Make a Difference Essay

     I am a senior in high school and I am ready for college. I always thought it would be the perfect place for me to start making a difference in the world, no matter how small, but this course taught me I can start making a difference now. You don’t have to perform some gigantic movement to make an impact on those around you; being respectful and strong willed is just as good. When you show respect for one person, they will show respect for you in return. It is like the discussion we had in class about Where did the manners go? I think it is true that people nowadays get so wrapped up in their own life that they don’t take the time to consider other people. To me, this course reminded me that taking the time to show someone they have value is much more beneficial to you and the community than just brushing them by. That respect will amplify and continue to spread towards other people. People can also get your respect when you support those who cannot do so themselves.

     Learning about the Holocaust was amazing and terrible at the same time. I felt a mix of emotions, mostly anger and confusion on how the Nazis could completely control those around them. This topic was very influential to me in teaching about the importance of standing up for what is right. Those who were prosecuted were isolated and made to seem as the enemy, when they are people just like those who abused them. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas gave a representation of how poor treatment to the Jews didn’t make sense: Bruno, as a naïve kid who understands the basis of what is fair and what isn’t, could see that it was not fair for Schmuell to be on the other side of the fence. To Bruno, they were both 8 year old boys who just wanted to play ball. The reality is that Bruno was right, but Germans were too conceited and concerned with their own life to worry about Jews. Bruno was not even allowed to know about the concentration camps because his parents thought it was too disturbing for a young child to know, but the truth is it is incredibly disturbing for anyone to have full understanding of what went on in those camps.

     The video footage we watched at the end of the class was hard to watch as it was of what the US soldiers saw when they went to liberate the camps. Dead bodies everywhere; beaten, sick, cold, and skinny people were just barely alive; bones and ash piled high and giant graves all filled. These scenes were shocking to me, just as they were to the German townspeople who were forced to tour the camps. All the German people were staged as the ones who were responsible for the persecution of Jews, but their reactions to viewing the camps made it clear that they did not fully understand what they were agreeing to when the Nazis came to power. I would like to believe that had more people been aware of what was going on in these death camps, then there would have been more opportunities for Jews to be saved.

     It was their secrecy and their ability to control populations of people that scared me the most about the Nazis. Not only could they determine the fate of any Jew, but they could brainwash Germans into believing that what they were doing was right. It is men like Kurt Gerstein who provided some hope that not all humanity was lost when one became an SS officer. His story, told in the movie Amen!, was so frustrating for me to watch, because once he realized the horror of the gas chambers and mass murder at the death camps, there was no one he could turn to for help. Even the priest was lost with no one to listen to him. It was so disappointing to watch as two people, who according to the Nazi standards should be anti-Semitic, stood up for the Jews and what is right but no one else stood with them. It was almost just as hard for Germans to be brave as it was for Jews to be brave.

     The Uprising had a lot of brave characters. I remember watching that movie and thinking, how can it get any worse for these people? Yet it always got worse. I couldn’t believe how they went from their own living space, to being jammed into a ghetto, which was eventually pulverized so they were living in ruble and dust. Despite all their losses, they never lost hope. I used to get down on myself in tough situations, but after seeing what these people went through, I know there is no reason for me to give up trying. Just like in Freedom Riders, where the teacher didn’t lose faith in her ability to teach those students and the students did not give up trying to raise money, staying true to your beliefs can take you far. I realize now there is no excuse to be a bystander because that behavior will only spread. I have a role in life to not tolerate bullying. It may take a lot of courage to stand up to a bully, but if Jews could defend themselves with few weapons, surviving off of little food and water, why can’t I make a difference?

     Just thinking about movies like these makes me so appreciative for what I have. I usually liked to go home and talk with my family about what we did in class. I would try and explain everything, yet there was no way I possibly could. I found myself repeating phrases: “it was so sad. I could not believe how terrible, how awful… You should have seen it.”  There are just no words to describe what I experienced in this Facing History and Ourselves course. It was more than just learning about the Holocaust, but it taught me how be a, appreciate, strong willed, more brave, and respectful person.