Palominas Elementary School sixth-grade teacher Darcey Wimer is heading to the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., for a March seminar. She hopes to gain insights into the tragic massacre of 6 million Jews during World War II to share with her students.

A stipend for travel, housing and meals is provided Wimer by the National Holocaust Museum to attend the Western States Conference. Some 30 teachers have been chosen throughout the region to participate, Wimer says.   

Wimer “has a keen interest in the Holocaust and devotes time and energy to instructing her students about it,” comments school counselor, Barbara Conlogue.

The mother of two Palominas School students — Mason, 13, and Jennifer, 8 — Wimer previously taught at Bisbee’s Lowell Junior High. She is a native of Anamosa, Iowa.

Intrigue with Holocaust studies sprang out of her interest in World War II, in which her grandfather was a sailor aboard the USS Bush. She says it is necessary to study the era of the Depression and beyond “to hear about WWII from living people,”  

Helen Suby, an European who escaped the death camps by living in the forest for 1 1/2 years during World War II is to speak to Wimer’s students again as she has in the past.

As a teacher, Wimer seeks to instill in her students an awareness of the inhumanity Jews and many others endured. As a non-Jew, her experience with Holocaust survivors has made her particularly sensitive to educating children in order to arm future generations with enough knowledge to learn from the horrors of the past so that those mistakes will never be repeated.

Students read books about the Holocaust and write reports. They have a hallway Ladder of Prejudices so that youth may report evidences in current news of ways in which people are marginalized or inhumanely treated by negative reactions such as prejudice concerning race, religion, nationality or other issues. A Ladder of Peace is a project soon to be launched, she says.

Being able to teach all subjects in her sixth-grade classroom, with the exception of physical education, Spanish and computers, Wimer can weave the subject in many ways through history, literature and geography courses.

A graduate of the Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Mo., and Missouri Southern State College, Wimer has a B.S. in education.

Conlogue says her coworker “is an exceptional teacher,” and that receiving this honor by the National Holocaust Museum is “a wonderful accomplishment.” Conlogue adds, “It’s an honor to work with her.”