In a black-and-white propaganda film from 1942 Germany, 14-year old Rosa Milewski looks hauntingly at a camera as she arrives at the Warsaw Ghetto. It was the last time she was seen alive.

     Now, thanks to two German high schoolers and Annekathrin Hill, a German historian, Rosa and her parents are memorialized on “Stumbling Blocks,” engraved metal cubes laid in cities across Europe to memorialize victims of the Holocaust, installed outside their last known address in Brandenburg, Germany. 

     But the Milewski’s legacies aren’t only cemented in these blocks. Through their investigation, the students and Hill discovered that Rosa is survived by her niece across the Atlantic, an instructional aide at South, Elsa Lapidus.

     After Hill reached out to Ms. Lapidus inquiring about Rosa, Mrs. Lapidus—a frequent visitor to Mr. Brian Levinson’s World History classes—shared the news with him along with the information she had: the short film of Rosa sent by Hill, and letters between Rosa and family members who had escaped Germany.  

     Inspired by these documents and Rosa’s legacy, Mr. Levinson and his students began research that blossomed into a detailed and thoughtful documentation of the Milewski’s family history. 

     “The letter I received from the Brandenburg City Museum would inspire so much action here at the High School,” Mrs. Lapidus said in a statement to Ms. Hill. “We had students analyze these letters and photos in order to tell a larger story about the Holocaust. I am very proud to report some of these students made their own historical discoveries.”

       Digging deeper, the student historians of room 700B stayed after class to interview Mrs. Lapidus. In groups, they researched passports and transcribed letters. 

     “They used the historical thinking skills that they learned throughout high school to add value to those documents. To be honest, they added more value than we could’ve anticipated,” said Mr. Levinson.

     The students truly brought their research to life. Their greatest achievement was finding previously unknown members of Rosa’s family.

     “We knew he existed,” said Kennedy Sirmans (‘27), a student, about a family member she discovered. “But we didn’t know much about him. I found his profession, when he was born, when he died, and his place of residence.” 

     But their efforts soon stalled.

     That was until another distant relative of Rosa, Rachel Fisher, came to talk to Mr. Levinson’s students. Sirmans says, “I figured something out, like a name, and another group from another class also had the same name but we didn’t know how to connect it. And then Rachel Fisher, she was just—she connected all three together. ”

     Combining their efforts, 700B’s historians, Mrs. Lapidus, and Fisher compiled a family history for the Milewskis. At the end of the school year, with the help of Media Center Specialist Ms. Mary Desmond, they created a gallery style presentation in the Media Center for other classes to explore.

     “This became an opportunity to humanize the history and connect these old documents to real people here in our school like Elsa,” said Mr. Levinson. “I was proud of the way my students interacted with the documents on their own,” he added.

     Mr. Levinson’s classes had become increasingly more engaged with their investigations. Besides learning more about Rosa, one group corresponded with students in Germany and compared how the Holocaust was taught in Germany versus the US. 

     Mr. Levinson hoped that his students’ effort and involvement left them with a meaningful experience.

      “Honestly, at the beginning, I was kind of in it for the grade—I know that’s bad,” Sirmans laughingly said. “But towards the end, I was getting into it, because every single class period I had, I was discovering more and more and more stuff, which led me to start loving it.” 

     The efforts of South’s students to memorialize Rosa’s story was matched by the successful effort of the German students to lay the “Stumbling Blocks” for Rosa and her family.

     A ceremony was held in Brandenburg on July 16, 2024, to celebrate the laying of the stumbling blocks and to remember the Milewskis. Mrs. Lapidus’ statement was read by Hill in front of those gathered. 

     “I will never stop remembering the faces in the documentary. These stones remind us that we should never forget.”

See documents, letters and pictures here