College Junior to Teach Lessons of the Holocaust

She has always been interested in history, particularly the Holocaust, and now she is getting the opportunity to teach it to others.

Bridgewater resident Corinne Burziechelli will be participating in the Lipper Internship Program at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Manhattan. She is one of 16 interns participating in this program during the Fall semester.

“I found it really important to prevent something like the Holocaust from happening in the future, and I always had an interest in the topic,” said Burziechelli, who will be a junior at Rutgers University this semester, studying history with a minor in English. “I saw through a Rutgers e-mail that there was this program and I wanted to look into it.”

“It seemed like something that anyone should be involved in, and everyone should know something about,” she added. “No one should question if it happened because it’s about humanity.”

The program takes college students from across the northeast and allows them to work with public schools in local communities to teach the memorial at the museum, according to Bonnie Unger, who works in the education department at the museum.

According to Unger, the program has three different steps for each community school, which the individual interns run. First, she said, is the pre-visit, where interns visit the schools themselves and go through a slide show of the exhibit.

From there, Unger said, the intern takes the school class on a tour of the exhibit, which is followed by another wrap-up session at the school.

“The college students work in pairs, and Corinne will be working with students throughout New Jersey,” she said. “The pre-visit, tour and post-visit structure is the same for all students, but depending on the age, we cater to those particular kids.”

The program, Unger said, is currently in its 27th year, and they have worked with about 48,000 students in that time.

The Lipper Internship Program is funded through a grant from the Gruss Lipper Foundation, and was started with that group through the education department at the museum.

“It is one of the museum’s oldest internship programs,” Unger said.

Burziechelli said she is looking into graduate school for museum education or communications, so this internship program was ideal for her.

“Ideally I would like to work in a museum one day,” she said. “And I would like to work with memorial museums in general because they require people who are passionate about a topic and I would like to be part of that.”

Burziechelli submitted the application, complete with an essay, and was accepted into the program.

“This exhibit really encompasses a lot of things, not just the six million Jews, but also a number of individuals,” she said. “It focuses on them so you know that these are real people who died, not just numbers.”

Over the summer, Burziechelli said, she participated in a 10-day training program where the interns toured through the museum, went over the tour outlines and learned about how to speak to the students themselves.

“And we talked about strategies for teaching, history-related topics and rabbis who talk about these topics,” she said. “We also talked about memorials or movements today that deal with genocide.”

Burziechelli said all of the people involved in the program really want to learn more about these topics and be part of the museum.

“We all want to learn more, get more involved and, in addition, we’re hearing from survivors, which helps us connect with the material,” she said.

As a Bridgewater resident, Burziechelli said she would love to bring this program to the high school.

“I had Holocaust education at the school,” she said. “It’s a very unique experience.”

“I didn’t have anything like this, and I don’t think we went to the museum, but we read a lot of Holocaust literature,” she added. “That’s where my passion for it came through.”

And Unger said she thinks there are definite benefits in allowing students to teach other students.

“The internship is particularly special because it’s young people who are leading the tours,” she said. “I think it’s a special opportunity for them to work together, and allows a lot of schools to come to participate. Rather than just a tour, it’s more comprehensive.”

Unger said the museum works with all different schools and teachers, mostly focusing on English and social studies classes.
“Usually it coincides with something they’re studying,” she said.

Burziechelli said she is looking forward to being part of the program and what it has to offer.

“I am looking forward to getting out and imparting the museum’s message on other people,” she said. “It’s a life-changing experience, and this has opened my eyes to a lot of new people. There are people growing up who have their whole lives in front of them, and can benefit from hearing the message the museum has.”