x
Breaking News
More () »

Holy Rosary Eighth Graders Head to National History Competition

DURYEA — A group of eighth graders from a school in Luzerne County is heading to the national championship for a competition about history. The boys from ...
luz play

DURYEA -- A group of eighth graders from a school in Luzerne County is heading to the national championship for a competition about history.

The boys from Holy Rosary School in Duryea had to research and write a performance. They won a Pennsylvania state championship for it last week.

On Wednesday, they put on their winning show for the rest of the school.

This is so much more than just a school play. It's a look into a dark part of world history, researched, written and performed by eighth graders at Holy Rosary School in Duryea, and they won a state championship for it.

"It's crazy. I never thought I would do something like this!" said eighth grader Kenny Francis.

The five boys now take their performance to the National History Day national competition in Maryland after a lot of work.

"We had to write the script, research all of our characters, and we all got together and we figured out how to do it and it was really good," said eighth grader Louis Galli.

Louis Galli plays the captain of the German ship the St. Louis. Back in 1939, it carried hundreds of Jews trying to flee Nazi Germany, only to be turned away by Cuba and the United States and forced back to Europe.

In their play, the boys show that many of those Jews died in concentration camps.

"You think about the pain they went through and try to relive it. It's very hard," said eighth grader Zac Sulima.

"I realized that I knew that the Nazis were terrible, but I never picked up on how cruel they were to the Jewish people," said eighth grader Evan Gedrich.

Next month, they'll perform at the National History Day competition at the University of Maryland.

But first, they performed for a very proud school.

"They stayed after school. They did practices at home, went to friends' homes at night. Their parents took them to New York City to go to the holocaust museum," explained Holy Rosary history teacher Jennifer Snyder.

"I'm excited because it's a pretty cool experience, awesome that we can go on to nationals and many other places," said eighth grader Mark Raniela.

Holy Rosary in Duryea is raising money to help pay for the boys' trip to the national competition next month.

Lake Lehman High School students are also state champs in another category, going to nationals for a documentary.

Before You Leave, Check This Out