present will add to Bengels’ own historical knowledge about the Holocaust so she can pass it on to her students, she said.

“People in scary situations now can learn from the kindnesses of the past as well as from the harm of past prejudices,” Bengels said. “I believe that as a teacher, I can guide students toward choosing powerful kindness over powerful prejudice – and that comes from education.”

As her students watch her prepare for the trip to Poland, Bengels said she wants them to learn from her experience. They see her stepping outside her comfort zone to do something she believes in, and continuing to educate herself and learn new things. She intends to share with them vivid stories about what she sees during the trip to make the Holocaust and its causes and consequences come alive in a whole new way.

Though her students are growing up in an age of less face-to-face interaction, testimony in the Visual History Archive has the power to “awaken a lost fervor” in them, Bengels said. This is especially important today, when incidents of hate and prejudice are still common and have the potential to escalate if people don’t take action to stop them.

“The survivors sharing their testimony will give subtle and not so subtle emotional cues that will make their reality awaken feelings in students,” she said. “They will give details that viewers will remember and will create the feeling of a personal connection and hence a personal responsibility to add to the "never again" mindset that is crucial to humanity.”

Auschwitz: The Past is Present will help Bengels honor the survivors and victims by sharing their experiences with her students and making sure they learn from the Holocaust.

“I want the next generation and generations after that to know that little acts of hatred can grow bigger and bigger and more and more dangerous...and one horrific example of that danger is what happened in the Holocaust,” Bengels said.