Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time set aside for reflection and education. One local Jewish school took the day to help students understand the human toll of the Holocaust.
Prayers of remembrance filled the San Diego Jewish Academy in Carmel Valley today -- prayers for the six million Jews who lost their lives during the Holocaust. Academy students, parents and teachers were joined by 50 Holocaust survivors who now make their home in San Diego. Benjamin Midler is one of those survivors. Now 79-years-old and living in Rancho Bernardo, Midler was only 11-years-old when the war broke out.
Benjamin Midler, Holocaust Survivor : The will to survive and to look for my parents. That gave me the strength to go through all the life in the camps and ghettos.
But Midler was the only member of his family to survive the concentration camps.
Midler : My grandparents had twelve kids. From all twelve, and everybody had families. My family, my father and mother, and I had another brother younger than me, and a sister. All of them perished. I am the only one surviving.
Midler is a member of New Life, a group of Holocaust survivors living in San Diego. He says they wanted to be here today to raise awareness among the young students.
Midler : To think about it. At least another generation will never forget, and hoping that it will never happen again.
The fifth grade students led the program with a candle lighting ceremony, poetry and songs. Then, students and survivors worked together to paint ceramic butterflies for Project Remembrance and Hope. Their goal is to create 1.5 million of the colorful butterflies -- one for each child who died in the Holocaust.
And they've taken their project global. Students are sending butterflies to people around the world who will paint and mail them back. 3,000 butterflies from places like Mexico, Arizona and Chicago already adorn the walls of the school's campus. For the fifth-graders, the day provided a unique opportunity to befriend a different generation and learn an important lesson.
Yael Breziner, Fifth Grade Student: Well, it's really an important thing because in a few years, you know, many of them will not be here anymore, and you know, we have to keep them in our minds so the next generation and generations to come will remember them and it will never happen again.
30,000 girl scouts nationwide have also been invited to paint butterflies and take part in Project Remembrance and Hope.
