Introduction to: Jake Phillips

My name is Jake Phillips. I am an eighteen year old white male with dual citizenship to both the United States and Italy. I enjoy playing guitar and am a member of a band. I play a variety of music styles from classical to ska. I’m a big fan of the outdoors, and frequently take hikes and biking day trips. I skateboard and snowboard. I’m a big fan water, whether it be the ocean a lake or a nice tall glass. I love traveling, and am fortunate enough to have been able to visit around the world, mostly on vacation, but occasionally for service. I consider myself to be a global citizen, and think that everybody should feel the same way about themselves. I took this course because I wanted to learn about myself, and as a global citizen feel it is necessary to educate myself about the global events that have happened throughout the history of the our world. Part of the reason I felt it was necessary for me to take this course is that prior to this semester I was aware that I had no perception of what the holocaust entailed. In addition, I felt no sympathy towards the Jews in regard to the holocaust. This was not because I disliked Jewish people, or that I felt they deserved it, but rather because the numbers that are thrown around and the voiceless passages forced down my throat did not inspire any emotion in me. I took this course because I wanted to understand this horrific tragedy, and furthermore to understand myself.

Essay

This course induced a revelation inside of me regarding the realities of degrading treatment from a self proclaimed superior group, to the declared inferior group. I came into this course because I felt I did not have enough knowledge, nor emotional attachment, to the holocaust which resulted in the detached and unsympathetic feeling I held toward Jews on the topic. I chose to take Facing History and Ourselves because I hoped that it would make me feel the way I do now. It took quite some time for me to feel this way however.

One lesson Mr. Gallagher taught stuck out in particular to me. It was a lesson on listening, and what it meant when somebody talks over another person. I’m still not sure whether or not it was directed a me but regardless I felt guilty afterwards for each time I could recall prior I had talked over a teacher. Mr. Gallagher said that people who talk over others are being disrespectful. The entire class had heard this before so some may have dozed off, disinterested in being lectured yet again about why we shouldn’t talk when we should be listening. The people who decided to not pay attention missed something that looking back, was very important. Mr. Gallagher went on to say that people who do not listen to others do so because they think they are more important. The person speaking is less important than they are. The people talking over those rightfully speaking deem their conversation to be more important than what the polite speaker has to say. They feel that what this rightful speaker has to say is less important, than what they have to say, and therefore they should not, and do not have to listen to the garbage that is spewing from their mouth. The people who deem themselves more important decide to disregard what the inferior group has to say.

Maybe some of the class made it this far, but I would imagine that fewer made the inference that was presented. The Germans disregarded the lives of the Jews, as the superior groups disregard what inferior groups have to say. There are a few steps between not listening and the absolute destruction (for lack of a stronger word) of the Jews. The value of a Jew’s life to a Nazi was reduced to the point where they felt it was ok to put them in a ghetto, further reduced as they felt it was ok to move them into a death camp, and gone by the time it was ok to put them in a incinerator.

I really liked the movie Uprising. It showed people who felt the same way that I think I would feel. Those who refused to go down without a fight. The scene that still burns most prominently in my mind is when they raid the house across the street from the narrated family. The unknown family sits quietly and silently around their empty dinner table as they are raided. They do as instructed, but the grandfather cannot get up from his wheelchair. So they wheel him to the balcony. Then they dump him face first onto the street. He is not given the respect even construction waste gets when it is dumped down a trash shaft. And the soldiers do it laughing. That scene was tough for me to watch. What if it were my grandfather I thought to myself. What would I do? How would I do it?

It was the slide show and holding the pictures of the Death Camps that made me feel the way I felt I should feel. I come from a large family. I have one brother, and two parents. I have 54 cousins from newborn to 37 years old, the majority of whom I am very close with. I have 30 odd aunts and uncles. I have 3 grandparents, the fourth of which I spent most of my childhood with and can still hear her voice. When I looked at each of the pictures I saw my family in the place of the Hungarians. I can see my mother looking around reassuring me when I asked where we were going and glancing over to my father with a nervous face, as if I didn’t see it, as he stood there expressionless. I can see my Nonni with a few of my younger cousins hugging her legs asking, “Why how come we are here?”, and where are we going. At first she doesn’t respond but then she says that we’re going to the shower and starts to teach us some song in Italian. I can see my brother walking around mouth open with an exhausted look on his face, too tired to complain for water. I can see my Nonno waiting to go into the shower, nervous and confused as the people around him strip down, making some corny joke followed by a brief, shunted laugh and a smile that quickly tightens to serious followed by a short sigh, and then him waving his shoes in the air with a confused look on his face wondering silently where he should put them.

I have trouble placing myself amongst the horrors that await everyone I love. Usually when I think what I’d do, being the only person conscience of the reality at the camp, I become a hero. The me I envision is filled with all the anger and disgust I hold towards the Nazis and acts likewise. The me I envision fights mercilessly and brutally against the Nazis and is brought to a swift end. He is willing to die just to land a few punches backed with all of his rage and every ounce of his remaining strength. He wonders why each person led to the gas chamber didn’t get there and then claw, bite, and tear their way out through the Nazis, even if to briefly avoid the fate so cruelly laid out for them. He wonders why everyone else there isn’t doing the same, why they don’t all feel the same, and then recognizes that they are unaware of what awaits. And it only makes him sadder.

I can’t help but wonder if this is the right way to feel. I’m split between the conflicting ideas that the Nazis deserve every atrocity they themselves committed against an innocent race, and the idea that no human being deserves what was done by the Nazis. I’m aware what little would be accomplished by having made the Nazis taste their own medicine, but still feel they did so excellently at being monsters that they earned it.

Works Cited

Jewish Children at a Fence. The Age. Image. May 18 2011.

Happy Campers. Stuffucanuse. Image. May 18 2011.

Wagon of Corpses. Google Images. Image. May 18 2011.

Warsaw Ghetto. Wordpress. Image. May 18 2011

Furnaces. Holocaust Research Project. Image. May 18 2011.