A 16-year-old student proved that business – in his case school work – and pleasure can mix when he made his school’s Holocaust project using one of the most loved toys by children — LEGO.
The unnamed student of St. Helens made waves online when he posted several images of his project which he said was part of the Holocaust timeline his history teacher assigned his class.
Our history teacher told us to make a timeline that will make people remember the Holocaust since every history GCSE student in this country had to go through and study about it, the student said. Since posters do me no good, I decided to use Lego to make up my timeline; the pictures help me remember dates better, he added.
The student admitted that he wasn’t very good at drawing which was why he decided to use a medium he was skilled at manipulating and those were Lego bricks and toys. he said that he used all his Lego, that of his brothers and even the ones his cousins have.
The Timeline — in Lego
The Holocaust timeline built by the unnamed student starts with a scene depicting Adolf Hitler being chosen as Germany’s chancellor in January of 1933. In the picture, a Lego figure representing the notorious German dictator standing in front of an audience and a swastika as his backdrop. The prominent Nazi symbol was made out of red and white Lego bricks.
This picture was followed by another captioned “40,000 SS and SAS men are sworn in as auxillary police” — a scene from February 1933.
There was also a scene showing the burning of the Reichstag which the caption said “was probably by the Nazis”.
Another Lego scene built by the student showed Allied troops coming across the concentration camps built by the Nazis.
His Holocaust timeline ended with the Lego figure he used as Hitler lying on a swastika figure [complete with a dog, blood and gun models] and which he captioned “Hitler commits suicide”.
Making Internet Waves
After doing his Holocaust timeline in Lego, the St. Helens student shared the photos he took in Reddit never expecting to make huge waves online. But, he did.
His work, as posted on the site, had garnered over a thousand comments from people all over the globe. The teenager admitted that he was overwhelmed by the amount of interest his work; it had become the tail end of various reactions from netizens. He added that he was used to having a few hundred views on his previous works but when he posted his Holocaust timeline made out of Lego, it generated more than 275,000 views which, to him, was a shocker.
Meanwhile, the headteacher of St. Helens, the Liverpool school the student attends, commended his work and ingenuity. He said that the student put his passion for Lego to good use and that his teacher was very impressed by his creativity and the amount of time he spent making his project. Nevertheless, the research basis of his stunning visual work – which will form the basis of mark for it – was still assessed as of the writing of this report.