Re “Facing history to avoid repeating it” (Ideas, Feb. 13) by Stephen Kinzer: I taught the Facing History and Ourselves curriculum in Arlington in the 1980s. It covered a wide range of atrocities committed around the globe. However, the lesson should not just be an accounting of terrible things that countries have done. We should always be asking how these things happen and how we can prevent them from happening again.
Around the same time, I also taught climbing for the US military in Berchtesgaden, Germany, where I brought groups around the Nazi-era site the Eagle’s Nest. I visited Dachau, where people were worked to death and subjected to experiments. In the museum at Dachau, there is a letter from the local government asking for the camp to do experiments during the day, because the screaming kept people awake at night.
There were several important things I took away. First, Dachau started as a site to hold political prisoners. Laws were made so that people opposing the government could be detained. How many countries do that today? We need to be vigilant about people’s rights and freedoms. The judicial system is so important.
I showed a short film adaptation of Maurice Ogden’s poem “The Hangman” to my Facing History classes. The hangman comes to town and begins hanging its people one by one. No one stands up to the hangman to defend his victims, and when he finally comes for the protagonist, there is no one left at all.
I still speak to students, and when I do, I tell them that in the next five years, they will be in a situation where it will not be easy to do the right thing. Yet they must find the courage to speak up.
We need to do more than just recount the atrocities perpetrated on our fellow human beings. We must consider whether we are heading down any of those paths.
Paul Masi
Winchester