Introduction

My name is Ellen Donahue and I am just about to graduate high school in central Massachusetts suburbia. Last year when it was time to pick senior classes, I noticed a lot of people were signing up for the Facing History in Ourselves course because they had heard good things about it. Once I learned that many of my friends were signing up for the class and we’d therefore have the possibility to be in a senior class together sealed the deal for me and I decided to take it myself. Although it didn’t turn out the way at all that I has previously planned with my friends in the class and with the class being a bit of an easy senior class, I couldn’t be more pleased with how it did. This class did make a huge impact on me and the way that I view the world. Upon hearing that it is a class devoted entirely to the Holocaust many people may be put off thinking that it would be too grim or thinking that they’ve heard too much about the Holocaust and don’t even care anymore. But this class was much more to everyone who took it than just that. Although we learned about the horrors of the Holocaust in far more detail than I have in my entire schooling, I think we learned a lot about the human spirit. We saw Germans allowing Jews to be persecuted and we learned that we must stand up to oppressors at all times, and we saw the consequences of what could happen if we don’t.