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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday March 12, 2008 - 19 Artscene Oakville Beaver · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2008 LIESA KORTMANN / OAKVILLE BEAVER HISTORY IN THE MAKING: Oakville Trafalgar students (l-r) Badia Abounassar and Connor McAnuff work on their Second World War history project under the watchful eye of cameraman Terry Zazulak. The students are being filmed for an upcoming episode of Ancestors in the Attic on History Television. History TV turns cameras on OT students By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF They were soldiers, sailors and airmen who left to fight in the Second World War and never returned home. With memorials and markers providing little more than their names many of these people now only exist in the memories of their families, with all public knowledge of who they were and how they lived, fading with the passing of time. At Oakville Trafalgar High School, however, this is no longer the case. A Grade 10 history class is working diligently to not only uncover information about 35 men from the school who died in WWII, but to share this knowledge with the rest of the country by appearing on History Television's Ancestors in the Attic. History teacher Pam Calvert explained how what was supposed to be little more than an interesting history project transformed into a documentary that will see two Oakville Trafalgar High School students travel to Europe to further research their involve a couple students in the class in a WWII counterparts. journey of discovery about these men and "We were working on our 100th-year what they contributed," said Calvert. anniversary celebrations and we wanted to While the final portion of the documenknow more about the tary will involve one names on our ceno- "The came back to us and said student going to taph, and three of the not only were they interested in England and one stuyoung men we coulddent going to France helping us to find out about these n't find in our and Belgium, for three young men, but they wanted research," she said. Thursday and To find out more to focus on a couple of stories and Friday,research was about these soldiers, involve a couple students in the the order of the day, Calvert contacted class in a journey of discovery with the Ancestors in Ancestors in the Attic, the Attic crew filming about these men and what they a documentary series the students in the that, in each episode, contributed." school library as they follows one person on poured over informaan intimate journey Oakville Trafalgar High School tion on the school's into their past as they history teacher Pam Calvert lost soldiers. attempt to solve a fam"Today we're going ily mystery. through the war record files so that the stu"They came back to us and said not only dents can learn about the soldiers, sailors were they interested in helping us to find and airmen," said Paul McGrath, the proout about these three young men, but they gram's genealogist. wanted to focus on a couple of stories and "Yesterday we did a session to show the students what is in these files because it is an enormous amount of information and you get a real idea about who the soldier was. It's not just a name on a wall, you find out what his hobbies were, what his family was like, what his education was like, his jobs." Besides the war record documents, Ancestors in the Attic also provided the students with a number of websites on WWII, which they can use to find out more. Oakville Trafalgar High School student Scott Falls made use of this resource in finding out what happened to Arthur Herbert Butler, the naval officer he was assigned to research. "He died when his ship went down and I went on a website and looked up the ship and found out that 91 people actually died on that ship," said Falls. "It was patrolling the Cabot Strait and an enemy U-Boat hit it with a torpedo and everyone went down with the ship. My guy was about 20, he wasn't very old." See Students page 21