Brooke Stegall

                                                            The Holocaust

   For many, yesterday's Holocaust presentation was a first, a turning point, or just a new lesson in their text book.  For me this would be my third time to experience the creativity of one of the most influential teachers I've ever had.  Last year, as a Junior, Coach Madden made me aware of the horrors of W.W.II and with tears streaming down my cheeks I saw if for a second time.  Although it was the same show I'd seen before, I walked away from the second viewing with something I didn't have the first time around.  The presentation had the same affect on me as I walked out of the up-stairs lecture hall a third time.  That empty but full feeling of guilt and relief. Empty because my life seemed so insignificant in comparison to those on screen, yet full of knowledge.  Guilt knowing that that night I would go to sleep with a full tummy for the 6538th day of my life, in a nice cushy bed for that matter with my two sisters and my parents asleep around me.  All this knowing some eighteen year old girl sixty years ago had all that and more stripped from her because she read the Torah instead of the Bible.  Relief knowing that I had dirty blonde hair and blue eyes with fair skin, an ideal Aryan.  But that only made me guilty all over again.  The songs ripped feelings from my soul that I never knew I had, fear from a man I know is deceased, pity for the Nazi soldiers that knew no better, sadness and pain for children and adults alike that died because of their beliefs.  Coach Madden had again worked his magic deep inside his students and brought the standards of learning higher once again. 

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