For the spring 2011 semester, I was chosen along with 14 other undergraduate and graduate students in the northeast to participate in the Lipper Internship at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City. The purpose of the internship, which is sponsored by the Gruss Lipper Foundation, is to teach sixth through twelfth graders about the Holocaust and Jewish heritage through a series of classroom visit and museum tours. Interns can be studying anything in college, but the relatively rigorous application and interview processes proves that they have to be well-qualified as well.
I trained in New York City for eight days over winter break – which was a unique experience within itself! I lived in a brand new Double Tree hotel five minutes from the Museum and Wall Street – new bathrooms, mattresses, elliptical machines – it was like a dream. The Double Tree chain also offers free, warm chocolate chip cookies every day to its guests; I looked forward to that after a long day of training. My only complaint about that was that we did not have free internet in our room! On the Saturday we had off from training, I ventured to Central Park with one of my new friends, and we spent the day exploring uptown – a part of the city I never get to see. Bonding with a group of colleagues who were the same age as me in the “city that never sleeps” is something I can never get back. The museum staff took us out dinner in the city a couple of times over the eight days, so I was able to enjoy a laid-back atmosphere and the many sites of the city.
Training itself was, in a word, intense (9 am – 6 or 7 pm!), but infinitely helpful and interesting. We visited the Visitor’s Center at Ground Zero, the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA), and the Jewish Museum uptown to see how museum tours were conducted elsewhere. Visiting Ground Zero was an especially emotional time; several native New Yorkers in our intern group had their own stories to tell. We participated in discussions and lectures with professors and museum staff on Holocaust and Jewish history, toured behind-the-scenes (like the registrar room, offices, and the 270 degree views of the NY harbor and the Statue of Liberty from the conference room), and learned how a non-profit works. Even though I am set on teaching, the museum gave me another valid option for a career with a history degree!
Then came the part of the internship during the semester: visiting at least three middle schools in New Jersey over nine weeks with a pre-visit in the classroom, tour at the museum, and post-visit back at the school. I also volunteered to give tours in the city twice, which added to the overall experience of working at the museum and with many different kinds of students.
In one of the middle schools, I was inspired by the passion that the teachers, and thus, the students, showed for the subject. They had so many questions that each of our presentations lasted right up to the next one. Some questions I have received so far from students:
Q: “Are you Jewish?”
A: “Yes, I am half-Jewish, and half of our intern group is not, so you do not have to be Jewish to work at the museum!”
Q: “Wasn’t Hitler Jewish?”
A: “That’s a very complicated question to answer, [this is the response you can always use to start an answer when you are searching for the right words], but researchers do not really have a definitive answer to that. But thank you for asking!”
Q: “Are there FUN exhibits at the museum?” (I immediately thought of the Touch Tunnel at the Liberty Science Center when a student asked this)
A: “We have some videos and a lot of artifacts from real Jewish families and survivors, and hopefully the tour will be fun; you will be participating and explaining some of what you think you are seeing!” (Enthusiasm is key!)
I was also pleased to see how much middle school curriculums have grasped onto the idea of teaching the Holocaust and other genocides. These experiences helped confirm my belief that I am meant to be a middle school social studies teacher!
I have not even mentioned yet that this internship was completely college-student-budget-friendly. I could not afford living in New York or commuting there all eight days, plus traveling to the schools and the museum during the semester. I am reimbursed for all travel expenses and the food and hotel room during training. I also get paid for tours and classroom visits up to a certain point. The other option was getting credit, but I have enough credits to satisfy my degree. If you are worried about money, there are plenty of paid internships available! This internship happens to fit my interests exactly (history and secondary education major, Holocaust and genocide studies minor), so for me, the money was an extra incentive.
Participating in the Lipper Internship has truly been one of the best experiences of my college career so far. I gained self-confidence through traveling alone (I feel like I know Penn Station, the 1 train, the 601 bus, and NJ Transit like the back of my hand), invaluable experience speaking to and interacting with students, and the skills necessary to operate in a professional environment – in this case, both middle schools and museums.
Thanks for reading my story! If you have any questions about the internship or my experience, please feel free to email me at hoenig2@tcnj.edu.