After reading Night by Elie Wiesel, Melanie Caffee’s ninth-grade English classes honored victims of the Holocaust with a special activity.

“We’re not trying to recreate the Holocaust, and who would want to,” Caffee said.

Caffee organized the Night Memorial Stations on March 3 as a culmination of the Night unit. Students entered the PAC and had to remove their shoes and abandon their possessions, as the Jews were forced to do in concentration camps.

Then students moved about the PAC to different stations where they viewed photographs and read stories about Holocaust victims. At one station, they tasted soup that represented the meager rations served in concentration camps. At other stations, they wrote their reactions to the experience.

“Before I read Night, I didn’t know how Jews were treated,” said Hart Smith, one of Ginny Shikle’s freshmen English students invited to participate in the event. “After Night, I know how horrible the Jews were treated, and nobody did anything to help.”

Students also watched a documentary featuring a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. They also wrote letters to Holocaust victims.

“Dear Paul,” wrote Cole Gordon, “I am sorry to hear that after what your family had gone through to survive the Holocaust, you met a tragic end, especially after the loss of your mother.”