Dear Erin

Dear Erin,

I’m a thirty-one year old student at a local community college near my home. A few years back I decided to make a career change out of the corporate world and into public service. Because of my desire to help people and my belief that impacting kids early on is so crucial, I decided to pursue a teaching career. I’m currently enrolled in a class that is devoted to the history of the Holocaust. I thought it would be a perfect compliment to my pursuit of a history degree. What I’m finding, however, is that it may end up playing an intricate role in defining my future teaching methods. After watching the movie Freedom Writers, I became even more excited about educating teenagers. Although it is not directly about the history of the Holocaust, it has broadened my view of how a catastrophic event can be used to better our world. Your story directly justifies that belief.

I have become a proponent of the sociological imagination. In today’s world we are often too quick to pass judgment on someone or something without examining the historical background. Along that same line of thinking comes the ability to use history as a tool used to craft our own behaviors. You’ve shown me that the Holocaust is the ultimate, historical tool we have to influence young lives. By utilizing all of the Holocaust’s historical elements you were able to unite a substantially diverse classroom. The benefits of a book like Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, can only get you so far. By implementing venues like the Museum of Tolerance and its artifacts, movies and pictures, you effectively complimented what a book has to offer. You did not stop there. By providing your students with the ability to sit and talk with actual Holocaust survivors, you gave them an experience that only a few people will ever encounter.

Just like the Holocaust should never be forgotten, neither should your story. Finding out that none of your students were aware of what the Holocaust was must have been shocking. I cannot fathom an entire class of freshman being entirely oblivious to Nazi war crimes. This frightening realization is exactly why we should remember your story. Room 203 didn’t forget about the Holocaust – their families did. Proof, that if we fail to teach our youth about crimes against humanity the crimes will be forgotten – if they are forgotten, they will get repeated. We cannot just simply tell our children that we must not discriminate; we need to tell them why we must not discriminate. The Holocaust is the epitome of prejudice in human history. Learning about it is depressingly effective. Seeing such positive life transformations, like those of the Freedom Writers, come out of such evil acts vindicates the teaching of the Holocaust.

As morbid as it sounds, I can’t help but ask myself one question. With the benefit of hindsight, can it be possible that the magnitude of the Holocaust was a good thing? Of course that is easy for me to say as I sit in my own home, buy my own food, vote in elections and go to my own job. But what if the Holocaust hadn’t happened – this tremendous educational tool would not exist. And if the Holocaust hadn’t happened in the 1930s and 1940s, would one have happened in the 1950s or beyond? The simple fact is that it did happen – it’s what we decide to do with it that will perhaps define its true purpose. Strictly sympathizing with the victims is an act of pity, but utilizing the horrific magnitude to influence our youth for the good of humanity is honorary. You motivated a group of hopeless teenagers to show us that there is hope. Erin, you’ve chosen to honor the victims of the Holocaust by using their experiences to enable our youth to grasp the consequences of discrimination. That very act is worthy of honor itself. Thank you.