Granard Middle School students listen to Holocaust survivor Eric Rosenfeld share his story Thursday morning during a video conference in the school library. The program was presented by the Vanderbilt Virtual School in Nashville. Eric Rosenfeld knows what it means to be isolated, persecuted and faced with the prospect of death.

Rosenfeld escaped Nazi persecution of the Jews in World War II when his mother placed him on a "Childrens Transport." The children had to be between the ages of 3 and 17 and were required to leave Germany alone without their parents.

Through the transport, Rosenfeld was able to immigrate to the United States in 1941.

Rosenfeld and Holocaust survivor Frances Cutler were the featured speakers in two video conferences presented to students in Granard Middle English teacher Pam Elliott's class. The programs were part of "Witnesses and Voices of the Holocaust."

The video conferences were broadcast March 12 and March 27 from the Vanderbilt Virtual School in Nashville. There was a 15-minute question and-answer session following the programs.

Rosenfeld shared his story Thursday morning with middle school students from New York, California, Pennsylvania and at Granard Middle.

Rosenfeld's father died at home in December 1938 after being beaten and having his store ransacked by German soldiers.

"More and more restrictions were handed down for the Jews: yellow stars they had to wear, schools they could not attend, places they were forbidden to go and things they were forbidden to do," Rosenfeld said.

Rosenfeld waved to his mother for the last time as she waited on the train platform for her son to leave on the "Children's Transport." Later that year, his mother was sent to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where she died.

When he was 16, Rosenfeld was living in the United States and believed most of his family had been wiped out by the Holocaust. He joined the Army and put his life at risk to work in military intelligence in World War II.

"I was very grateful to be able to come to America," Rosenfeld said. "I survived one of the cruelest times in history. It is still difficult to comprehend this could happen in the 21st century in a civilized society."

At Granard Middle, Elliott has led her students through a book study of "Diary of Anne Frank." Students did research on Japanese internment camps and learned about the concentration camps where 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

In the video conferences, Rosenfeld and Cutler read from prepared notes to help them recall accurately the harrowing details from their early childhood.

Cutler was 3 years old when her parents sent her to a Catholic farm in a tiny village in France.

Risking their own lives to save Jewish children, the family agreed to care for the Jewish children such as Cutler. They developed an elaborate system of forged documents, fake identities and bogus ration coupons that allowed the children to avoid Nazi detection.

"Frances Cutler had to learn how to be Catholic so people wouldn't know she was a Jew," Elliott said. "Her mother actually came to visit her once on the Catholic farm. The family asked her not to visit again because Frances became withdrawn and did not want to be around other people after her mother left."

Elliott has made it a point to make sure her students are aware of the Holocaust and never forget the hardships faced by survivors.

"It has been a passion for me to let my students know about World War II," she said. "I want them to learn not to be a victim, a perpetrator or bystander."