They were studying World War Two, and the film Ben Ross was showing his class that day was a documentary depicting the atrocities the Nazis committed in their concentration camps. In the darkened classroom the class stared at the movie screen. They saw emaciated men and women starved so severely that they appeared to be nothing more than skeletons covered with skin. People whose knee joints were the widest parts of their legs.
Ben had already seen this film or films like it half a dozen times. But the sight of such ruthless inhumane cruelty by the Nazis still horrified him and made him feel angry. As the film rolled on, he spoke emotionally to the class: "What you are watching took place in Germany between 1934 and 1945. It was the work of a man named Adolf Hitler, originally a menial labourer, porter, and house painter, who turned to politics after World War One. Germany had been defeated in that war, its leadership was at a low ebb, inflation was high, and thousands were homeless, hungry, and jobless.
"For Hitler it was an opportunity to rise quickly through the political ranks of the Nazi Party. He espoused the theory that the Jews were the destroyers of civilization and that the Germans were a superior race. Today we know that Hitler was a paranoid, a psychopath, literally a madman. In 1923 he was thrown in jail for his political activities, but by 1934 he and his party had seized control of the German government."
Ben paused for a moment to let the students watch more of the film. They could see the gas chambers now, and the piles of bodies laid out like stove wood. The human skeletons still alive had the gruesome task of stacking the dead under the watching eyes of the Nazi soldiers. Ben felt his stomach churn.. How on God's earth could anyone make anyone else do something like that, he asked himself.
He told the students: "The death camps were what Hitler called his "Final solution to the Jewish problem". But anyone — not just Jews — deemed by the Nazis as unfit for their superior race was sent there. They were herded into camps all over Eastern Europe, and once there they were worked, starved, and tortured, and when they couldn't work any more, they were exterminated in the gas chambers. Their remains were disposed of in ovens." Ben paused for a moment and then added: "The life expectancy of the prisoners in the camps was two hundred and seventy days. But many did not survive a week."
On the screen they could see the buildings that housed the ovens. Ben thought of telling the students that the smoke rising from the chimneys above the buildings was from burning human flesh. But he didn't. The experience of watching this film would be awful enough. Thank God man had not invented a way to convey smells through film, because the worst thing of all would have been the stench of it, the stench of the most heinous act ever committed in the history of the human race.
The film was ending and Ben told his students: "In all, the Nazis murdered more than ten million men, women, and children in their extermination camps."
The film was over. A student near the door flicked the classroom lights on. As Ben looked around the room, most of the students looked stunned. Ben had not meant to shock them, but he'd known that the film would. Most of these students had grown up in the small, suburban community that spread out lazily around Gordon High. They were the products of stable, middle-class families, and despite the violence-saturated media that permeated society around them, they were surprisingly naive and sheltered. Even now a few of the students were starting to fool around. The misery and horror depicted in the film must have seemed to them like just another television programme. Robert Billings, sitting near the windows, was asleep with his head buried in his arms on his desk. But near the front of the room, Amy Smith appeared to be wiping a tear out of her eye. Laurie Saunders looked upset too.
"I know many of you are upset," Ben told the class. "But I did not show you this film today just to get an emotional reaction from you. I want you to think about what you saw and what I told you. Does anyone have any questions?"
Amy Smith quickly raised her hand.
"Yes, Amy?"
"Were all the Germans Nazis?" she asked.
Ben shook his head. "No, as a matter of fact, less than ten per cent of the German population belonged to the Nazi Party."
"Then why didn't anyone try to stop them?" Amy asked.
"I can't tell you for sure, Amy," Ross told her. "I can only guess that they were scared. The Nazis might have been a minority, but they were a highly organized, armed, and dangerous minority. You have to remember that the rest of the German population was unorganized, and unarmed and frightened. They had also gone through a terrible period of inflation that had virtually ruined their country. Perhaps some of them hoped the Nazis would be able to restore their society. Anyway, after the war, the majority of Germans said they didn't know about the atrocities."
Near the front of the room, a young black named Eric raised his hand urgently. "That's crazy," he said. "How could you slaughter ten million people without somebody noticing?"
