Introduction

My name is Emily Dwyer, I am a senior at Westborough High School, and will be attending University of New Hampshire in the fall, and I took the “Facing History in Ourselves” course this year. This course is focused on distinguishing the differences between what it means to be a victim, a perpetrator, a rescuer or a bystander. In that way, this course truly helps people to discover the kind of person they are, and the kind of person that they aspire to be. Facing History in Ourselves mainly focuses on the Holocaust. We learn about how exactly the Nazis came to power, and how this enormous horror story came to happen. It all goes back to what someone is considered in a certain situation. The Jewish people were considered victims. The Nazis were considered perpetrators, and the other Germans who know what was going on but were not Nazis were bystanders- they witnessed exactly what was going on in the concentration camps, and they know the goal of Hitler and the Nazis, however, they did nothing. They allowed this madness to go on. We learned about how something like that is actually possible for people to take part in. The horrifying things that happened to the victims of the Holocaust were completely unbelievable and was hard to even watch in movies, it is very difficult to think that people were actually doing these things or were witnessing these things and doing nothing. It is so important to understand that one person truly can make a difference.