Introduction

The Facing History and Ourselves course may be the hardest class you ever take at this high school.  Not because there are countless projects and assignments and homework… there is nearly none.  The reason the course is so difficult is because you will be forced to stare directly into the horrifically evil reality that the Nazi’s created during the Holocaust, uncensored and unrefined, while at the same time learning about yourself.  Looking at these unfathomable evils constantly provokes the question why… and you must ask yourself.  The films (shown nearly every day) start off slow, and the first half of the class focuses more on training you to really examine what you are seeing for what it is, and to think about things.  To think about what you would have done, placed in their shoes.  After this skill has been developed, and the films get gradually more real, meaningful, and disturbing, you don’t have to be asked once to really think about what you are seeing. And as you continue to face the truth, the desire to make it all go away fades, and only the need to do your own part to prevent anything like it from ever happening again prevails.  I chose to take this course because I love history, and because all of my friends who had taken it said that they really learned something, and that the class is an experience in itself.  My name is Ethan Kaphammer, I’m 17, I’m a student at Westborough High School, and I have learned more in this class than any other after three full years at this school.

What Facing History and Ourselves Meant to Me

            The Facing History and Ourselves course has benefitted me in countless ways as both student and a person.  I have not forgotten the very beginning lessons where we looked at manners and our own personal identity, and not a day goes by that I do not hold the door open for somebody whenever I get the chance.  All the time people will pass by completely oblivious and without a thank you, and every time I think of that very important lesson.  Where I would hold the door open in my past, if the same thing happened as the man in the story I would have probably thought the same thing: bitch.  Yet after really thinking about it, am I so entitled to a thank you just because I did something nice?  Why did I do the nice thing, if I was only looking for praise?

            Examining small moral issues such as that really help you to think about your part in the world, what your character is, and what you would have done in the person’s shoes.  And as the material gets more and more intense, using this same method of looking closely at issues and thinking about them may start to disturb you.  It is very hard to wrap your head around something as inhumane and horrible as the Holocaust.  It is virtually impossible to get inside these people’s minds because the evil is just so incomprehensible.

            Everything in the class built perfectly on itself.  From the first lessons of looking at small moral issues, then into group and societal mentality and looking at how hard it is to stray from the group, then into propaganda, race science, and the unbelievable acts of discrimination committed in our own country, it makes it very easy to see how the Nazis were brainwashed and bought into everything. Nobody could go against the group, because they’d be going against millions, risking execution… people who would sell out their own parents to the Gestapo simply because they were told to report them if they spoke out against Hitler, or did anything the Nazis considered wrong.

            One of my favorite exercises was the first one, The Bear That Wasn’t.  The presentation of the story as a children’s story, but with a simple and mature message about society works really well with its content.  I loved how the bear was taken in out from his environment, just like a small child getting ready for his or her first day of school is taken out of their environment at home and put into a situation where they are pressured to conform, or even told who they are.  And just like that, so many kids lose their identities as they are pushed through the public school system, conforming to their teacher’s and friend’s wants and expectations of them, just like the bear was told over and over again that he was a worker, not a bear.  And he fought it for a while, but with everyone around him constantly telling him and convincing him he was a worker, he eventually comes to believe it.  At least not until he wakes up and realizes his identity.  Yet the story is an excellent metaphor for the kind of identity changing mentality present in our society to do what you are told, and be like everybody else in work, or school, or anywhere.  And by the end when the bear realizes its own identity, it proves that even if society is pushing you down and telling you who you’re supposed to be, it is still your job to stand up and remember who you really are.

            Another thing I really enjoyed was studying the discrimination in our own country.  The films of Birmingham, the children’s march, with all of those children being hosed, arrested, beaten, and even having dogs set on them simply for marching and peacefully protesting was an eye opener.  I never knew about what happened in Birmingham before this course, and if I had just read about it in History and not seen actual footage it would not have been the same.  It had much more of an impact to see firsthand what actually happened, which is another great benefit of this class.  When you are forced to read page after page of the same monotonous history textbook telling you this happened, this happened, these people were killed, it does not have nearly the same impact as it does than seeing what actually happened, the reactions of the people at the time, the look on the children’s faces, the policemen’s faces, and hearing what people there have to say about it. 

There was also a balance of history and historical fiction to keep things interesting, and to add a personal story to the factual events that we were seeing.  Like when I saw The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, when Bruno died I knew exactly what was happening to him, how the gas was being released, and everything.  When I follow a personal story through like that in a movie like that, it always makes me think, this is incredibly sad, but this is only one story.  One story out of the 6.6 million people killed in the Holocaust, and everyone has a story.  The amount of suffering is unfathomable.  Bruno’s gassing was certainly very upsetting, and I don’t mean to sound callous, but what happened to him was happening to people every single day in at least one of the staggering amounts of death camps.  I really liked how both the actual history and historical fiction worked together to create the individual story along with the reality.

I will honestly never be the same after taking the Facing History and Ourselves course.  I had heard it would be intense, but I could have never imagined what I was about to experience.  The class is truly a journey in itself.  This is one of those rare classes where you actually learn something important and meaningful, not something to be forgotten after the test.  Everyone should take this course; it is too valuable to miss.  I have learned more than just about the Holocaust, I’ve learned about myself and what it means to be an individual, to have an opinion that can never be taken down, and that going against the group is never the wrong thing to do if you know what you are doing is right.  

Works Cited

Double Fence at Auschwitz. Google Images. Online Images. 24 May 2012.
Jewish Children Kept Alive in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Google Images. Online Images. 24 May 2012.
The Main Entrance to the Extermination Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. Google Images. Online Images. 24 May 2012.
Auschwitz-Birkenau Photos. Google Images. Online Images. 24 May 2012.
Zyklon. Google Images. Online Images. 24 May 2012.