On January 16th, 2025, an organization against antisemitism, Hate Ends Now, brought a cattle car exhibit to Trinity Preparatory School to provide an immersive experience for students to reflect upon the Holocaust. The exhibit, located behind Brokaw Hall, combines the physical representation of the cattle cars used to transport Holocaust victims to extermination camps with the stories of survivors Hedy Bohm and Nate Leipciger.
“The cattle car provides a better perspective because when people are reading a textbook, looking at an article online or watching a YouTube video, it doesn’t provide the same experience that being surrounded by what happened does,” Jewish student and exhibit organizer Sophia Scheinberg said. “I think it’s just much better and helps students understand more.”
With anti-semitic incidents tripling from 2023-2024 to more than 10,000 per the Anti-Defamation League, it becomes increasingly important to highlight historical atrocities to ensure acceptance of the status quo. The exhibit allows students an opportunity to delve into the misery of the Holocaust within a compact boxcar elucidating understanding that is hard to come by in traditional education.
“I think that [the cattle car exhibit] gives you the ability to walk into a different environment where you can better conceptualize what somebody else went through,” Rabbi and Jewish Student Union sponsor Daniel Nabatian said.
Innovative Holocaust education is a necessary step to ensure that the atrocities of the past do not repeat themselves in the future. The touching stories of Bohm and Leipciger being permanently separated from their families foster a call to action for students to ensure that “Never Again” is a reality.
“The end message of being the change and helping people change their views was a really important message because people need to be the change they want to see,” Jewish student and exhibit attendee Naomi Tanielian said.
In accordance with the newly formed Diversity in Spirituality and Perspective Advisory Group Council, the Trinity administration has sponsored the cattle car to promote diverse forms of educational enrichment that promote acceptance amongst its student body.
“[Trinity] is committed to providing the funding for various student experiences so whether it is this year, the opportunity to view the cattle car, next year, it could be an engaging line dancer,” Assistant Head of Upper School and Diversity in Spirituality and Perspective Advisory Group Leader Sebastiaan Blickman said. “A year after that there’s a different month or something that we’re trying to support or make visible for purposes of representation and making sure that all our students feel supported and and embraced.”
The administration is dedicated to creating leaders that embrace diversity in perspective and aim to continue to create a student body that is both worldly and welcoming. Rabbi Nabatian hopes that other schools across both Florida and the country will follow Trinity’s lead in opening their campus to an important initiative to stop hatred.
“[The cattle car exhibit] is a way for an administration to partner with the Jewish community on an important initiative, and it’s a way that you can enhance the current Holocaust education curriculum and bring it to the next level,” Nabatian said. “[It] ensure[s] that students are really learning about this important topic in a meaningful way.”
Nabatian emphasized the importance of each individual who walks in the cattle car re-conceptualizing their tolerance of hate and what they can do in their communities. The cattle car provides an opportunity for students to have an immersive educational experience with the Holocaust fostering questions of how they can better resist hate in the world.
“I don’t think that we could impact a community or a city or a country overnight,” Nabatian said. “But we can make a difference within ourselves and start asking ourselves critical questions about injustices that we see and slowly make an impact on society.”
