CARLSBAD: Carlsbad students produce Holocaust documentary

CHS students' film slated for March release

By STACY BRANDT - Staff Writer | Tuesday, September 2, 2008 1:38 PM PDT ∞

CARLSBAD ---- A group of students at Carlsbad High School hope to change the way eighth-graders across the state learn about the Holocaust through a 28-minute documentary they plan to finish in the next couple of months.

"We really think this should be in every middle school and high school in the state of California," said Doug Green, the teacher who created and oversees the school's TV production program.

The 16 students in the program had originally planned to finish the documentary ---- tentatively titled "We Must Remember" ---- in June. However, the six-minute trailer they put together to promote the film brought enough attention and money that six of the students were able to return to Europe last month for a second week of filming, including time at Auschwitz concentration camp outside of Krakow, Poland.

Last year, a group of 15 students in Green's elective broadcast journalism class spent a week filming, mostly in Germany's notorious Dachau concentration camp.

The students paid their own way on the first trip. For the second trip, enough money had come in to pay for most of their travel costs.

With the additional footage, the students now have the daunting task of editing hours and hours of digital video down to 28 minutes, Green said.

The resulting film will be a documentary about making the documentary, he said. This format will allow students to relate to their peers as they find our more about the Holocaust, said Haley Quartarone, one of the students working on the film.

About 6 million European Jews were killed in the Holocaust during World War II as part of a plan by Germany's Nazi party and its leader Adolf Hitler.

Green got the idea for the film project two years ago after touring the Dachau concentration camp while working in Germany.

Everyone involved in the project has donated their time without getting any extra money or school credit, because they feel it's a story that needs to be told, Green said.

Students typically learn a brief history of the Holocaust in eighth grade, but Krysta Mortland, one of the students who went to Poland last month, said she doesn't think the short lessons are enough for students to really understand what happened.

"What I learned in eighth grade was basically that a lot of people died and that Hitler was a really bad person," she said. "Then, we learned the story of Anne Frank and that was pretty much it."

It's important that students grasp how and why the Holocaust happened so that nothing similar happens again, said Brent Roach, another of the students on the Poland trip.

Eventually, Green said he would like to see students put together two more documentaries focusing on different aspects of the Holocaust.

In addition to touring concentration camps, the students have met with local Holocaust survivors, soldier who liberated people from the concentration camps at the end of World War II and high school students in Germany.

It's important to gather as many interviews as possible with those alive during World War II, Green said. Most of them are in their 80s and 90s now, and many have already died.

"Time is running out," Green said.

So far, the documentary has brought in $206,000 in donations, including $100,000 from the Liechtag Family Foundation, a Rancho Santa Fe-based nonprofit foundation. Lisa Posard, who has been one of the principal fundraisers, said she hopes to bring in $282,000 by March, when Green said he plans to mail out the film to as many schools as possible across the state.

The students plan to finish up the editing over the next couple of months so they can show the film at film festivals in November.

"It's really pretty amazing what these kids have been able to accomplish," Posard said.

The trailer for the documentary is available online at www.chstv.com.

Contact staff writer Stacy Brandt at (760) 901-4009 or sbrandt@nctimes.com.