This boxcar will be at Phoenix Academy April 19-22
SARASOTA - A boxcar used to transport Jews and other victims of the Holocaust to Nazi concentration and death camps will be on display on the campus of Phoenix Academy from Monday, April 19 through Thursday, April 22. The boxcar, which was manufactured in Germany in 1919, is on loan from the Holocaust Museum of Southwest Florida. It is being displayed at the school as a result of a donation from an anonymous Sarasota resident.
Students have been participating in an interdisciplinary unit of study on the Holocaust in their English, history, and art classes. They have listened to Holocaust survivors and created original poems, paragraphs and artwork as a response to the survivor testimonies.
Local resident Paul Molnar will speak to students from 8:30 to 11 a.m. Wednesday about his personal experience as a Holocaust survivor who was transported in a box car.
Student docents from Phoenix Academy will lead tours for the public and students on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 7:30-10:30 a.m., 12:15-2 p.m. and 2:30-4 p.m. The tours will be an opportunity for community members, parents and students to inspect, walk through and reflect about the purpose of the boxcar during the Holocaust.
On Wednesday, tours will be given during the hours of 7:30-10:15 a.m., 11:40 a.m.-2:15 p.m. and 3-6 p.m.
More than 22,000 people toured the boxcar during the 2008-09 school year when it traveled to 17 schools in Lee and Collier counties.
Phoenix Academy is located at 1085 S. Shade Ave., just east of Sarasota High School.