They are the children she saved — and the tragic lives she couldn’t.
Before a mad gunman did the unthinkable, they were just your typical first-graders posing for an official class photo last fall.
“This is Victoria Soto’s class,” said Shannon Engel, the mother of slain 6-year-old Olivia Engel, holding back tears as she looked at the image.
Olivia and her classmates are pictured smiling with their teacher and protector, Soto, 27, who was killed trying to protect the students from Adam Lanza.
Fellow teacher Anne Marie Murphy, 52, also pictured, was slain as well. She was said to have been found with her arms around one of the slain children.
With Lanza cutting his murderous path through Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Soto hid her students in a classroom closet and cabinets — and put herself between them and the killer.
When Lanza entered the room, after killing 14 children in the classroom next door, she tried to steer him away by saying her students were in the auditorium.
But a handful of students, including Olivia, tried to flee. Lanza shot them.
In the photo are Soto’s other fallen students — Dylan Hockley, Allison Wyatt, Jesse Lewis, Avielle Richman, all 6 years old.
But because of Soto’s heroic actions, most of her little students survived the horror.