Introduction

                Facing History and Ourselves is an excellent course that goes into depth on the Holocaust.  It covers topics like why it happened, how it happened, people involved, and many other topics.  The class does this through readings, movies, and documentaries.  Throughout the year there were many movies and documentaries played.  The class is mostly dealt with through video.  After a reading or a video we have in depth discussions where we are broken into groups.  After discussing the topic for a few minutes, there is a reporter who reports what the group talked about to the rest of the class.  I really liked this course this year.  I chose to take it because of the good things I had heard of it.  My friends told me that it was a really important class to take. I’m a senior and I only have a couple more days until I am completely done with high school.  Next year I will be attending Boston College.  My sister also goes there, so it should be easier to already have a familiar face on campus.  During high school I was very involved in clubs and in sports.  The clubs that I’m in this year are Interact, New Student Ambassadors, Peer Mediators, and National Honor Society.  I was more involved in these clubs this year than any other year because I held a leadership position in most of them.  I enjoyed being in these clubs, but I liked partaking in sports even more.  I am a three sport athlete: volleyball, gymnastics, and track.  I was varsity for almost all of these seasons except track my senior year.  I was unable to do track because I needed to get a job to be able to more comfortable at track.  I work at a gymnastics gym and have a lot of fun there.  I have three siblings, two older and one younger, so I have a fairly large family.  I really enjoyed the class this year and found it very enlightening.

What Facing History and Ourselves Meant to Me

 

What Facing History and Ourselves Means to Me

                I went into this class with an overall idea overall idea of what the course was going to be like because many of my friends had already taken it.  Even though I had an idea of what it was going to be like, no one could have prepared me for the feelings I was going to have throughout the course.  I thought I knew a fair amount of the Holocaust, but I was wrong.  I only knew a few of the statistics, but I never understood the true horror that took place during this time. 

                It was important that we began where we did, with the past events of the United States.  To be able to understand why the holocaust happened, we first had to understand the poor treatment of the Native Americans and African Americans.  On this topic I know quite a lot, but it was mainly from a factual perspective.  Even though the end result of these events wasn’t the death of six million people, they were still horrible.  The new settlers forcibly removed the Native Americans from the land that they had every right to for only selfish reasons.  And in the case of the prejudice against African Americans, they were mistreated only because of the color of their skin and nothing else.  The Germans in World War II are not the only ones that discriminate against a certain group.  This has been going on since the beginning of time, and shall continue on long after I am gone. 

              One movie that really stuck with me was The Grey Zone.  This is the movie that dealt with the Jewish people at the camps that had to clean out the gas chambers.  This was one movie that really stayed with me throughout the day and was on my mind constantly for a while.  The evil that went on in this movie was appalling.  I can’t put into words the sense of disgust I feel when I think of what those men at the camp went through.  A vivid detail that stood out was when the two women had to watch as the other women in the barracks were shot one by one right in front of them.  This is an agony that would have lived with them for the rest of their lives if they had survived.  It was more merciful that they died after seeing that instead of having to live with the guilt.  I probably would have done what the taller woman had done and ran into the electric fence.  Not only did they have to withstand that punishment, but they had to endure hours of previous torture.  The young girl that survived the gas chamber also was a prominent part of that movie.  The awfulness of her life was worse than most at the camp, and that is saying something.  She had to withstand the gassing while her mother helplessly tried to protect her by wrapping her arms around her.  She then was carried by men to a doctor who revived her.  She was in a place that was unfamiliar and scary and was surrounded by many men that she didn’t know.  They talked about her as if she wasn’t there, and often considered the option of killing her right there in then.  When the uprising takes place she is discovered by the Nazi soldiers.  The men that saved her life are put in a line on the ground and are shot right in front of her eyes.  She is then allowed to run a few feet away and is shot.  The unspeakable evil that took place in this movie is unsettling.  Those horrible events in the movie don’t even account for the surgeries and testing that takes place, but is not highlighted.  Dr. Mengele mercilessly performed surgeries on twins’ sexual organs.  This thought is just so horrifying.  How can someone do this to children?  This is the only movie that I almost wish I hadn’t seen.  The events that happen in the movie are so evil that it makes it hard to believe that humans have the capacity to commit these crimes.  But, I know that these things did happen, which makes the reality of the situation almost too much to bear. 

