While many teachers view summer break as a time for rest and relaxation, one Ames Middle-School teacher spent his break touring murder sites and memorials of the worst human massacre in history.

Ron Krull, of Huxley, will speak about the painful reality of the Holocaust Thursday night at 8 in the Tower’s Wallace-Wilson conference room.

“I do this because I want people to realize it’s real,” Krull said, “to put a human face on the Holocaust.”

The inspiration for Krull’s presentations comes from the 26 days he spent last summer touring concentration camps, museums and memorials to those victimized by the Holocaust.

Krull was among 45 teachers selected from the United States to travel to areas of Germany, Poland and Israel to study the Holocaust and hear from those who made it out of the death camps alive.

Since the annual tour of teachers began 12 years ago, 500 teachers from all over America have made the trip to learn all they can about the Holocaust. The tour is organized by the Jewish Labor Federation, the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and the American Federation of Teachers.

Krull was selected for the group because of his existing knowledge of the Holocaust and his desire to learn more about it.

“I was in the right place at the right time, as happens so often in life,” Krull said. “And that’s the bottom line for many Holocaust survivors,” he added.

Krull was able to hear first-hand accounts from survivors while on the tour. He also toured Holocaust museums and memorials for both victims of the mass killings and those who tried to help the Jews, he said.

Even as he walked through concentration camps in Auschwitz, Poland Krull said he found it difficult to comprehend the torture and killing that took place there during World War II. “Nature has a way of taking over — of covering it all up with flowers,” he said.

Krull describes his presentation as an “intense monologue” that covers both the basic history of the Holocaust and experiences of some of those who lived through it.

Thursday night’s lecture will be the first time Krull has presented on a college campus. “I’m really looking forward to talking to my first college-aged audience,” he said.

The lecture begins at 8 p.m., and Krull invites people to come early and walk through his display of dramatic posters that he feels “really sets the mood” for the presentation. There will also be a question and answer session following the lecture.