After learning about IWitness from an Echoes and Reflections seminar, Tim Derbish incorporated it into a Holocaust project his school has assigned for nearly 20 years.

At Dorseyville Middle School in Pittsburgh, Penn., every year the eighth graders complete a Holocaust research project called the Notebook of Remembrance. Students research different aspects of the Holocaust and produce essays, personal accounts, and other creative works.

Derbish, an eighth grade language arts teacher, heard about IWitness from colleagues who attended an Echoes and Reflections seminar and decided to incorporate it into the Notebook of Remembrance project.

“The website seemed like a great resource, and after exploration from both the students and me, my supposition proved to be true,” Derbish said.

Students study different aspects of the Holocaust, and then construct informative, creative projects about their topics. They can use testimony from IWitness for research about their theme, direct quotes, inspiration for creative pieces, and more. Derbish said students are working on their projects now and seem to be “creative, thoughtful and compassionate” towards their topics, and they were “captivated” by the testimonies that pertained to their particular areas of study.

Testimony is essential to the study of the Holocaust and genocide, Derbish said.

“Text, websites and documentaries do a superb job in providing factual information, but they often fall short conveying the emotional, humanistic side of what was experienced,” he said. “Testimony, even in video form, adds a sense of depth and realism to the topic, evoking a reaction from the student in a way that a text could never do.”