What Facing History Meant to Me

“What Facing History Meant to Me”

By Krystle Armand

            It is hard to put into words the effect that this course had on me. Facing History and Ourselves benefited me in many ways over the course of the semester. We held many discussions, lessons, and watched many movies which changed me as a person. The movies that we watched that had the most effect on me were The Grey Zone, Sophies Choice, Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and US Army Nazi Concentration Camp. As we watched each movie, it made me realize how terrible to Nazi’s were and to the extent that the mass slaughter was of the Jewish people. Before this class I had never really realized how bad the Holocaust was but now I feel as if I have a complete understanding of what happened in Nazi Germany and had developed a sense of civic agency of this time period.

The Grey Zone gave an in-depth look of what a Concentration camp atmosphere was really like. We went into the life of Jewish men at the Auschwitz and Berkineau Death Camps. This movie really put into perspective what the Death Camps were really like. It showed how brutal the Nazi’s were to the Jewish people. It also showed how the Jews tried to be strong and fight against the Nazi’s to be liberated. But in the end the Jews were not set free. They were lined up on their stomachs, face down, not able to look up as the Nazi’s shot them in the head one by one. This moment in the film is what affected me the most. As every gun shot went off, I found myself squinting more and more at the sound. By the time the Nazi got to the characters that we actually knew on the film, I was turned around in my chair not able to look at the movie screen. I can’t believe humans would do this to other humans. And for absolutely no good reason.

       The movie Sophie’s Choice had me contemplating a very serious question. In this movie, the lady was just arriving at a concentration camp with her son and daughter. A Nazi told her that she had to pick one of her children to stay with her. The options were that either the daughter get taken away, the son get taken away, and if the mother could not make a decision, they all die. If I were put into the same position as she, I honestly have no idea what I would do. Having to decide between one of your kids, as a mother is something that no mother should have to do. And the fact that a Nazi would make a mother make this decision just shows how evil, cruel, and terrible the Nazi’s really were. As I watched this part of the film, I found myself tearing up for the mother because it was just an unbearable situation to watch as the little girl got pulled away from her mother screaming for her life.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was also a very sad movie. One of the boys in the movie, Bruno, had no idea what was going on at the death camp that was just barely a mile away from his house. He met a boy that was being held captive in the concentration camp, Schmeul. Bruno wanted to help the Jewish boy, by going into the camp with him and helping him find his father. But in the end, they did not succeed because they were put into a gas chamber and killed. The saddest part was that they had absolutely no idea what was going on, along with everyone else that was in the gas chamber. They were just told that they were going to take a shower. They had no idea what was about to happen to them. The mother in this movie stood out to me because she just watched her husband partake in the killing of millions of Jews. She knew what her husband was doing, but didn’t do anything to stop him. She was a bystander in this situation, and can be somewhat blamed for not doing anything to change her family’s life. Throughout this course Mr. Gallagher has told us not to be a bystander. This movie portrayed this concept very well, and I have learned not to be a bystander, and to stick up for what I believe in and to let my voice be heard.

            The last film that we watched was of the USA Army Nazi Concentration Camp. This movie was the one that affected me the most. It was incredibly sad to see all of the footage of what the death camps looked like when the US Army came to liberate the camps. The amount of dead bodies that were left at the camps was absolutely atrocious. At one point they had to start using bulldozers because the number of dead bodies was too much for them to handle. I feel as if the bodies should have been treated with much more respect because every human being should be treated with respect, no matter if they are dead or alive. I started to tear up while watching this film because seeing that many dead bodies is just inhuman. I never thought that I would ever have to see something like that, but in the end I am glad that I did. This movie taught me so much and was a great ending to the course. It really emphasized how terrible the Holocaust was and how brutal it was for the Jews.

            This class taught me so much. It taught me to never be a bystander. It taught me to never watch bullying or discrimination but to say something about it. We need to either help the people that are being bullied/discriminated against or tell someone so that they can be helped. We cannot just watch it happen and do nothing about it. This is because if we do that, we are an enabler of the bad things that can be caused. We need to stand up for our peers because we are all equal and should all be treated with respect. And mostly so that an event like the Holocaust never happens again.