                Another movie that was really meaningful to me was The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  I had seen this movie before I came to class that day and it was still just as unbearable to watch as the first time.  Since the movie was told from a child’s perspective it was all the more heart-breaking.  Bruno didn’t, and wasn’t able to fathom the true happenings that was going on less than a mile away from his own home.  The boy on the other side, Shmoo, caused just as much sorrow for the viewers.  It was difficult to watch the process of thought that Bruno went through during the movie.  He mistakenly thought that Shmoo was on a farm having fun with friends.  Instead, Shmoo was a Jewish boy forced to do manual labor.  A really sad part in the movie was when Bruno denied that he had given Shmoo the food at the house.  The young Nazi soldier that was at the house was just as evil in regards to children because he didn’t view any of the Jewish people as anything but worthless.  The most moving part of this movie was when the two boys joined hands right before they were gassed to death.  There is no difference between these young, innocent boys. 

                A last example of something that really affected me was the last footage that we watched before we started this blog.  Mr. Gallagher had talked about this movie throughout the year warning about the terrible sights in the movie.  Even though I was mentally prepared before coming into class the video still was unbearable to watch.  The overall physical stature of the prisoners was incredibly poor.  The bones of their ribs were sticking out because there was no muscle or fat.  They had become so malnourished to the point that it is a miracle that their bodily functions still worked.  There was no difference between the size of their arms and legs.  They were so frail and looked like they could be easily broken.  The torture techniques that the prisoners had to live through were atrocious.  An especially atrocious torture treatment that one of the men had to go through was having his legs pulled apart so far that his groin snapped.  The thought of this just makes me shudder.  The indifference that the Nazi commanders had when they were forced to go through the camp was just as horrifying as the amount of bodies.  How can they feel no responsibility for their actions?  The crimes they committed are beyond normal sins.  No amount of words can make them feel bad about their actions.  It just doesn’t make sense that they feel no guilt about their terrible actions.  Yes they were just following orders, but their hands were the ones that carried out those orders.   I believe that every human being is built with a conscience.  They appear to be immune to theirs.  I was glad that the German civilians were led through the camp as well.  They needed to see with their own eyes what went on just miles away from them.  If they were indifferent to the crimes as well, I’m not sure how I could have been able to function.  The sheer amount of bodies was just so awful.  The condition that they were in as well was so frail and haunting.  They were stacked on top of one another with no dignity left for them.  The Jewish people that were killed right before they were freed is especially sad because they were mere hours away from being free.  The images that I saw in that movie are forever ingrained in my brain. 

                This course really did change the way I view the world.  I never was aware of the evil in the world until after I took this course.  I’ve tried to talk to people about what the movies I’ve seen mean, but we can never put into words the true feelings of horror that we feel.  How can there be this much evil?  I’ll be in class randomly and something someone says reminds me of one of the movies and I become depressed once again.  The new knowledge that I’ve gained really trivializes all of the problems that I think I have.  My worries carry no weight compared to what happened to innocent Jewish people.  This course has made me doubt some of my views, politically, morally, religiously, and many other ways.  You were right; I will never let someone call someone a Nazi in a joking way.  That is a serious matter and is an example of pure evil that everyone has inside of them.  I am absolutely not the same anymore, but I’m glad I took this course.  I was thinking that I wish that we could start the world over so that there wouldn’t be the prejudices that there are today.  But, I realized that if the world started ever, it would end up exactly the same way, but maybe with a different group in control.  Humans have the need to have one group in control and another in submission.  The world is a much bigger concept than me.  I will try to stand up for those that are being hurt.  Everyone should have a course like this one so history will never be repeated to this degree.  I wish there was something I could do, but I am just one person. 

Works Cited

Works Cited:
Holocaust Pictures. Google images. Online Images. 23 May 2012.

Shoes. Google images. Online Images. 23 May 2012.

Remembering the Holocaust. Google images. Online Images. 23 May 2012.

The Grey Zone. Google images. Online Images. 23 May 2012.

Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Google images. Online Images. 23 May 2012.