mr. john pratt up to the stage to begin our program today. >>> good morning. on october 19, 2018, a philadelphia newspaper ran an opinion article entitled, why we need a holocaust education, now more than ever. according to the inside defamation league, anti-somatic incidents rose nearly 60% between 2016-2017. the largest single year job the organization has ever recorded. understanding how and why the holocaust occurred helps to demonstrate, not only the horrors that humans are capable of, and desperate conditions, but also the hope that can survive even the most terrifying trauma. teaching students about the holocaust shows the dangers of prejudice, and how dehumanization and scapegoating are used to advance an agenda. it is one thing to read about the holocaust in the history books, or listen to a teacher lecture about it. it is completely another to experience history through the eyes of a survivor, and to hear the stories first-hand. 9 days after this was written, on the other side of pennsylvania, and pittsburgh, a gunman walked into the tree of life con