After 60 years filled with painful reminiscence and 36 years of an excruciating international battle, Holocaust survivor Dina Babbitt finally has a chance for peace, thanks to David Rapaport and his 2008-2009 U.S. history classes.

Rapaport received news from the U.S. State Department informing him that Babbitt, a grandmother and Auschwitz artist, may finally have the chance to legally regain ownership of the paintings that saved her and her mother’s life.

In Section 1116 of a general appropriations bill to be put before Congress, the State Department requested that the President of the United States intervene on Babbitt’s behalf and that the Secretary of State “make immediate diplomatic efforts to facilitate the transfer of the seven original watercolors…to Dina Babbitt, their rightful owner.”

During World War II, Babbitt, a Czechoslovakian native, agreed to paint portraits of Auschwitz prisoners for Josef Mengele, the infamous Auschwitz doctor, in exchange for her and her mother’s freedom. After the war, seven of these paintings were found and sold to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum by a third party, according to Babbitt’s Web site.

Although Babbitt hand-painted these pieces, the museum claimed ownership when Babbitt asked to be the sole owner of these paintings. On her Web site, members of Babbitt’s family expressed that they do not believe their mother will be able to “feel spiritual freedom from the Aushwitz Death Camp until the portraits are returned to her.”

Rapaport and his U.S. history classes have been working in close proximity with Babbitt and the State Department during the 2008-2009 school year in an effort to retrieve Babbitt’s watercolor paintings.

“What we’re doing isn’t a vanity project,” Rapaport said. “This project is in a good moral place. It is very important cause.”

Rapaport was informed of the bill’s wording, which not only states that all war-time art work should be returned to the person who created it, but also calls Babbitt and her watercolors out by name, by a U.S. State Department official.

“When I opened the e-mail and saw what the State Department had said [about Mrs. Babbitt], I had a warm feeling all over,” Rapaport said. “‘Wow’, I thought. This is really an accomplishment. Mrs. Babbitt is a realist, but she is very excited about the wording in the bill.”

Rapaport says that the fact an official from the State Department contacting him to inform him about the wording is proof that he and his class did in fact help convince the State Department of its inclusion.

Social studies instructional supervisor and teacher Eric Bloom has a great sense of pride in what Rapaport and his classes have done for Babbitt.

“This type of learning engages kids to see first hand what happened during the Holocaust and what they can do to make a difference,” Bloom said. “It’s regular kids and regular teachers who were pushing the State Department to help Mrs. Babbitt.”

Rapaport has high hopes that this bill will return Babbitt’s watercolor paintings to “their rightful owner.”

“It is a much more directed bill than is usually passed,” Rapaport said. “It feels different.”

Rapaport says that he has an immense amount of respect and appreciation for his U.S. history students, and feels that without their help, this wording would not have been included in the bill.

“We contributed to raising consciousness of Mrs. Babbitt’s story,” Rapaport said. “For that, students should be really proud of themselves.”

Editor’s Note: This version of the story correctly refers to Section 1116 of the bill only, as opposed to the bill’s entirety.