Introduction

My name is Tyler Haberkorn, I am a Senior at Westborough High School. I am enrolled in a history course titled Facing History and Ourselves. This course deals with the subject matter is centered around the Holocaust that happened during World War II. This course takes this horrific event and breaks it down, it teaches people what caused it on the most basic level. Using this Holocaust as the driving force, students learn about people and the harsh reality of what bullying does. In this course students watch videos, read articles, and discuss the events that took place during the Holocaust. This course is “Unlike any course you have ever taken.” (Mr. Gallagher). It is not about learning the facts surrounding history as much as learning about yourself. It is a course not about bettering the student’s knowledge about a historical event but rather making them better human beings. Students who enroll in this class see unbelievable real events, images that are forever burned into their memories. This class ensures that everyone who takes it will never forget what happened during the Holocaust. It is a half-year elective that is offered at either the level three or level four, college prep level or honors level. Regardless of the level students choose, the levels are mixed. Meaning that the level three class with the level four class. Therefore the two levels learn the same subject matter, only difference is a term paper for the honors students. I took the course because I had heard great things about it. I had previously taken a course with the same teacher who teaches Facing History and Ourselves and wanted to take another class with him. I live in a good town and have a pretty sheltered life. I know this is not the way everyone live around the world and feel I needed a better understanding of what some people have gone through. I believe I take this for granted more often than I should and am hoping to gain a better appreciation of how good people have it here in Westborough. As well as more about becoming a better person. No one can ever be too good of a person and this class will improve anyone as a person. After this course students who have taken it are no longer able to be a bystander, they take action and stand up to perpetrators. I highly recommend this course, it has meant more to me than any other course I have taken.

Make a Difference Essay

Facing History has meant to me a huge insight into what the Holocaust camps were like. Before this class I really did not have an idea of the degree of how terrible these camps were, now I feel I have a better understanding. In this class I saw graphics that will never leave my head. The images of those horrific events will stay with me forever and I can honestly say that I will never forget what I have learned from you. I wish this course was a full year because it seems to me that there is a lot of information still left for me to learn.

This course has bettered me as a person because I am now more sensitive to discrimination in any form, race, gender, age, and any other form. This class has been sad and at some points tough to handle. Going to it every day knowing that I was going to see something I wish never happened was something I was not used to. But I know that in the end it has made me better for it. In the beginning of the class you talked about how anybody who took this course would not be able to be a bystander anymore by the end of it. I was skeptical of this because it seems that for this course to have a hundred percent effectiveness, where everyone who takes it comes out of it a better person, seems near impossible. But I now have no doubts that this is true. In fact I do not see how someone could come out of this not changing. I think even some of the shyest people who have never even stood up for themselves before will now be able to stand up for others and do what they can when in the presence of bullying. You made the connection to how even just simple bullying and name calling can turn into one of the worst events in the history of man. How the propaganda of the Germans and anti-Semitism turned into the systematic murder of an entire race. The worst part of this was that so many people know about it, it was not a very small group of people who knew. This makes me sad because I would rather believe it was a select group of monsters who caused the holocaust not a lot of people who stood by and did nothing when people needed it most.

These people who needed it most had faces. Those atrocities were put to a face when you showed us the film of when the Americans went into the camps, the United States Documentary of the Concentration Camps. This film meant a lot to me, it was so very real. I was disgusted and in disbelief that the Nazi’s could do this to fellow human beings. They thought of such sick disgusting ways to harm anyone who they did not like. No matter how much I deeply hated someone I do not think I could ever do what they did. Another thing the film made me think was if I would want to live after being through a concentration camp (as a prisoner) because of everything they experienced and sights they saw. They saw the absolute worst side of humanity and anyone who kept their sanity through it is truly an amazing person. I don’t think I would be one to keep my sanity. Another very influential movie was The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas made me feel sorry for the wife because she seemed to care about what was happening to the Jewish people. But I did not feel any sympathy for the husband who ran the concentration camp or the sister who was anti-semitic. I think they got what was coming to them. I couldn’t feel sorry for a family who lost one boy when so many people were losing huge amounts of their family. I understand that the boy was young but it angered me greatly when he lied to save himself when asked if he gave the Jewish boy food. This goes back to exactly what this class means to me, standing up for people instead of being a bystander. He let the Nazi officers harm his friend, he lied to save himself from a possible yelling and in turn caused his friend to have a severe beating. This class had gone so far beyond just the movies. It has put everyone in the position of testing what kind of person they are. After witnessing what happens when people don’t stop bullying it is clear that people can’t be bystanders, everyone should think to themselves “What if it was me?” If people are ignorant enough to think such things will never happen to them I feel sorry for them. Because someday it could be and that is when that person will want someone to come to their aid. I famous quote that always comes to mind when discussing these subjects of people being bystanders and the affects it has is “In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.” By Martin Niemoller. His words always make me think if you don’t stick up for other people someday it could be me who is targeted and how could I expect others to stick up for me if I did not do the same for others. This class has brought more meaning to this quote.

A movie which made me very happy was the movie Uprising. Before this movie I did not know of any sort of resistance by the Jewish people against the Nazi’s. When I saw this movie and saw how hard some people fought, from within the Nazi lines I was proud of them. It made me so happy and wished they had done more damage to the Nazi’s plan. They must have been incredibly brave to smuggle guns into the ghetto and fight with such intensity, knowing that for their actions they faced almost certain death. This depicted that the Jews did not all just let this happen they did stand up for themselves. They put up a great resistance and they had a large number of people in on their rebellion. They were not bystanders while their people were being persecuted, they refused to be victims. This course demonstrated all types of people, the perpetrators, the bystanders, the victims, and this movie showed the people who refused to be victims. My only wish for these people was that they were more successful.

I believe this class should be taught all across the world. It has so much to offer and if you ask me, more important than the classes which just teach facts. Because this class teaches you to be a better human being and that is far more important than any amount of various facts people could learn. In life if a person is a good human being they will be successful.

Works Cited

Mike James. Martin Niemoller. N.d. Photograph. Thecounterpunch

Superheavy artillery at Warsaw. N.d. Photograph. ww2incolor

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. N.d. Photograph. Flixster

Concentration Camps. N.d. Photograph. Warfoto

Doors into Gas Chamber. N.d. Photograph. scrapbookpages