Aroostook students’ Holocaust artwork heads to Augusta exhibit

From the Bangor Daily News/The County. By Paula Brewer, who wrote the article and took the photos. Published May 10, 2026

When Cara Merrill won a grant a year ago to go overseas to visit historical Holocaust sites in Poland, she had no idea where the experience would take her students.

The Ashland District School English teacher will accompany her seventh-graders to Augusta later this month as their World War II-inspired artwork takes center stage at the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine in Augusta.

The slaughter of six million Jewish people by the Nazi regime has long echoed around the world, but so has the strength of the people who resisted and endured. That idea led Merrill and the center’s education coordinator, Erica Nadelhaft, to challenge the class: learn about resistance and create art to celebrate it.

So, with images and narratives, Merrill’s seventh graders shared what they learned. Nadelhaft was impressed. Now, they will become the first Maine students to show their art in the center’s newest effort.

“This is a big opportunity, because some of them have never been to Augusta. The rest of us as adults should be able to look at what they’ve done and see things as they have,” Merrill said. “Resistance gave people a voice.”

Big plans are underway for the students’ May 29 visit. After all, they’re having an art opening, and the fact their work will be displayed all summer is a big thing, she said.

There will be food and presentations, and she will invite Merrill to speak.

Merrill is proud of her students and excited about the opening, she said.

Read the article here.

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