Introduction

Facing History and Ourselves is a course that, personally think, everyone should take as a high school student. Many of the content we learn today in school help us survive in the outside world, but it does not help us discover who we are and what our personality is like. This course helps us do that by introducing the horrors of the Holocaust and the choices many victims had to make. The course introduces us to many different sources of from the Holocaust era, including readings from historians, and Holocaust survivors. It also introduces many movies about the Holocaust that include documentaries and movies based on true stories. The images you will see in these readings and movies will be extremely difficult and hard to watch. However, they will become imprinted onto your mind forever and will help you discover your inner self. I chose to take the course because I wanted to know more about the Holocaust. I knew that it was one of the worst human crimes ever committed, but I did not know the details, like how Hitler came into power, why did the Nazis persecute the Jews, and how the Jews were treated in the concentration camps. The content I learned was extremely helpful in my understanding of Holocaust and especially, genocide, one of the worst human crimes that one could commit. I first heard about the course from a friend who had taken it in his senior year, and found it very interesting. I am currently a junior taking this course, but I believe that it should be open to everyone in the school. I hope that it will reach out to every single person in the school and help them discover who they are.