Southside Elementary students honor Holocaust victims through Daffodil Project

Tolly Weizenberg's parents lived through the Holocaust.

They left Poland as teenagers before anything could happen to them, but Weizenberg said they had family who didn't survive. It was a fact that was passed to him when he was young. It's something he's made sure his own daughter, Jasmine, knows as well. 

Tolly; his wife, Jessie; and Jasmine took time to pay tribute to the many children that died during the Holocaust by planting yellow pinwheels at Southside Elementary on Jan. 27. 

The school partnered with The Daffodil Project, a nonprofit based out of Atlanta, to have daffodils outside the school in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

The Daffodil Project aims to plant 1.5 million daffodils in honor of the 1.5 million Jewish children who died during the Holocaust. 150 daffodils were planted at Southside Elementary.

As the flowers had already been planted at Southside, children and families put down yellow pinwheels in remembrance. 

The event was put forward by Sepi Ackerman, Mary Collier, Jessica Fairweather and Hillary Yunis, who worked with the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee to organize and sponsor pinwheels for every student.