Walnut Hills High School
January 31, 2012
Volume CVI, Issue 5
Exhibit remembers families affected by the Holocaust Josh Medrano, ‘13 News & Features Print Editor
By the end of 1942, thousands of European Jews had been deported to one of over 300 concentration camps. Hundreds of corpses and naked bodies lay in trenches and some had already been buried. Many died of hunger but most were murdered and shot by the Nazi soldiers. Some escaped the terror, but most lost a whole generation of families. With “A Reason to Remember,” Deborah Roth-Howe presents the story of five Jewish families in the small village of Roth, Germany from 1933-1942. The exhibit looks at documents, artifacts, photographs, immigration cards and other materials preserved from the former village. There are no Jews in Roth today. In the Hochster family, two survived and four were murdered;
all three members of the Nathan family were murdered, as well as all six members of the Bergenstein family. Five survived and four were murdered from the Roth family, while four survived and three relatives perished in the Stern family. The Jewish population of Roth was first recorded in 1611, and its peak of 55 was in 1737. Some of those with families surviving migrated to the United States before the Kristallnacht, which preceded the further persecution of Jews. Otto Stern, who turns 90 this year, came to Chicago with his family in 1937. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, he and a friend volunteered in the army, but German citizens were not accepted then because they were “enemy aliens.” However, he was finally drafted nine months later, and served 91 days in infantry, from which he received the Bronze Star, a Purple Heart and a
“A Reason to Remember” exhibit will be in the conference room in the first two weeks of February. Combat Infantry Badge. Stern was one of the first involved in the preservation of Roth. Traveling to his homeland after
Students debate marijuana usage Survey shows school divide Mia Manavalan, ‘12 Editor-In-Chief One hundred and thirty Walnut students, of which more than half were SENIORS, were surveyed about their usage and beliefs about marijuana. While 70 percent of the students surveyed are not against the usage of marijuana, 72 percent believe that students should be punished for being in possession of the illegal substance while at school. “That’s possibly one of the Should students be punished for using marijuana at school? Don’t know/ Dont care
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Yes
most idiotic things someone could do in their high school career,” junior Dan Steinberg says. “What you do outside of school is your business, but when you go to school … it’s not worth it, and all fiends out there bringing in any type of substance should just wait until the weekend or quit all together.” When asked what percentage of students use marijuana, 32 percent believe that 30-50 percent of the student body uses it and 33 percent believe that 50-75 percent uses it. In reality, about 70 percent of the students surveyed have admitted to experimenting with marijuana at least once, and five percent of those say that it has become part of their lives every day. SENIOR Andrew Hill, ’12, does not find this data surprising at all. “Marijuana use has become much more prevalent, not only amongst teenagers, but nationwide as well,” Hill claims. “A lot of people have started using marijuana since not only its medical uses became uncovered, but especially
since the false information given to the population by the government has been debunked.” Some students seem to have the wrong impression about how many actually use marijuana on a regular basis. One freshman states, “The administration needs to calm down. Walnut kids smoke weed. We all do.” 43 percent of those students surveyed say they come into interaction with it often because their friends use it. However, only three percent of the students surveyed admit they tried marijuana out of peer pressure, and forty two percent attribute the reason to curiosity. “The problem with marijuana is not so much the health effects, but the social ones,” one SENIOR says. “It’s disappointing to see that there are literally situations at Walnut where social barriers are placed against people who don’t smoke marijuana. It has become a crutch, a necessity for people to have fun, and I believe that it’s actually hurting people’s social life
the war as a soldier, he ordered the village mayor to clean up the Nazi-desecrated cemetery where his father and grandfather were buried. In 1996, a group of Roth residents formed the “Arbeitskreis” (working group) to preserve the things that had been a very important to the families’ lives, including a synagogue that the Nazis destroyed. Later, a group of local high school teachers collaborated with the Arbeitkreis to create this exhibit. Over the years, descendants of the families have returned to Roth to reminisce with their families’ former lives, as well as build connections with current residents. Roth-Howe is bringing the exhibit to Walnut Hills next week, February 3, in the conference room for two weeks. The exhibit, which is permanently in place at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, is designed to inspire
visitors “to better understand the lessons of the Holocaust and their personal obligations to oppose acts of hatred and civil injustice.” “Throughout the evolution of this project, I have been acutely aware that the story of Jewish community of Roth is my story by legacy only,” Roth-Howe writes in the dedication of the permanent exhibit. “It really belongs to each individual [who were blessed with the opportunity to flee and those who were unable to escape].” The exhibit brings a powerful reminder to everyone of the Holocaust and its victims: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”
more than helping it in that way.” While this may be so, others think quite the opposite. One sophomore says, “It has helped me socially in some unexplainable way. I think that marijuana should not only be legalized for medicinal reasons but for other purposes in the economy and recreation.” Junior Noah Fetters says, “All a stupid teenager wants is to belong to a certain group of people or to be able to relate to other teens. Smoking ‘cigaweeds’ can give a teen that sense of belonging, if smoking is something that floats his/her boat.” Here, education also comes into play. While the 10th grade health class focuses a portion of the course on the harmful effects of drugs, some believe it’s not enough. One SENIOR says the problem is the lack of a proper education in regards to drug usage. “A better drug education should be provided that actually informs kids of the benefits and consequences of every drug, rather than
Are you against the usage of marijuana?
SOPA sweeps cyberspace Ayana Rowe, ‘12 Copy Editor On January 18, many major websites went on strike and blacked out their pages, such as Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, and Tumblr. This legislation, proposed by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), is designed to protect intellectual property from theft and fraud. If it passes, the government will have the ability to filter U.S. sites
that infringe on copyrights, as well as links to said sites from search engines, such as Google. SOPA has the ability to change many teenagers’ daily rituals; any website to which a user uploads copyrighted content could be shut down, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Wikipedia. It can also cancel websites’ accounts with payment and ad services, such as Paypal and Adwords. The entertainment industry may also block websites from U.S. visitors
http://my.hsj.org/chatterbox
if they see something as copyright infringement. Furthermore, other countries may see it as a good idea and follow suit, leading to a worldwide Internet censorship; they may even view it as an offensive act and ban U.S. based websites. Every side has its own argument. SOPA supporters, including some members of the major political parties, claim that it will protect intellectual property and aid all jobs involved in the creation of
Don’t know/ Dont care
Yes
No
Mia Manavalan, Editor-In-Chief
I don't kn care
No trying to polarize people’s opinions. Drug use is a part of every high school… nothing is going to change that. However, if kids were better educated, they would make more informed decisions.” While only a portion of the Walnut Hills student body was surveyed, there is no question that marijuana has become a part of Walnut Hills High School. Some say there are no harmful effects, which is proven by “Walnut Hills plac[ing] among the top 100 schools in the nation” and another disagrees saying, “they call it a ‘pleasure drug’ but there’s nothing pleasurable about it.”
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this intellectual property. Opponents, on the other hand, believe that this legislation infringes on First Amendment rights and will cripple the Internet and lead to other hindrances of free speech. Drafts for the bill, which some have declared “dead,” has been postponed by Rep. Smith “until there is a wider agreement on the solution.”
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