Vicki Kessler’s students watch testimonies in IWitness to practice their French, and to enhance their study of the Holocaust and genocide.

At Somerville High School in New Jersey, Kessler teaches French and an elective called “Human Conscience,” which provides students the opportunity to learn more about the Holocaust and genocide outside their social studies classes. She discovered IWitness while participating in the Rutgers University Master Teacher Institute in Holocaust Education, and began incorporating testimony into the Holocaust unit in her French classes, as well as her new Human Conscience elective this year.

In her French classes, students watch testimonies of French Holocaust survivors and then create artistic memorials of the survivors’ life experiences. In the Human Conscience class, students watch testimonies to investigate survivors’ memories of specific events, such as the Berlin Olympics, and then examine how their memories are impacted by their own personal identity.

Because her students have heard survivors speak in person, they notice differences between that experience and watching testimony, Kessler said, but they appreciate the fact that soon testimonies will be the only option for hearing survivors talk about their lives.

“When first introduced to the website, most of my students are struck by the accents of many of the survivors and notice how vividly most of them are able to recall the events they share,” Kessler said.

Kessler said IWitness helps students connect with genocide by showing them the individual people who were subjected to discrimination and violence. The Holocaust becomes not just statistics, but real events that happened to people just like them. And, through testimony, students become interested in knowing more about the time period.

“The testimonies also provide concrete examples of how seemingly small actions and racist attitudes, like those we encounter every day in the world, can grow into something dangerous that can ultimately impact millions,” she said.