A Survivor’s Perspective on Hitler : History: Woman held at Auschwitz talks at school where a student spoke on the Nazi leader. She appeared in response to protests about his portrayal.

In the same elementary school auditorium where a fifth-grader dressed up as Adolf Hitler and delivered a speech about the Nazi dictator, a Holocaust survivor told students Wednesday about the horrors of concentration camps.

Renee Firestone, 66, a Beverly Hills dress designer who survived 13 months in the Auschwitz death camp, addressed about 450 students at Westlake Elementary School where a pupil’s speech last month prompted an outcry from parents and Jewish leaders.

“We don’t want to scare them,” said Firestone, who conducted separate assemblies for fourth- through sixth-graders and first- through third-graders. “We want them to understand the value of life.”

The Conejo Valley Unified School District contacted the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based institute for Holocaust studies, and requested a speaker after numerous parents had registered protests.

During an hourlong assembly with fourth- through sixth-graders, Firestone, a founding member of the center’s outreach program, described Hitler as a coward and those who had survived Nazi concentration camps as heroes.

“This man who talked about heroes, he was afraid to face the consequences,” said Firestone, telling the children that Hitler ultimately committed suicide as Allied forces were closing in on his Berlin bunker.

After describing how concentration camp victims fought each other to subsist on bread and water, she said: “Some of these survivors are heroes just from trying to hold onto life.”

Firestone also criticized the unidentified pupil’s speech.

“When you learn about Hitler, you should learn about the right things,” she told the students. “I was really impressed with the speech, but a lot of things were left out.”

The four-minute speech on Feb. 24, for which the boy was awarded second place by a panel of teachers, mentioned that Hitler killed millions of Jews, but it did not provide any details on the Holocaust or Nazi death camps during World War II.

The boy, who donned a khaki uniform, boots, a swastika armband and fake mustache as part of the student oratory contest, attended Wednesday’s assembly.

After the talk, a family member who refused to identify himself said the boy is upset by the attention generated by his speech.

The man said the boy’s remarks had been “taken out of context” and misinterpreted by other people. He said the boy wrote his oratory according to the guidelines set forth by the school.

“This child is a very good writer. I can assure you that not a single word or phrase was composed by the parents,” he said. “The family is very distressed at the reaction. We had no intention of offending anybody.”

During her second assembly of the day, with first- through third-graders, Firestone punctuated a tamer version of her story with photographs from a book called “The Children We Remember.”

And finally, she showed them the tattooed number she had been given as an Auschwitz inmate: A12307.

“We were not human beings,” Firestone told the children. “We were numbers.”

After the assembly, one 11-year-old said he had a more balanced image of Hitler. “I knew he was a bad person, but I didn’t know he killed that many people,” the student said.

The district also invited local Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Alan Greenbaum of the Temple Adat Elohim in Thousand Oaks, to attend Firestone’s talks. Greenbaum said he was pleased with Wednesday’s events.

“I wanted to witness the conclusion of this process and be able to report to my congregation that the school responded in an appropriate way,” Greenbaum said.

Since the incident, district Supt. William R. Seaver has changed the rules for oratorical contests, including a new requirement that speeches about historical figures emphasize those who have made a positive contribution to society. Students had been allowed to deliver speeches about any historical figure.

Times staff writer Psyche Pascual contributed to this story.