The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum is the destination as AP World History takes a field trip on Feb. 7 as a part of their globalization unit.

“Our students have already done reading about this topic, they’ve given speeches,” AP World History teacher Elizabeth Evans said. “And so by going to the Holocaust Museum we get a chance to get a much more in-depth look and also develop more of an empathetic look at these topics so they don’t just become academic, but they’re also something that really impacts the students.”

Even though the topics presented at the Holocaust Museum can be hard to process for some students, for sophomore Ofek Weiss it’s important for students to jump head-first into learning about all kinds of history.

“[Going to the Holocaust Museum] is important because we need to learn about our past and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Weiss said. “Everyone needs to learn about genocides that have happened in the world and make sure they won’t repeat.”

Sehaj Kaur, a junior who went on the field trip her freshman year, remembers it as being somber but enlightening.

“We saw this one train car used to transport people to concentration camps during the Holocaust,” Kaur said. “It was super small and they fit like a hundred people in it and it was just really sad to think about how they had to experience that. Going to the Holocaust Museum was a good thing though, because I think it was really important for my class to go and learn about the dark side of history, even if it’s hard.” 

Besides potentially opening students’ worldview to the harsh history of the past, going to the Holocaust Museum also allows them to gain more knowledge in preparation for the AP World History exam.

“Any kind of learning is always better if you can attach some kind of emotion to it,” Evans said. “I wouldn’t say our most important values for them is the AP exam because we want them mostly to become better humans and people of the world.”