Sarah Van's Blog

I’m a senior at Westborough High School; here I have grown throughout the years. Walking in the front doors as a freshman, I didn’t know what to expect or what I would learn. Now, leaving as a senior, there are some things that I have learned that will remain with me forever. The course, Facing History and Ourselves teaches the Holocaust for what it is, it’s not bias or one sided. You will learn things you probably wish you didn’t learn but it will make you think of what you would do, if you were in certain situations. I chose to take this course because I have always wanted to learn about the Holocaust in detail. I was confused of why it had happened; I thought there was more to it than the fact that the Jews were prosecuted just because they were Jewish. This course goes heavily into detail of the cruelties and horrific events that the Jews were faced with. You will leave many of the classes with tears in your eyes and anger in your heart. You will want to possibly even punch someone after watching the videos of how tortuous the Nazi’s were to the Jews. You will see photographs and actual videos of inside the death camps and you will have to look into the faces of little boys and girls and see their solemn expressions. One thing that was very hard for me during this course was the feeling of being so incredibly sorry for the Jews and everything they had to go through. But what hurt more, was that me being sorry would never ever change any of these horrifying events. Overall, I am glad that I took this course because I have learned a lot more that I expected. I know now that there is always going to be someone on there in the world, who is going to have it a lot tougher than me. This course made me thankful for a lot of things. There’s one thing for certain though, I am proud that I am Jewish.

I went down to guidance at the end of my junior year and sat across from my counselor deciding what classes I should take my senior year. We came across this class in the course selection book; and after hearing good reviews from my counselor and older brother, I decided to take this course. Second semester of senior year came around and I finally got to step into the history classroom, not sure of what I was going to expect.

Within the first few days of class, we had to bring in a picture of a something that meant a lot to us. Mine was of my brother and I; the thought of losing him can not be put into words. I later learned that out of everything the Jews took with them when they were “resettled”, pictures were one of the few things destroyed. After hearing this, I wasn’t quite sure of what I was getting myself into.

A few weeks later, I’m sitting in front of my computer trying to write in what ways did this course benefit me as a student and as a person; and memories from the movies I have watched and papers that I have read, I am overwhelmed. Everything that I have learned throughout this course, I will take with me forever. This course helped me benefit as a person in many ways. I’ve always known that the world is cruel and unfair but I never really understood the extent of it. It frustrates me and angers me beyond words that so many innocent people were brutally tortured and murdered. Sometimes I would hear people make a joke about a Jew about how they always saved their money; and I never really thought anything of it. Now when I hear stupid little jokes like this, I tell people to knock it off because it bothers me that Jews were targeted and tormented for no reason at all, other than the fact that they were Jewish. In the short documentary called “Concentration Camps”, I saw things that I wished I hadn’t seen. I felt physically sick. The Nazi’s wanted and used skin as their lampshades on their desks and as parchment paper. I teared up when the demonstrations of some torture methods were being shown. I couldn’t help but think ‘I’m so sorry’. Except being sorry, could never change what has happened or erase the nightmarish memories that people had to deal with day in and day out. Because me being sorry, is never going to get the millions upon millions of innocent Jews back. That is what angers me most. Some people may agree with me, but to be honest, I consider each and every one of those Jews heroes. It doesn’t matter about their age, whether they were two months old or sixty years old; they died defending their name and religion, and I personally think that they were mentally stronger that I could ever be.

This course has forever changed me. I also benefited from this course by knowing that my life isn’t as bad as the Jews in the concentration camps. I’ve had some really bad days and some bumps along the way; but even at my weakest moment, it was never as terrible as to what the Jews went through. I also benefited from knowing that the Holocaust was real. That may sound like a stupid thing to say, but some people deny that this horrific event ever existed. I have seen actual footage from the death camps taken when the U.S.A. freed the camps; I have seen actual photographs that were never meant to be seen by the outside world.

By taking this course, I have benefited as a student. I am now capable of understanding that there are going to be some topics that I am going to learn that will make me want to leave the room and cry. I have never been in a class where that whole time I wanted to cry. When the class ended, I still felt sad and sickened. This class opened my eyes to the real hardships that people had to go through. Children were stripped of their childhood and forced to endure horrible deeds being done to them. Nazi soldiers, who tortured and killed the Jews, laughed and joked around, thinking that these killings were ‘fun’. It utterly disgusts me. I have always wanted to learn about the Holocaust and know it for what it was. This class gave me the opportunity to learn the real, true stories of the Holocaust from many different point of views. I heard witnesses relive their younger days through the memories and stories they shared. I saw people break down and cry and I could see the look in their eyes. Their eyes told a much greater story.

From a student’s perspective, I learned what it was like when Mrs. Elliot taught her third grade class about discrimination. How people were treated differently based on the color of their eyes. I could understand how the third graders felt and how it made them sad and angry. They no sooner learned how unfair and unkind it was to discriminate. This video on Mrs. Elliot’s class brought me back to my younger days when I didn’t really understand what the world was all about. I can now look back and realize that if I was doing the same activity as them, I would feel very sad and confused about what was going on. In the movie, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, one of the main characters Bruno, didn’t understand why Schmuel, a Jewish boy was in a fenced in camp. Bruno thought that at this camp people always smiled, played games, laughed, and had a good time; in reality, the camp was torturous, awful, appalling. Bruno didn’t understand what was going on and why Schmuel was there and couldn’t really play with him. This makes me think back to when I was eight years old, and I think I would have wondered the same think. I don’t think I would have fully understood why he couldn’t have been able to play. But this course, has given me the knowledge to why Schmuel was able to play or laugh, and that will stay with me forever.

Taking this class opened my eyes to the hardships that people had to endure. And I am grateful that I haven’t been through what the Jews had to go through. What I learned throughout this course, will always be engraved in the back of my mind.

Sarah Van's Blog

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Introduction

Make a Difference Essay

Works Cited