7 years later...

Melissa Tatum, Sylvia O'Brian and Pat Gallagher - teachers in Kent - have worked together and taught the Holocaust for many years.

The other day, Ms. Tatum received the following email from a former student:

Mrs. Tatum,
Seven years ago, I was in 8th grade honors English with you, being co-taught by Mrs. O'Brian. We did a whole unit on the Holocaust and spent a significant period of time talking about it. Mrs. O'Brian posed the question "Was Hitler a great leader?" which nobody was able to answer at the time. I spent this past summer studying abroad in Africa, and have done extensive research and study on the current and past struggles of Africa recently. During colonization, King Leopold II of Belgium successfully manipulated his country, and the rest of the world into supporting him in the slaughtering of 10 million native peoples of the Congo. I have not thought about your class in a long time, but the question about Hitler lingered in the back of my mind as I learned about the colonization of Africa, and I think I finally have an answer. 13-year-old me was unwilling to call Hitler "great" for any reason. But, in all honesty, Hitler was a great leader. He successfully got and entire continent, if not an entire world, to believe what he believed, and manipulated people into helping him complete the genocide of millions of people. He was a terrible person, but he was a great leader. He was able to entrance a whole population into following him and his beliefs, and accomplished what he set out to do. So, seven years after the fact, I wanted to answer that question for you.
Monika