Facing history was the most influential class I have
ever taken. It really opened my eyes to
the types of prejudice that we see around us all the time and even prejudices
that I know I have been guilty of at some point. The lessons that I found most influential
were when we saw the actual footage and photographs of when Americans
discovered the death camps, when we learned about the experiments on human
behavior, and when we learned about the children’s march.
The real footage was definitely the most eye-opening
aspect of the course. It made the
Holocaust so much more real and all of the shocking images allowed it to really
sink in for me just how bad the Holocaust was.
There is a big difference between reading and hearing about it and then
actually seeing it. Watching the bodies
being thrown into ditches and the people who were too weak to move from being
starved nearly to death was really powerful. The use of the bulldozer on the
pile of bodies was also really eye-opening because I realized just how many
people were killed and how dehumanizing the whole thing was. Everything started to sink in about how every
one of the millions of people to die was just an innocent person who was being
tortured in the cruelest ways just because of the prevailing ideas in Germany
against the Jews.
The photographs that we looked at also had a big
effect on me because that made all of the victims that much more human to me. You do not really realize the scope of the
Holocaust when you just see all of the numbers and statistics, but when you
look into the photos and into the eyes of each person you can connect to
them. Then you realize that each of
those lives was an innocent one and one taken and without reason other than
prejudice. I started to think about how
similar those people looked to the friends I surround myself with and my family
and it made me think about how any person killed in the Holocaust was just as
innocent as anyone I know. Seeing the photos
and videos and connecting with the people makes all of the injustices even more
evil and all of the events so much more real.
I thought the psychological experiments were one of
the most interesting parts of the course because I was so surprised by the
results. In Jane Elliott’s experiment with
her class full of students, she separated the kids based on eye color, and then
gave them different privileges based on the eye color they had. This was meant to show the separation of race
that was going on in the South and how it arose and affected both parties. Segregation and the superiority of the white
race was a widespread belief in the time period. When the children were told that a group with
a certain eye color was better, they took full advantage of being given a
higher position and even poked fun at the other kids. The kids who were treated poorly were angry
and the other kids, but when the roles were reversed, they acted exactly the
same. Because the children for the most
part were not exposed to the idea of prejudice, the experiment showed how
prejudice can develop from something as simple as a difference in eye
color. When one group is given more
power than another or is given the label of being better, that group will use
that power to their advantage and often without sympathy for the other
group. It was shocking to me to see how
the kids acted so meanly to one another over something as simple as eye color,
but it showed how an idea like that is able to spread. It showed that it can be
human nature to discriminate and hold prejudices, and it was the same basic way
that ideas like the inferiority of Jews were able to spread in Nazi
Germany. It is hard to understand how
people can justify killing an entire group of people over the idea of
superiority, but this social experiment helped to show how prejudicial ideas
can spread.
The Milgram experiment was another part of facing
history that I found really interesting because it was another example of human
behavior and how something as horrible as the Holocaust could have
happened. In the Milgram experiment, the
test subjects were told that they would be administering shocks to a student
whenever they answered a question incorrectly and the shocks would increase in
intensity. When the test subject was
told he was not responsible for the health of the person he was shocking, the
subject would continue to shock the student regardless of how much pain they
could have been in. I was really
surprised by how far each tester went in administering the shocks, and if I had
to have guessed I wouldn’t have thought that any would have maxed out the
machine. I was surprised to find out that the majority maxed out the machine
and even went back down. It showed that
when people are not made responsible for their actions, they are willing to do
things that they would not normally. It
made me realize how many of the Nazi members could have justified what they
were doing to themselves, even if it was so wrong. I tried to put myself in the people of the
Milgram experiment and think about what I would do in that position, and
although I hope I wouldn’t end up causing the other person pain without regard,
I’m not sure if I would have been able to say no. I realize that the taking away of
responsibility makes it much easier for a person to conform to. Learning about the experiment though, has
made me want to really look at myself in any sort of similar situations and
question whether I am going against what I think is right just because I don’t have
responsibility over my actions and if I am causing someone else pain just
because I am not responsible for their injury.
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