Introduction

Facing History in Ourselves is a course that will change the lives of many. It is the most influential course one could take and is bound to make a lasting impression on just about anyone. This course drives deep into the issues of segregation, discrimination, and mainly the Holocaust. Facing History teaches students about the grueling extremities of the Holocaust through films, interviews, documentaries, and pictures. Every student that has the privilege of taking this course will walk out of the classroom each day with a positively altered perspective on life, a new appreciation for all the luxuries they possess. This course makes it impossible to deny, ignore, and overlook the Holocaust, and teaches one about oneself in the process. I chose to take this course because of exactly that. I have heard nothing but positive feedback about this course and how it is a must-take at the high school. This class is like no other class offered at Westborough High School in the sense that it requires a prerequisite of a higher level of maturity. The things we see in this class include extremely heavy material that only mature high school students can handle. I was ready for a class like this and couldn’t wait to get started. After countless recommendations of the course and Mr. Gallagher, I made the decision to take Facing History, which may have been one of the best choices I have ever made. My name is Jacquie Callery. I am 16 years old, a sister, daughter, friend, high school student, and lacrosse player. Before this course, those were the only things about me that I was sure of. Now, after taking this course, I know that I am more than those things listed above. I am a confident young lady who has the utmost appreciation for the life I have and for those who have fought to make this world the way it is today. I have an unconditional love for my family and will absolutely never treat anyone any differently just because they are different. It is fair to say that Facing History has taught me more about myself in a semester than anything else has during my 16 years of life.

What Facing History and Ourselves Meant to Me

Every student can come out of a class and say what they learned from it, but can every student come out of a class and say how that class benefitted them as a person? Facing History and Ourselves is one of the few classes that a student can come out of and say both. Material wise, I learned so much from this course. I became more familiar with the extents of discrimination and segregation, and have a new understanding of the Holocaust that one can only achieve by taking this course. From learning about such heavy topics, I grew as a student and a person. I now have the strength to stand up for something or someone that is being treated differently. I no longer allow myself to be a bystander, because in the end, the bystander is just as bad as the perpetrator. After just a few weeks of taking Facing History, I remember walking down the street and seeing so many different faces, so many different people, but the only thing I could think of was, “we are all the same, equal.” This course meant so much to me because it proved this to me. Before, I would just say that everyone was equal because my parents brought me up to believe so, but this course gave me reason.

Facing History forced me to look deeper into the issues of segregation and discrimination. By doing so, I gained the strength I needed to literally “face history” and what it includes, even the tragedies. (As bad as this sounds,) when I would watch a movie regarding civil rights or discrimination in another class, I viewed it as “just another boring old film about stuff I already know.” However, in Facing History, with each film, came a new life lesson. A new day in Facing History meant a new discovery about oneself, a new journey in the road to discovering who you are. Watching the films in this class wasn’t like watching films in any other class. These films sparked so many different emotions and feelings: grief, anger, confusion, disbelief, so many. It was impossible to watch one of these films and think that it was “just another movie about discrimination.” Not one thing we did in this class was taken lightly. This made me a stronger person in the end. I was forced to see horrible things done to innocent people who were discriminated against just because they were different from what was socially accepted at that time.

Morally, this course benefitted me in the sense that now I see everyone as equal because I believe  everyone is equal, not because my parents told me to. Overall, this course benefitted me the most by what it taught me. I learned that it doesn’t take an army to make a change, and sometimes, it only takes one person to make the biggest change. This course taught me how Hitler was able to rise and eventually come to power and execute his plan to exterminate the Jews. Another thing I learned from this course was that the Jews were not the only ones involved in the Holocaust. Homosexuals, the physically and mentally challenged, gypsies, and others also fell victim to the grueling reins of the Holocaust. One of the most memorable things I remember from this course regarding the horrifying treatment of non-Jews was from the movie “Sophie’s Choice.” In this movie, Sophie, a young polish woman, is sent to one of the death camps after she was caught translating Gestapo documents for a Jewish friend. While waiting in line at the death camps, Sophie pleads to one of the Nazi soldiers that she is not a Jew, and that she is a devoted Christian who believes in Christ. The Nazi agrees to set her free, but insists on an ultimatum; Sophie must choose one of her two children, either her daughter or son, to give away to the Nazis. After refusing to choose, the Nazi orders another soldier to take away both children.

Out of panic, Sophie devastatingly hands her young daughter away to the Nazis and watches as she is carried away, screaming for her mother. I had chills, tear-filled eyes, and a choked up throat the entire time I watched this scene. This shows how heartless the Nazis were and how it didn’t matter to them who they were killing. Before this course, I always wondered how the Nazis could kill so many people without hesitation. This course taught me that the reason why was because they were desensitized to what they were doing, and saw no wrong in it. Some of the films that we watched in the course showed the Nazis killing the Jews by putting them into the gas chambers, or burning them alive. Every time I saw something like this, I shuddered in my seat.

One particular scene I remember of the Nazis killing comes from the movie “The Grey Zone.” The scene shows an overwhelming number of Jewish men who attempted a revolt in one of the camps being shot to death by Nazi officers. The men were lined up one by one while the Nazi officers walked down the row of men and killed each with a single gunshot wound to the head like it was no big deal. This scene was absolutely sickening. I cannot even bare to imagine the feeling those men felt while laying there waiting to die. The worst part is that the Nazis felt nothing while taking their lives.

Though each film taught me something different, one thing that every film taught me was that no change can be made if no one tries for one. In every situation where there is a perpetrator, there must be a hero if a change is wanted. There have been far too many times in history where horrible things have happened because no one tried to stop it. Bystanders are just as guilty as the perpetrators they watch. The Holocaust is the first and last time something so atrocious can ever happen in this world. Facing History in Ourselves has inspired me to do everything I can to make sure of that, I refuse to be a bystander.  

Works Cited

Adolf Hitler. blogspot.com. 24 May 2012
Auschwitz Gas Chamber. wordpress.com. 24 May 2012
Sophie's Choice. listverse.com. 24 May 2012
The Grey Zone - 2002. tumblr.com. 23 May 2012
Triangle Poster. Google images. Image 9801. 23 May 2012.