My Struggle

As many of you know, I love history and I love to read. However, I have never felt awkward about buying a book or had to struggle to make myself do it.....until yesterday. For my German history class this week, we had to read excerpts from Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, which means "My Struggle." Being the historian that I am, I have wanted to read this book for a while now, just to get a better understanding of what was going on in Hitler's mind at the time that would lead to the Holocaust. I am a firm believer that without firm, true, and deep knowledge of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, we cannot hope to be prepared to stop this from happening again. But, I just couldn't make myself go so far as to buy the book. Yesterday, however, I started thinking that as a graduate student and later professor of German history, specializing in the Third Reich, I will have to study and use this book. I will have to teach referencing it. And not only that, I shouldn't let others' possible opinions of me buying the book stop me from fulfilling my desire for knowledge . So...I did it. I bought Mein Kampf. However, as to the point as that sounds, it definitely was not easy. I debated with myself for at least a good thirty minutes and when I finally decided to just go check out, the African-American checker gave me the "You racist!" look, and I just wanted to scream, "I'm a freaking history major! Back off! I might be blonde and blue eyed, but that doesn't mean I'm a neo-Nazi!" But I held back, and shoved the book into my backpack as quick as I could. It's amazing to see how this book, even now can cause such a turmoil.