High School Living History Project
2025 HHREC High School Living History Project
The Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center offers an opportunity for students to participate in an intergenerational program connecting high school students with the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors (GenerationsForward).
This year, students chosen by their teachers in grades 10-12 presented from Archbishop Stepinac, Byram Hills, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Somers, and Valhalla high schools. The High School Living History Project student presentations documented and shared Holocaust Survivor stories.
Program Description and Purpose
The High School Living History Project is a unique, intergenerational program that brings together students and the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Every individual who hears the stories of these individuals, either firsthand or through a living witness, becomes responsible for ensuring their legacies live on for generations. Students learn and process these narratives so that they can better safeguard them and our society’s knowledge of this period in history.
We hope that the connections the students make will inspire them and help inform their decisions as they grow into adults. For the GenerationsForward members, the program ensures that younger generations continue to hear the stories of the Holocaust: both its horrors and the tremendous courage and resilience of its many survivors. These stories, in addition to creating a living history, serve as a platform to have greater discussions about human rights issues impacting our world.
Project Outcomes
Students create projects which prepare them to give an oral presentation as they share their GenerationsForward member’s story, a timeline of events in the survivors’ home country and implications this learning has for the future. The final project must be able to live in a digital space and can be as creative as the student would like. Students are encouraged to also present their project to their school community.
The Power of Stories
Living History Presentations by
Westchester County High School Students
April 22, 2025
The HHREC GenerationsForward Speakers and students who worked with them to present their stories about the Holocaust this year included:
Elden Agee - Archbishop Stepinac High School - Mindy Nagorsky-Israel
Desirae Bailey-McCalla - Mount Vernon High School - Helen Rubel
Joey Schachter - Byram Hills High School - Joseph Kaidanow
Liv Bergstein - Byram Hills High School - Hannah Greenwald
Liana Brown - Byram Hills High School - Victor Borden
Penn Copeland - New Rochelle High School - Leah Sills
Olivia Sexton - New Rochelle High School - Karin Meyers
Summer Befanis - Somers High School - Lisa Salko
Victoria Grigorova - Valhalla High School - Danny Weinreb.
The program was organized and led by Jeanne Claire Cotnoir, HHREC Coordinator of Student Programming.
One of the highlights of this year's Living History Project was a presentation by Elden Agee, who wrote this poem:
“We Stand”
When voices tremble and streets grow still,
When truth is buried beneath the will
Of those who whisper, “Not my fight,”
We rise. We march. We hold the light.
When hatred hides in suit and tie,
And laws are passed while people cry,
When fear is dressed in something neat,
We speak. We shout. We won’t retreat.
When silence feels like safety's song,
And comfort tells us, “Just go along,”
We break that hush with louder sound—
With justice fierce, with hearts unbound.
For Ilse’s tears we never saw,
For names erased by hate-made law,
For every soul the world ignored,
We stand. We fight. We move toward more.
More love. More truth. More hands held high.
More reasons not to turn our eye.
More courage pulsing in our chest,
To choose what's hard. To be our best.
So when the world says, “Let it be,”
Remember those who couldn’t flee.
And when injustice shakes the land,
Don’t sit. Don’t wait.
We rise. We stand.
By: Elden Agee
