As the auditorium filled with excited, chattering students, an old woman sat serenely in a chair on the stage, watching the seats fill up.
Ninety-one-year-old Janet Applefield presented to the sophomore grade regarding her lived experiences during and after the Holocaust on Thursday, May 14, during E and F-block. Applefield discussed how her story has shaped who she is today.
Applefield lived in Poland before the Holocaust and, at around five years old, moved to Russia when the Nazis invaded Poland. She moved back to Poland not long after and was separated from her parents to live with a variety of caretakers for her own safety. She was able to reunite with her father after the war but lost her mother and grandmother, who perished in concentration and labor camps.
Applefield said that speaking out and sharing her story is very important to her, but it took her a while to get to a point where she believed that and felt comfortable doing so.
“For the longest time, I didn’t want to share because I minimized my story. I didn’t consider myself a survivor,” Applefield said.
Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator Jen Martin said that this way of learning was very beneficial to students, and she wished the high school could host live speakers more often.
“I think the Holocaust is probably one of the most important topics that we study in history, and there’s also a really profound connection in our community to that. It’s a really great moment for us to stop what we’re doing to recognize this important history. The in-person [visitor] feels so much more personalized,” Martin said.
Sophomore Sadie Sawada said her understanding of the Holocaust was enhanced by hearing about it from a survivor, since she doesn’t get that opportunity frequently in her history classroom.
“I think hearing it from someone who actually experienced that face-to-face, the impact it had on me personally was a lot different than when I learned it in the classroom,” Sawada said.
According to Applefield, when she first immigrated to the United States, the Holocaust wasn’t widely taught in schools’ curricula, so it felt taboo to speak about it. However, she said that through the nonprofit organization Facing History and Ourselves, she found a voice.
“I am the voice for those whose voices were brutally taken away,” Applefield said. “I am a witness of history, and now that you have heard me speak, you are witnesses.”
Sawada said she was almost brought to tears multiple times throughout Applefield’s story because she felt so emotionally moved by Applefield’s description of history.
Martin said she thought Applefield’s story was particularly important for students to hear because it represents the wide range of experiences in history that she thinks are sometimes overlooked.
“History is an onion that has many really thin layers, and there’s Janet, who experienced this one thing, in this one place. That is not the full story, but it’s really cool,” Martin said.
Applefield’s story was interspersed with anecdotes from people who went out of their way to help her, and each time she said how grateful she was for the care she received from people who were sometimes strangers.
“It is my hope that each and every one of us will stand up to injustice,” Applefield said. “Even the smallest act of kindness can help.”
