On March 24, 2025, WCHS held a school-wide assembly that marked the school’s recognition of Yom HaShoah, the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day, in which a guest speaker from pro-Israel nonprofit StandWithUs came to speak to students about the Holocaust and its legacy.
The guest speaker, Matt Lebovic, is a journalist with The Times of Israel, specializing in the Holocaust’s history. Lebovic is also the founding director of the Holocaust Education Center, a sector of StandWithUs. Lebovic, whose great-grandparents and great-aunt/uncles were murdered at Auschwitz, noted early into the presentation that he is missing potentially dozens of relatives due to the Holocaust.
During his about 40 minutes on stage, Lebovic noted his focus would not be on Jewish traditions and culture, but more so the Holocaust and especially Nazism. Throughout the assembly, Lebovic sought to convey the extent of the evil committed during the Holocaust, even in the context of other similar massacres.
“We are talking about the most extreme of human behavior: when people decide to commit a genocide,” Lebovic said. “The Holocaust was different [from other genocides] because it was industrialized.”
A large portion of Lebovic’s presentation was dedicated to explaining and displaying Nazi atrocities, especially the ideology of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Throughout the presentation, Lebovic displayed diagrams of concentration camp gas chambers, depictions of Nazis shooting Jews in mass and Hitler’s infamous manifesto, Mein Kampf, which many historians call the blueprint for Hitler’s later actions.
“Hitler was completely consistent,” Lebovic said. “He said what he wanted to do in [Mein Kampf], and he did it.”
Lebovic also drew a connection between Hitler’s ideologies and a potential American inspiration. The Nazis may have taken cues from American racial policies and this may have eventually contributed to the brutal efficiency of Nazi-driven minority persecution.
“[The Nazis] were very much inspired by the Jim Crow laws,” Lebovic said. “It would not be accurate to say Hitler learned racism from the United States, but he learned how to mechanize it.”
More than anything else, Lebovic stressed the importance of standing up for what is right in order to ensure something like the Holocaust never happens again. Lebovic noted that though most people may not be members of any given minority group, any discrimination is oftentimes a slippery slope that can spread rapidly.
“Hate does not come out of nowhere, and even if you are not in the group that is being targeted, you could be next, or a loved one could be next,” Lebovic said. “It does not have to be much, just stand up when you see hate.”
