From a young age, our parents teach us that we must always tell the truth. As children, we take this in without question, but as we grow older, we start to wonder why. Why must we always tell the truth? Why is it even more important to tell the truth about history? People have a lot more influence than they realize, and often times they don't understand that retelling history inaccurately actually has the power to change the future. As the saying goes, we must tell the truth about the past so that "history doesn't repeat itself." In order to learn from its mistakes, the world must first understand what its mistakes were.
Holocaust deniers are some of the most despicable people living in this world. They don't realize what kind of influence they have. Of course at this point in time, we have the capacity to prove that these deniers are undoubtedly wrong, what with the availability of stories from survivors, but what happens after all of the Holocaust survivors pass away? Who will be left with first-hand knowledge to prove deniers wrong? Years and years from now, people living may become more uncertain as to whether or not the Holocaust existed. This is extremely dangerous, because the Holocaust, as well as the entirety of World War II, taught the world a crucial lesson- that man is capable of abominable and abhorrent things. Eventually, will people start to wonder "how could anyone do something so terrible"? If they no longer believe that the Holocaust could have existed, that gives the world a chance to make the same mistakes once again. Telling the truth about the past is crucial to preventing this from happening.
We see a similar idea in the book 1984, written by George Orwell. In his dystopian future, the society of Oceania lives in a world where history is constantly changing. Lies become truth and everyday the past is altered to serve the government's needs. The consequences of such actions are seen throughout the book; people are uneducated, living in terrible conditions with the government controlling every aspect of their lives. History is taught incorrectly, and the people no longer understand the world they live in. They become mindless drones, accepting everything the government tells them because they don't know any better. The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, finds it difficult to do his job of altering the past because he understands that by doing so, he is giving the government a way to do whatever they want without worrying about the people rioting against them. They don't have the capacity to learn that what the government is doing is wrong because they don't know any other way of life.
I'm not necessarily worried that in present day, something like this could occur. I think that now, especially in America, we hold truth on a pedestal too high to allow someone to come around and change it. People still try to lie about the past of course, like Holocaust deniers or people who tell lies about Israel, but they are constantly fought against by people determined to tell the truth. Everyday I see friends on Facebook responding to articles that tell lies about Israel or sharing videos that show the truth of the situation in the Middle East. And I don't think the people telling lies will ever win, because even if there's only one person who goes against it, that creates uncertainty, which starts to lead people down the road to truth. However, I don't think the people telling the truth will ever win either, for the same reasons. I think the battle between truth and lies is constant, and that there will always be two opinions about history. It's important for us, however, as educated, young adults, to understand which opinion is the truth and which one is the lie. If we want a better future, one where we don't repeat our mistakes, we first have to look to the past and ensure that we're getting history right.
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