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GREENSBORO — The memories are often too painful for the students at Doris Henderson Newcomers School.

So, a few stop by to see Angel Katona. There, they cry. Or they sit and stare off into space. Or sometimes, they listen to Katona read them a poem or walk with her by the small plot beside the school where the vegetables grow.

She admits what she tells them sounds trite. But to her, it works.

“I love you,’’ Katona, the school’s social worker, tells them. “You’re not alone.’’

Two years ago, Guilford County converted an elementary school near Western Guilford High into a place where the children of refugees, grades 3 through 12, can get an education in our Bible Belt South.

As of Monday, Newcomers had 250 students from more than 30 countries. It’s unlike any school in North Carolina.

These students are survivors of a world turned upside-down.

They’ve felt starvation. They’ve walked days, even months to survive. They’ve watched their own family members — their mothers, their fathers — die before their eyes.

And they remember. Like any battle-weary soldier.

Teachers at Newcomers are trained how to spot post-traumatic stress disorder, that old idea of “shell shock,’’ and help students find relief.

And these students are just kids.

Some act out. But mostly, they’re quiet. It’s only after days, weeks or even months that they open up to Katona or one of their teachers.

When they do, the students talk about nightmares. Or they recite what happened to them like a history report — fact after brutal fact.

“It would be easier to be alone because you won’t get hurt,’’ a 13-year-old boy once told art teacher Victoria Sadeq.

Let’s call him Pablo. He’s from Central America. He walked and hopped trains through Mexico, and somehow — Sadeq doesn’t know how — he reached North Carolina.

He came for his mother and his father. Instead he got arrested. Caught by U.S. immigration agents last year, he was turned over to an uncle who lives in Greensboro.

Pablo is now at Newcomers. He hasn’t found his parents. He just knows his mother is in Raleigh; his father in New York.

He thinks.

Then, there’s the young boy from Africa. Let’s call him Gabriel. He saw his parents killed by a rival tribe. He fled into the bush. He lived there for months, walking with villagers toward a neighboring country.

He watched his villagers get killed by rebel troops and attacked and eaten by animals.

He’s now at Newcomers. In elementary school.

Katona and the other teachers keep the students’ identities confidential. For them, it’s all about maintaining trust. They don’t want to lose that.

“Sometimes, we’re the only support they have,’’ Katona says. “They are alone in the world, and when they come here, they feel loved, cared for and safe. If we break that, they lose hope.’’

When Katona sees the tank tops or hears the slap-slap-slap of flip-flops in the hallways, she knows one thing: Newcomers has new students. And they’re fresh out of the refugee camps.

So, she gets busy. She pulls a backpack from a shelf, notebooks and pencils from a closet and donated clothes from one of the nine racks surrounding her cubicle.

But that’s just the beginning.

She knows these students feel lost. They’ve left their homeland to come to a new country where they hardly know anyone, let alone the language. So, she listens and reads poems to them about the need for dreams.

When the students finally open up, Katona knows. So do the other teachers. The students talk about nightmares. But they also write thank-you notes, draw pictures, tell stories and laugh.

They begin to heal.

“I think, 'Oooo, you got it easy, girl!’ when I see the faces of these kids from Iraq, the Congo and Afghanistan,’’ says Sadeq. “That’s resilience, isn’t it?’’

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com