An ELL class at Margaret Allen Middle School went the extra mile while studying the Holocaust. The story of a survivor deeply impacted one student, but unfortunately her learning was cut short.
A couple of years ago, Andy Mizell's class studied the Holocaust, but that's when he realized some of them had never heard of it before.
One student in particular, Andrea Solano, was particularly interested in Holocaust survivor Eva Kor, who as a child had along with her twin sister, been taken to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp where they were experimented on.
Andrea was amazed at Eva's ability to forgive her captors. For an art competition, Andrea drew a rendering that focused on Eva. She won third place in the state and was given an award.
Mizell reached out to Eva to come to Tennessee to meet with his students, but she declined. However, when Middle Tennessee State University invited her, she accepted and said she would stop by Mararet Allen during her trip.
By that time, he and his students had created Eva's "Kortyard" a place complete with train tracks, representing the trains that took many to the Concentration camps, and a fountain of forgiveness. They were hoping that Eva would be pleased to see how important it was to them.
However, Andrea, who sparked the entire class' interest in Eva Kor, never met her hero. She was killed in a car accident last year, at the age of 16.
Since her family knew how important Margaret Allen and Mr. Mizell had been to Andrea, they had her buried at the cemetery directly across the street from the school and her grave now faces it.
