Introduction
Your
Stories
OMers
Abound
Weather from
Iowa
OM Words
Changing a
Lightbulb
A Serious Performance
Copying Art
Once Upon a
Mattress
The Ballad
of Oz
A Serious OM Performance Remembers the Holocaust
The Walker-Grant Middle School OM team from Fredricksburg, Virginia, traveled through time -- and timeless experiences -- this past year. The year was filled with learning experiences and emotional moments. The team's final Time Traveler performance also contributed to its 4th-place ranking at the 16th annual OM World Finals competition in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The trip through time began when the team decided to memorialize the Holocaust in its OM problem solution. Since none of the team members are Jewish, they researched Judaism -- its customs and history, past and present.
To conduct part of the necessary research, the team visited its local Beth Shalom Temple and interviewed Rabbi Steve Weisman. Team members also visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. They viewed Schindler's List and read The Diary of Anne Frank.
After much discussion, the team created a presentation that told a fictitious story of Reuven Weisman. Reuven, an inventor, was creating a time machine to transport his family away from the horrors of Poland during World War II. Before he was finished, the Nazis surrounded his home, seizing his family. However, Reuven's ten-year-old daughter Rivkah escaped by hiding in the untested time machine. The machine launched her 50 years into the future.
Rivkah emerged in modern-day Israel, delighted to find a state set aside for the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Her travels into the 21st century led her to the United Arab Israeli States, where a peaceful union existed among Israel and Middle Eastern countries.
The people there begged her to stay, but Rivkah was compelled to rejoin her family in Easter Europe. Although it was likely she would die in the gas chamber, the fact that her people would survive was her solace.
The team presented its memorial through different levels of OM competition. It was also a part of a Holocaust Remembrance Service held in the local community. People from all faiths converged there to remember what happened 50 years ago and to find peace and healing.
Team members sent the script and a video copy of the performance to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Odyssey of the Mind Newsletter, Summer 1995
