Jacksonville school commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day with event and memorial garden

One school went the extra mile to recognize Holocaust Remembrance Day — an international memorial day commemorating victims of the event — hosting an afternoon presentation and special garden dedication. 

On Thursday, Sandalwood High School teacher Patrick Nolan led a seminar for students and faculty on the causes and consequences of the Holocaust. 

Nolan, who has been teaching history at the school for over 20 years, also developed and has taught a one-semester course on the Holocaust at Sandalwood for the last 15 years.

"It has been my passion for a very long time," Nolan said.

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The educator was tapped by Duval County Public Schools to develop the Holocaust curriculum used districtwide and is currently teaching a college-level version of the course at the Univesity of North Florida. Previously, he also taught it at FSCJ. 

About 200 students attended the auditorium presentation, which took place during the regular school day. The slides Nolan presented are part of a set of public resources published by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, where he studied in 2016. The presentation was titled "Shoah: How Was it Humanly Possible?" Shoa is a Hebrew term for 'destruction' that is commonly used to refer to the Holocaust. 

Teacher: It's important to bring lessons about Holocaust to classroom

Nolan says it's important for public schools — not just Jewish schools — to incorporate lessons about the Holocaust into the classroom. 

"The Holocaust has become such an ingrained and integral part of Jewish history," he said. "Jewish people know a lot about the Holocaust and have been exposed in one way or another. It's not news to them or an unusual thing. But, I think it's even more important for people outside of the Jewish community to know about it." 

A 2020 report said that two-thirds of millennials and Gen Zers don't know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and almost half can't name a single concentration camp. Nolan says those reports are indicative of the importance to teach the general public about the Holocaust. 

State legislation mandates that Florida schools incorporate lessons about the Holocaust into the curriculum. But there's a lack of regulation when it comes to time or content requirements. Not every school offers a whole course the way Sandalwood does. And even then, the one-semester elective course is not required and will not fit into everyone's schedule. 

"Certainly not every student could take the class even if the school had it," Nolan said. "But if we can reach many of them and let them learn something new, it's vitally important we continue to teach this event because it's one of the pivotal events in human history. That's why I keep teaching this. Every time I get a new crop of students, I remind myself that this is the first time they're learning about this."

Following the presentation, the Sandalwood community dedicated their Daffodil Project Memorial Garden outside — part of a global effort to plant 1.5 million daffodils to honor the 1.5 million children that were murdered during the Holocaust. 

Sandalwood represents one of four local schools with one of the memorial gardens. The others are Mandarin High, LaVilla Middle and Crown Point Elementary. Nolan was approached by Melissa Williams, Jacksonville's Jewish Family and Community Services Education Coordinator, last year about establishing a garden at the school. Nolan quickly agreed. 

"Patrick Nolan has been using innovative resources to teach Holocaust Education for years, and we were excited to approach him about participating in the Daffodil Project because we knew he would be open to reaching his students in a creative, impactful and moving way," Williams told The Times-Union. "It’s one thing to read about the events that led to the Holocaust and see the statistics in the pages of a history book, but it’s another thing to try and comprehend the incredible and tragic loss of so many innocent children at the hands of the Nazis."

Williams said The Jewish Family & Community Services hopes to expand participation for the Daffodil Project across Northeast Florida. 

"During the fall our Senior Men Service Club and Drama Club members worked to create the garden space and plant the daffodil bulbs, which were delivered to us in early December," Nolan said. "Since January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I thought it would be the perfect day to dedicate the garden." 

Some of the bulbs are beginning to sprout in the garden. By spring, flowers should appear.

Other events in Jacksonville commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day include the Jewish Family & Community Service's virtual art show Thursday morning, which served as a preview of an in-person "Art in the Holocaust" exhibit that is coming to the Frisch Family Holocaust Memorial Gallery in the Baymeadows area in the spring. 

Emily Bloch is an education reporter for The Florida Times-Union. Follow her on Twitter or email her. Sign up for her newsletter.