Refection essay

Facing history has benefited me in more ways than I could ever say. This course expanded my views more and more with each day I spent watching and reading what humans are able to do to each other. Not only did I see what humans were capable of I also learned lessons that I will carry on with me once I leave the high school. This course also showed me that we all need to look at ourselves and try to ask ourselves who are we really. By asking myself these questions I was able to learn more in this class than any other class I have taken before. These self-reflective questions were prompted by watching films that portrayed the horrors of history without any censorship.

        One of the films we watched this year was titled the Grey Zone. This movie followed the twelfth sander commando unit in their last few days of working before they were executed. This movie did not focus on anything but the horrible conditions that the Jews were faced with in Auschwitz. One interesting theme that I pulled from the movie was how far gone some of the Jewish people were. By this I mean that some of the Jewish sander commandos were so accepting of death many of them did not mind the idea that at some point in their future they would all be murdered. In the end of the movie after the commandos successfully destroyed one of the crematoriums they were lead out into the court yard by armed guards. They were then ordered to lie down, one by one they were all shot in the head. What surprised me about this scene was that the Jews were so ready to move on they just let the executions happening without putting up a fight. Before watching this movie I would have found this bizarre that people would allow someone to take their life without fighting back. After having watched what these men had to does every day made me realize that sometimes death is not the worst punishment. Finally I came to the conclusion that the sander commando units were almost like shells of humans because after completing their work of burning bodies all day and leading thousands to their death every day they became incapable of showing emotion.

            Another movie we watched in this course that had a great effect on me was called the Boy in the Striped Pajamas. This movie’s plot was about two young boys during the closing months of the war. One boy named Bruno was the camps commanders’ son while the other was a young Jewish boy who found himself in a working camp. This movie focused on who the innocent were even taken advantage of during the holocaust and how little kids were gassed. This movie was extremely sad at the end when both young boys were gassed. After the boy’s father figured out he had been gassed he seems to know some of the pain that he is causing the other Jewish families. The ending was almost bitter sweet because after the boys are killed the German commander of the camp gets a taste of what pain is really like. But in addition it is still so sad because two eight year olds are dead for no logical reason.

Another film we watched this year that had a great effect on me was the film recovered from the death camps. These films changed me and made me look into the eyes of the people stacked in piles and those being unburied for autopsies. These short clips of each film tied together everything that we had been learning about since day one. What made these clips different from everything else that we have watched is that everything before this involved actors, or it cut out before the violent scenes. These clips put the view face to face with real people who were really dead which was hard for me to process in the beginning. In addition to these films showing the atrocities of the camps it also made it a point to show how local German towns people were forced to dig new ditches and graves for the Jewish people who had been killed in the camps. Another way they punished the Germans for their horrific crimes were by giving them tours of the camps and making them view the bodies of the recent dead. By the end of this film I was turning my head trying to avoid looking at these real faces looking out for some last hope and finding nothing. I can honestly say that this film changed me and has really made me think twice about something’s that I normally don’t think about.

                This course has definitely been one of my favorite classes of all times. The main reason why I loved this course was because unlike any other classes during our discussions we were all able to share freely without having to worry about what others might think of us which might sound weird but for me this was a big deal. This allowed me to get a feel for what other people thought about history and themselves and it made me start to ask myself some questions of my own. One of these questions was one that we have been covering all year, am I a bystander or someone who will stand up for others who can’t stand up for themselves. This was only one question of many that I found myself thinking about as we watched some of the movies focusing on the holocaust. The title of this course History in Ourselves is definitely appropriate because it not only is this history class it also gives everyone in this class a chance to do some self-searching and attempt to just skim the top of finding out that we really are as a person.  

Another film we watched this year that had a great effect on me was the film recovered from the death camps. These films changed me and made me look into the eyes of the people stacked in piles and those being unburied for autopsies. These short clips of each film tied together everything that we had been learning about since day one. What made these clips different from everything else that we have watched is that everything before this involved actors, or it cut out before the violent scenes. These clips put the view face to face with real people who were really dead which was hard for me to process in the beginning. In addition to these films showing the atrocities of the camps it also made it a point to show how local German towns people were forced to dig new ditches and graves for the Jewish people who had been killed in the camps. Another way they punished the Germans for their horrific crimes were by giving them tours of the camps and making them view the bodies of the recent dead. By the end of this film I was turning my head trying to avoid looking at these real faces looking out for some last hope and finding nothing. I can honestly say that this film changed me and has really made me think twice about something’s that I normally don’t think about.

                  This course has definitely been one of my favorite classes of all times. The main reason why I loved this course was because unlike any other classes during our discussions we were all able to share freely without having to worry about what others might think of us which might sound weird but for me this was a big deal. This allowed me to get a feel for what other people thought about history and themselves and it made me start to ask myself some questions of my own. One of these questions was one that we have been covering all year, am I a bystander or someone who will stand up for others who cant stand up for themselves. This was only one question of many that I found myself thinking about as we watched some of the movies focusing on the holocaust. The title of this course History in Ourselves is definitely appropriate because it not only is this a history class it also gives every one in this class a chance to do some self searching and attempt to just skim the top of finding out who we really are as a person.