After years of teaching the Holocaust to high school seniors I have come to terms with the fact that some of them are just too sensitive to be able to handle the films that I show, and also our class trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.  They don’t need to be hit over the head with the horrors – they get it right away.  The visuals in movies and the museum leave them in tears and with nightmares for weeks.  Rather than put them through this I allow them to choose another way to learn about the Holocaust and share that knowledge. Rebecca is one of those incredibly sensitive, insightful and empathic students. I was delighted when she asked me if she could write a song instead of going to the museum.  But I did not know what to expect the morning that she invited me into the Chapel where the piano is, so that she could sing her song for me.  All that I can tell you is that as she sang ‘Rachel Watches’, I felt as if she were channeling the soul of a Jewish mother who lost her child in Auchwitz.  This song is a gift. 

  Lucy Strausbaugh, M.S., LCPC

Notre Dame Preparatory School

Religious Studies Department