Through education, the Museum seeks to broaden minds and hearts of young people to promote tolerance, mutual respect and understanding between all people.

Holocaust Museum Houston, in conjunction with the Mayor of Houston’s Anti-Gang Task Force, established the Youth and the Law anti-gang program, and also works with the Houston Housing Authority. The program targets at-risk students and gang-affiliated adolescents.

Students assigned to the program through the judicial systems are taught:

• the dangers of racism, hatred and violence,
• to enforce the importance of individual responsibility
• and that each of us has choices in our social behavior. 

Using Holocaust education as a backdrop, this program teaches participants to recognize the similarities of the Nazi Party to today’s gangs. It strives to help students acknowledge the destructive nature of their behavior and encourage them to re-evaluate their personal lifestyle in relation to their environment.

The program provides young people with the tools to make informed decisions about the path they will follow for the rest of their lives.

The anti-gang program takes place over three days, with each session lasting two hours. All three sessions are designed to be interactive and comprehensible to all age groups. The roles - as identified in the Holocaust - of victim, perpetrator, rescuer and bystander are strongly emphasized throughout the program. At the conclusion of each session, the participants are asked to perform a "righteous act" prior to the next session. This enables them to understand how gratifying it is to help others and in turn, elevates their self-esteem.

The first class begins with an overview of the historical events that occurred in Europe between 1933 and 1945 while pinpointing the ties between modern youth gang violence and the organized state-sponsored genocide that occurred under Adolf Hitler’s rule. The next activity celebrates the students’ "righteous acts" and then focuses on personalizing the tragedies of the Holocaust. The students also refer to the book, "I Never Saw Another Butterfly," which is a compilation of poems and drawings created during the Holocaust by children imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.  The students then participate in an activity that identifies them with a child in the Holocaust.  The remainder of this session revolves around a stimulating self-esteem exercise. This aspect of the program as it acts as a catalyst for these students to recognize the unlimited opportunities and potential available to them should they choose a productive lifestyle. 

The final session consists of a tour of the permanent exhibit at Holocaust Museum Houston, "Bearing Witness: A Community Remembers." The students then return to the classroom where they participate in the culminating activity that strongly emphasizes, in a very emotionally impacting manner, the danger of sanctioning discrimination and racism.

Students are taught to consciously choose the role they wish to play in their daily lives. Once these roles are demonstrated to the students, they are eager and motivated to consider the sense of isolation, racial and ethnic tensions in their communities. Students recognize immediately that as individuals, they can, and must, make a difference.

Fall sessions are scheduled for:

• Sept. 13, 2008
• Sept. 20, 2008
• Oct. 11, 2008
• Oct. 18, 2008
• Nov. 8, 2008
• Nov. 15, 2008

For more information, contact education@hmh.org or call 713-942-8000, ext. 118.