• Genocide Commemoration Day

    an annual event to commemorate the lives of those lost to genocide, those who survived, upstanders, and rescuers

     

    Genocide Commemoration Day was created by a student, Andrew Devedjian (DHS Class of 2017), in conjunction with the DHS Social Studies Department to mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in 2015.  (You can read an article about the event by Steve Sadin.) Since then, we created a student committee to plan yearly events honoring the memory of victims and survivors of genocides and providing education about genocide, mass atrocities and hate crimes in all their forms, past and present. The day includes speakers, displays that commemorate victims, survivors and upstanders, actions people can take to combat hate, and other interactive items to engage students and adults. Although the event is closed to the public, we invite the District 113 community to explore this website and to join us for any live-streamed or recorded speaker sessions on the District 113 YouTube channel.  You can also follow us on Instagram @dhs_gcd.  Please follow this link for information on the 2023 event.

     

    Special thanks to the District 113 Foundation and the Deerfield High School PTO for the generous grants they have provided to support this special day.  Beginning in 2024, the District 113 Foundation serves as sponsor of the program. Thanks to district and building level administrators, teachers and other staff members for their support and technical assistance in preparing the event.

  • Archive of Past Genocide Commemoration Days

    In 2023, our program was entirely in person.  Please visit the GCD 2023 webpage for details and recordings.

    In 2022, we held a comprehensive program with both in-person and online options.  Please visit the GCD 2022 webpage for details and recordings.

     

    2021 was the first district-wide GCD. See the promo video to the right.  (We also created a website historyunfolding.org, and in the summer of 2022, we migrated as much of that site as we could to this District webpage.  Please visit the GCD 2021 page.)

     

    In 2020, the Covid pandemic forced us to cancel the event.

     

    In 2019, our students heard from two Holocaust survivors, Ginger Lane and Kurt Gutfreund. And to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Rwanda Genocide, students also engaged in a research project on how US newspapers covered the unfolding genocide, which we presented on the website: https://dhsuncovershistory.wixsite.com/rwanda.

     

    Our 2018 event was featured in an article by Steve Sadin in The Pioneer Press. Our speakers were Rwanda Genocide survivor Claire Mukundente and Holocaust survivor Steen Metz. Displays included a focus on Rohingya refugees and a crowdsourced research project on the Rwanda Genocide, which the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum featured in an article on their History Unfolded project.  We were joined by several elected officials, including Rep. Brad Schneider, Sen. Julie Morrison and Rep. Scott Drury. We also received a letter from Sen. Tammy Duckworth.

     

    In 2017, we featured Holocaust Survivor Estelle Laughlin and we participated in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's History Unfolded project. See details in this press release on the event.

     

    In 2016, Andrew Devedjian took an independent study course at DHS titled Genocide 101. The culminating project was the creation of the 2016 GCD program, which included an opening program featuring speakers and a short film he created called "Injustice" (linked to the right), speakers on the Holodomor (starvation genocide) in Ukraine, and other sessions.