Selena Masse (OMS) First-Ever Outstanding Holocaust Educator of the Year

“I want my students to develop empathy, think critically, recognize the danger of prejudice, become responsible citizens, and understand the connection between the Holocaust and other genocides and human rights violations.”

- Selena Masse

Selena Masse Named Outstanding Holocaust Educator of the Year

The Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education Confers First-Ever Award on Orange Middle School Seventh-Grade Teacher, Selena Masse

For the first time in its history, the Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education of North Carolina has given an award honoring K-12 teachers “who actively, by their example and through teaching about these difficult subjects, strengthen North Carolina students’ world-citizenship and capacity to uphold the dignity of all persons.”

This year, the Center named Selena Masse, seventh-grade social studies teacher at Orange Middle School, their 2025 Holocaust Educator of the Year, who represents Orange County Schools as the first educator to receive this statewide recognition.

Sharon Halperin, Executive Director, said “We are pleased to honor one of Orange County Schools’ own, Selena Masse, with the 2025 Outstanding Holocaust Educator Award. Selena has been a powerful voice in the classroom over many years, sharing her expertise on Holocaust and human rights.”

Reflecting on the award, Masse said she "wants students to move beyond surface-level knowledge and truly grasp the human realities” of the subjects, moments, and events they study together.

She noted that North Carolina seventh-grade social studies standards include “explain[ing] how values and beliefs affect human rights, justice, and equality for different groups of people” and “compar[ing] how individuals and groups respond to stereotypes, oppression, human rights violations, and genocide.”

Masse’s acceptance speech at the April 27 Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Ha’Shoah) Program at the Kehillah Synagogue, hosted by the Jewish Community of Durham and Chapel Hill, is posted online:

Watch the speech on YouTube

Masse told those gathered that she was “very overwhelmed and so grateful” to be invited and recognized, then emphasized these crucial goals:

“In my classroom, I strive to create a space where students can engage with this history in a thoughtful and reflective manner.

“I want my students to develop empathy, think critically, recognize the danger of prejudice, become responsible citizens, and understand the connection between the Holocaust and other genocides and human rights violations.”

Selena Masse’s ability to help young people build these deep connections to difficult subjects through guest speakers, books, and films has left its mark on her students and earned her not only their recognition, but also this statewide award.

“I’ve always believed that kids need to have the ability to hear from different sources of information,” she said. “That’s what they learn best by. They learn best not only from reading about stuff, but actually hearing firsthand accounts.”
 

 

Mrs. Masse leads the way for her students and fellow educators by grounding her teaching on human rights and genocide – “with the Holocaust serving as a crucial example to illustrate the devastating consequences of intolerance” – in the hope of “preventing history from repeating itself.”

Several of Masse’s former students, now in 8th grade or in high school, shared how they were changed by her classes. They described how experiences that range from reading literature written from teenagers’ perspectives, to meeting Holocaust survivors and their families, all contributed to helping them expand or adjust their worldview.

One student, now in high school, shifted her perspective by being able to see herself in the stories of people targeted solely based on their identity:

“When learning about the Holocaust, genocide, and human rights, I remembered learning that obviously it was horrible and shouldn’t be done to groups of people purely because of ethnicity, or skin, or honestly any reason for that matter,” the student said.

“I also like the fact that when we were reading books and short stories about real people who went through horrid experiences in the Holocaust, they were teenagers like me and the people in my class. It made it easier to feel sympathy for someone that could’ve been you.”

A second student, now in eighth grade, said, “I think a change in myself from learning about these experiences was just being more open-minded and understanding to people."

Masse said that having guest speakers in her classroom not only empowers students to make real-world connections, but it also inspires her to improve: 

“I could come in here and just teach, but for me, it allows for a creative outlet as well. It keeps me passionate about what I’m doing,” Masse said. “All of these things keep me motivated.” 

One figure students met through Masse was Bronia Brandman, Holocaust survivor and author (with Carol Bierman) of The Girl Who Survived: A True Story of the Holocaust. Brandman joined Masse’s class via Zoom to speak about her own experience and her family’s during occupation and being sent to a concentration camp, thanks to The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, NY.

A third former student (now in high school) reflected: “We had a guest speaker on Zoom who talked about the Holocaust from the experiences in her family. It gave us a very good perspective into the Holocaust through personal experiences.” 

For Masse, coordinating and scheduling guest speakers is a labor of love, and in the end, seeing the impact on her students makes it all worthwhile. 

“The impact from directly engaging with personal narratives through witness testimony — and relating to teenage perspectives in literature — fosters a deeper understanding and lasting connection,” she said. “My students leave my class much more open-minded to other cultures and people, and sympathetic to victims of human rights violations and genocide.” 

A fourth student, now in high school, credited Masse for opening the door to this part of her world:

“I was introduced to the details and great suffering that came with the Holocaust. Your class was the one that introduced the topic to me, and I think it is something that everyone should know about.”

The first student above continued to explain how she was more than sympathetic, more than moved to see the world around her differently. She was inspired:

“A change I saw in myself after learning these experiences included becoming much more sympathetic and wanting to fight against the chance that events like this could take place again."

In her remarks at the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, Mrs. Masse elected to close with the following words from chapter 12, “Your Responsibility,” in Bronia Brandman’s autobiographical book. 

Having helped her family survive the occupation of Poland and later becoming one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp (known as the largest of the extermination centers near the end of World War II), Brandman wrote:

“Stories have a moral or lesson. It is your job to learn the story of the Holocaust and tell it to others. Remember what took place and help others see that the world must not allow this to happen again. 

“We must be humane in our dealings with others. To be kind and caring toward one another is vital. Each of us must look for ways to protect others who are at risk. To save one life is as if you saved the whole world. That must be our goal.”

Selena Masse will be recognized by the Orange County Board of Education at an upcoming business meeting on May 19, 2025.
 

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Holocaust Speakers Bureau and The Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education of North Carolina: www.holocaustspeakersbureau.org

Photos: (1) Courtesy Selena Masse, (2) Jala Davis, Orange County Schools