On a day when Americans were honoring the memory of a man who fought injustices against African-Americans, Catholic and Jewish seventh- and eighth-graders went together to Washington to learn how intolerance resulted in the deaths of six million Jews.

On Jan. 15 — Martin Luther King Day — 43 students and 32 of their parents, advisers, and teachers from the religious school of Temple B’nai Shalom and the day school at St. Bartholomew’s Catholic Church, both in East Brunswick, traveled together by bus to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The students were hosted by the synagogue’s Daniel Pearl Education Center, which sponsored the excursion for the second straight year.

The center was named after Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002 because he was Jewish.

Center chair Andrew Boyarsky said bringing together its students with their non-Jewish peers for a visit to the museum was something the center had wanted to do from its beginning.

“We really wanted to get the kids together to see this museum because its theme is so universal,” he said. “One of the main messages of the Daniel Pearl center is promoting tolerance, and there is no greater example of intolerance than the Holocaust. They were a great group of kids who may not today fully understand what they saw, but I suspect at some time they will get it, and that is very important.”

The center has sponsored fund-raisers and received donations to support its endeavors, including some contributions specifically earmarked for trips such as this one. Boyarsky said it hopes in future years to include students from other churches and religious institutions in the annual museum trip.

Students and adults from both schools gathered the evening of Jan. 16 at the synagogue to discuss what they had experienced.

Matt Roche, an eighth-grader at St. Bart’s, said he was struck by a “humongous” wall of pictures of concentration camp victims. “It was a really hard topic,” said the 13-year-old, who thought for a second when asked what he learned before adding, “Probably that we should never let this happen again.”

His 13-year-old classmate, Lizzie Maligranda, said she lit a candle in the museum “for all the Jewish people that died.” She said she was saddened to see not only the faces of those imprisoned in the camps but was shocked to see photos of crowds rallying in support of Hitler.

“I couldn’t believe the huge crowds,” she added.

That feeling of disbelief was echoed by another classmate, 14-year-old Eric Nesser, who said visiting the museum proved to be a more emotional experience than he had anticipated.

“What touched me the most was the people being gassed,” he recalled. “I thought to myself, ‘No way could this be happening. No way could people do that to other humans.’”

Eric said he was reminded of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel’s lesson, “We should never forget,” and added, “It’s something I’ll never forget.”

Maria Leonard, principal at St. Bart’s, said study of the Holocaust is an integral part of her school’s curriculum. As a follow-up to the trip, earlier that day students were shown the film version of The Diary of Anne Frank.

“Even though St. Bartholomew is a Catholic school, we teach about other religions and cultures,” she said. “It gives our children a sense of understanding and tolerance for other cultures, which is an integral part of our value system. We appreciate this opportunity because through this museum trip our students can see the enormity of the situation and that period of time in history.” Seeing the museum exhibits, she said, “really brings it to life for them.”

Robbie Moore of B’nai Shalom, a 13-year-old seventh-grader at Hammarskjold Middle School in East Brunswick, found the trip “inspirational.” He related to receiving the ID card of a victim and putting himself in the place of another youngster his age during the Holocaust.

“I’ve learned that no one race is superior to any other race and we have to respect each other,” he said. “If you think you’re superior, bad things are going to turn up.”

His classmate Brandon Fink, also a seventh-grader at Hammarskjold, said that although he knew quite a bit about the Holocaust, the trip to the museum “patched up the holes and pulled it together.”

Some of the students remarked that the theme of respect for others was enhanced by the trip’s being held on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The group also made stops at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and at the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech during the 1963 March on Washington.

David Litt, a member of the Pearl education committee, led the students in a discussion, pointing out that any one of them could have been victims.

He also focused on much of the world’s indifference to the suffering of the Jews and others as the Nazis overran Europe. “The United States was oblivious,” he said, telling the students they have an opportunity to be different.

“You have the power in your world to say, ‘I don’t want to hear that joke. I don’t want to hear that language used about that person,’” said Litt. “You can stand tall.”