What Facing History and Ourselves Mean to Me
In what ways did the course benefit you as a student and as a person?
When I signed up for this course at the end of my junior year I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. But I had no idea. I heard so many good things about the course from students who took it before; Mr. Gallagher teaches it really well, it really touches you, and that its not a difficult course to pass. I heard it was really focused on the holocaust and I didn’t think id get emotional and what not because I had learned about the holocaust before. I was completely wrong. This course not only taught me so much more about the holocaust but it really made me take a look at the way I’m living my life, and the way I treat people. The things we read, the things we were told, and the things we watched upset me. Even though I have no background ties to the holocaust (being Portuguese and Puerto Rican ) it made me furious. I wouldn’t regret ever taking this course though even though it made me experience so many emotions. This course not only was very educational but it was really character building. Never again will I be a bystander.
Everything in the course we learned/read/saw was meaningful. Nothing was useless, so it is difficult for me to pick just three things that were the most meaningful to me. But one thing that stands out in my head was the film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Though I had seen this film once before, knowing what I learned throughout this course, this film was even more difficult to watch. I knew what was going to happen and I couldn’t of wanted anything less. It actually made me nauseous to watch as Bruno and all the Jews were pushed towards the gas chambers. It also made me extremely angry to know that Bruno’s father was creating “history in the making.” Something about that just angered me. I didn’t know that soldiers couldn’t tell their own family about the fact that they were gassing and burning the Jews. Slowly we saw the family fall apart because of the father, and what was going on behind the electrical fence of the concentration camps. This film really showed such an act of selflessness on Bruno’s behalf that I was a bit inspired. Even though he didn’t intentionally give his life for a cause, he befriended someone who he wasn’t supposed to be friends with, and it really showed his father what losing a loved one was like. I don’t think his father ever really sat down and thought about the families that were loosing each other in the camps. This film was just really inspiring.
Another film that really was memorable was The Grey Zone. I didn’t know there was rebellion of the jews that were actually working in the camps and again, this was very inspirational. It took a lot of courage for the worker to save that girls life, not only him but the people that assisted with it. It really broke my heart when the worker was telling the girl he saved that he knew a man that worked at the camp that had to burn his entire family; his wife, kids, and nephews etc. It must be hard to have to burn your own people in the first place, but to actually have to see your family dead, then have to burn them? I felt so sympathetic for that old man. The officers in this film made me particularly angry, just because of how ruthless they were when the shot all the men that rebelled, and when they shot the girl when she was leaving, and how they were killing members of the camp when those two women were not telling the soldiers what they wanted to know. It was disgusting. I cant believe that that actually happened. This film however, was really inspiring. Even though in the end the effort the men put in didn’t get them far, they tried.
The last meaningful thing I would like to discuss is the last packet we received in class just today. The excerpt from Dr. Nyisli Miklos was really heart wrenching. When he discussed the pyre it made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t believe again how ruthless these soldiers were. It also bothered me that the camps didn’t even have enough room for all the jews they wanted to exterminate. They were killing so many people in so many ways. I didn’t realize the pyre was such an awful death. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know the extent of it. It was really like they were dying twice and once is bad enough, but twice is just sickening. I couldn’t believe they would shoot them and then immediately push them into a fire three yards deep. For someone to even think of these kinds of ideas to kill people is just puzzling. These people had to have some kind of physiological problem to think of these ideas and to actually follow through with them.
These were a few of the meaningful parts of the course. I’m still so in shocked by the information that we learned. After class on certain days were things really bother me I immediately share them with my close friends, and my mom. Its surprising how little myself, and everyone knew about the holocaust. I really did learn something new everyday and I’m so grateful that I was taught by a teacher who I know really cares, and doesn’t just “have to teach it.” I have already recommended a few friends to take this course as a senior or to switch into it next semester if they are a senior. This is a great course and all students should really take it.
