Learning about the Holocaust this year stands as one of the most important parts of my education here at JC.

Before, I had certainly heard about the Holocaust, but had failed to comprehend what it actually was.

If I’m honest with myself, the statistics never really moved me beyond the point of thinking “how unfortunate,” and then I continued on with my life, my thoughts far removed from such horrors.

What people really need is something to connect to. In other words, they need a story, and at JC, that is exactly what students get.

For starters, all senior English classes read “Night,” by Elie Wiesel, a harrowing autobiographical account of the Holocaust.

Even more stories are found by the senior class every year when they take their annual field trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Each object in that museum carries a tale, from the piles of shoes that belonged to prisoners in Majdanek to the cattle car that shipped prisoners to the concentration camps.

The most incredible day was when the Holocaust survivors came to share their personal stories with the senior class.

I had the opportunity to talk for hours with Sol Goldstein, who helped liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp. This man is one of the most inspirational humans I have ever met.

For much of his life, Goldstein continued to liberate oppressed people in other countries, oftentimes risking his own safety to do so.

When I asked him why he did all this, he told me that he had promised himself that after the Holocaust, whenever a Jew needed help, he would go to them. “Someone’s got to do it,” he said. Hearing all of these stories put faces to all the facts I had known about.

Sadly, my generation is among the last to be able to hear these stories firsthand, so continuing this JC tradition for as long as possible is especially important.

The Holocaust teaches the destructive nature of hate, which is one of the most integral lessons for a person to learn.

That lesson can’t be easily taught in a classroom setting, though. That’s why the time spent outside of class on this subject is well worth it, and is among the most valuable lessons I will take away from my education.

Scott Novak is an Opinion Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.