"Yeah," said Brad, the boy who had picked on Robert Billings before class began. "That can't be true."
It was obvious to Ben that the film had affected a large part of the class, and he was pleased. It was good to see them concerned about something. "Well," he said to Eric and Brad, "I can only tell you that after the war the Germans claimed they knew nothing of the concentration camps or the killings."
Now Laurie Saunders raised her hand. "But Eric's right," she said. "How could the Germans sit back while the Nazis slaughtered people all around them and say they didn't know about it? How could they do that? How could they even say that?"
"All I can tell you," Ben said, "is that the Nazis were highly organized and feared. The behaviour of the rest of the German population is a mystery — why they didn't try to stop it, how they could say they didn't know. We just don't know the answers."
Eric's hand was up again. "All I can say is, I would never let such a small minority of people rule the majority."
"Yeah," said Brad. "I wouldn't let a couple of Nazis scare me into pretending I didn't see or hear anything."
There were other hands raised with questions, but before Ben could call on anyone, the bell rang out and the class was rushing out into the hall.
David Collins stood up. His stomach was grumbling like mad. That morning he'd got up late and had to skip his usual three-course breakfast to make it to school on time. Even though the film Mr Ross had shown really bothered him, he couldn't help thinking that next period was lunch.
He looked over at Laurie Saunders, his girl friend, who was still sitting in her seat. "Come on, Laurie," he urged her. "We have to get down to the cafeteria fast. You know how long the queue gets."
But Laurie waved him to go without her. "I'll catch up later."
David scowled. He was torn between waiting for his girl friend and filling Ins growling stomach. The stomach won, and David look off down the hall.
After he was gone, I auric got up from her seat and looked at Mr Ross. There were only a couple of kids left in the room now. And except for Robert Billings, who was just waking up from Ins nap, they were the ones who seemed the most disturbed about the film. "I can't even believe that all the Nazis were that cruel," Laurie told her teacher. "I don't believe anyone could be that cruel."
Ben nodded. "After the war, many Nazis tried to excuse their behaviour by claiming they were only following orders and that they would have been killed themselves if they hadn't."
Laurie shook her head. "No, that's no excuse. They could have run away. They could have fought back. They had their own eyes and their own minds. They could think for themselves. Nobody would just follow an order like that."
"But that's what they said," Ben told her. Laurie shook her head again. "It's sick," she said, her voice filled with revulsion. "Just totally sick." Ben could only nod in agreement.
"Robert Billings was trying to sneak past Ben's desk. "Robert," Ben said. "Wait a minute." The boy froze, but could not look his teacher in the eye.
"Are you getting enough sleep at home?" Ben asked. Robert nodded dumbly.
Ben sighed. All semester he- had been trying to get through to this boy. He couldn't stand seeing him picked on by the other students and it dismayed him that Robert didn't at least try to participate in class. "Robert," his teacher said sternly, "if you don't start participating in this class I will have to fail you. You'll never graduate at this rate."
Robert glanced at his teacher and then looked away again.
"Don't you have anything to say?" Ben asked. Robert shrugged. "I don't care," he said. "What do you mean you don't care?" Ben asked. Robert took a few steps towards the door. Ben could see that he was uncomfortable about being questioned. "Robert?"
The boy stopped, but he still could not look at his teacher. "I wouldn't do any good anyway," he mumbled. Ben wondered what he could say. Robert's case was a tough one: the younger brother wallowing in the shadow of an older brother who had been the quintessential model student and big man on campus. Jeff Billings had been an all-team pitcher in high school and was now in the Baltimore Orioles minor league while he studied medicine in the off-season. In school he'd been a straight-A student who excelled at everything he did. The kind of guy even Ben had despised in high school.
Seeing that he could never compete with his brother's achievements, Robert had apparently decided it was better not even to try.
"Listen, Robert," Ben said, "no one expects you to be another Jeff Billings."
Robert glanced quickly at Ben and then started chewing nervously on his thumbnail.
"All we're asking is that you try," Ben said.
"I have to go," Robert said, looking down at the floor.
"I don't even care about sports, Robert," Ben said. But the boy had already begun to move slowly towards the door.