Students in George Boudman's AP art classes at Pleasant Valley High School are required to choose a theme and spend the school year creating art pieces that relate to the chosen theme. This year, senior Shannon Simpson chose Holocaust survivor Sylvia Kagan as the central character of her project.

"Shannon met Mrs. Kagan last year and heard her speak," Boudman said. "I have never seen someone so inspired by someone as Shannon was by Mrs. Kagan."Simpson created a number of paintings from photographs that Kagan provided to her as well as a three-dimensional sculpture of Adolf Hitler as part of her project.Simpson and Boudman invited Kagan to come to the high school to share her story with the students just in time for Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah.Simpson introduced Kagan to those in attendance and Kagan began her story by saying, "If you leave here having learned something new, then my trip here will have been worth it."As a small child Kagan grew up on a small farm in Transylvania, Romania. The farm had a three-room home that she shared with her parents and her brother.In 1934 Kagan's father passed away from stomach cancer. A year later her brother married and had a family of his own.One day in early 1944, Kagan went to school and there was an announcement that all Jewish students were to leave the school and not return."I was so embarrassed," Kagan said. "I wasn't able to look at anyone's face."Shortly after this, Kagan's brother was taken away to a "work detail," leaving behind his wife and three daughters. Years later Kagan learned that he died of starvation within a year of leaving home.The family had no idea what awaited them.By April 1944, the family knew they would be moved from their home and gathered at their synagogue as they were instructed. The family spent three days in a cattle car with little food, no fresh water and no sanitation facilities.They disembarked at Slovenia, where they spent six weeks with relatives before being moved by train again, this time to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland."No matter how many words I try to use to describe Auschwitz, I will never be able to describe it so you will understand," Kagan said. "Auschwitz was bleak."Kagan described walking from the train into a yard where a man who turned out to be Josef Mengele pointed to each person, some to the left and some to the right. Those to the left included all of Kagan's family with the exception of herself and six of her female cousins. Those who went to the left were sent directly to the gas chambers to die."I remember all of my nieces, and I loved them all," Kagan said. "But it was my one niece's fifth birthday the day we arrived at Auschwitz, and her birthday present was to die in the gas chamber. I think of her always.""The rest of us entered the camp through a black iron gate the read 'Arbeit macht free,' 'Work sets you free,' ""I still remember the constant burning smell," Kagan said. "The crematorium ran all day."Kagan said that by the time she arrived at Auschwitz, they had stopped the practice of tattooing those imprisoned there, so she does not have a tattoo to remind her of her time in Auschwitz, but it seems that remembering is not a problem for the 90-year-old.Kagan told of the hunger and of seeing a woman die grabbing for a piece of bread that got caught on an electrified fence."I had never seen anyone die before that," she said. "I didn't know anyone could die that fast."Kagan and her cousins survived three months in Auschwitz before being sent to a labor camp to make bombs for the German army.The labor camp was marginally better than Auschwitz and they were fed more regularly.Kagan told of a guard they referred to as "Little Maria" who reported them for making gloves out of their blankets to keep their hands warm when they were forced to work out in the snow."Little Maria reported us to the commandant for destroying German property," Kagan said. "We were all afraid because we didn't know how we would be punished, but the commandant was not angry and he commented that we were smart to make ourselves gloves."In 1945 the camp closed and they were to be sent by train to Bergen-Belsen."We boarded the train, but we never got there," Kagan said. "On May 2, 1945, the Allies thought that our train was a German troop train and bombed the train."Kagan lost her right hand as a result of the bombing."We were told that the Americans were there and that the war was over," Kagan said. "I was taken to a hospital, I wasn't told anything. I remember waking up in the dark and not knowing where I was and then I realized that I didn't have my hand.""I started to cry, and a nurse came to me and asked me if I wanted a glass of milk. She handed me this very large glass of ice-cold milk and I began to drink it. I couldn't put it down until it was empty. When I finished I had stopped crying, and for years I thought that glass of milk saved me.""I signed myself out of the hospital after six weeks so I could leave with the other girls. I weighed 39 kilos, about 82 pounds"Kagan said it was an English officer named Ernest Finch who took in the girls. Finch, a German Jew, was working with the occupied forces because he spoke English and German."I will never forget this man or his kindness," Kagan said. "A father would never do more for his own children than he did for us."Finch helped the young women locate relatives in the U.S. It still took Kagan four years before she came to America to live with an aunt and uncle in central New Jersey.Today Kagan lives 5 miles from where she first settled in America, having spent 50 years living in the Bronx before moving back to New Jersey."I remember arriving in New York and my aunt and uncle meeting me at the docks, and the first thing I asked my aunt was if they had a cow. She said to me, 'Why do you want to know if we have a cow?' and I said, 'Because I like milk.' "Kagan said when she got to her aunt's house she couldn't get over how much milk they had in the refrigerator."I just stood there with the door open, staring at the milk and all the different cheeses, there must have been a dozen different cheeses and fresh fruits and vegetables in December."When Kagan finished speaking, one student asked her how it makes her feel when some people say that the Holocaust never really happened."It is hard to hear that," Kagan responded. "I say let them go to Auschwitz, see the shoes, the hair and the ashes that are preserved there. Then let them come back.""If people don't listen and I mean really listen, there will be another Holocaust and it will be much, much worse and it won't just be the Jews this time."Someone asked Kagan if she is angry."You cannot be angry at the whole world forever. If someone speaks in German, I still think of Germany in the 1940s. I know that the young people of Germany are not responsible for what their grandparents did."When Kagan finished speaking, students gave her a standing ovation.