We can only learn from history if we truly understand it and that is why Alan Morawiec is shedding light on the Holocaust by telling his father's survival story.

"So, they rounded up my father and other people and were taken to this forced labor camp," said Morawiec.

Each year, during Holocaust Remembrance Week, Morawiec's father travels from New York to watch his son tell a story that's too painful for him to talk about.

"I wish I could stand up and talk. I'm better this year than last year," said Holocaust survivor Chaim Baruch Morawiec.

"It's my job as his son to carry on the voice," said Alan Morawiec.

To help the eighth graders at Summit Ridge Middle School in Jefferson County understand the toll of the Holocaust, Alan Morawiec started the "Holocaust Shoe Project."

"The first year I did it I collected 300 pairs," Morawiec said.

They represent the millions of shoes discovered by Allied troops when they liberated the German concentration camps. The shoes are then donated to area shelters. The project is symbolic and powerful.

"It was so horrible that we need to know about it and not let it happen again," said eighth-grader Hannah Rossiter.

"I think it was very hard to see the hate toward Jewish people," said eighth-grader Luke McGrath.

"It's very important, very, very much important," said Chaim Baruch Morawiec.

"It's a passion for me. It's my heritage," said Alan Morawiec.