Leonard Peacock: A Gateway To Herr Silverman's Past

Leonard Peacock: A Gateway to Herr Silverman’s Past Most teachers’ motivation is to inspire and teach the youth of the world; all teachers really want to do is insure that the future of the world is in responsible and educated hands; however, Herr Silverman’s motivation is to insure history does not repeat itself, whether it’d be the events of his own past or the world’s. As he teaches children about the Holocaust, he constantly preaches the idea that being different is okay as during the awful time, those who were different were persecuted and eventually terminated, something that should not be repeated and thus he always tried to find those who are different through various discussions and assignments. For example, Herr Silverman assigned his students to write an essay …show more content…
In the end, the assignment completed its task and that is when Herr Silverman discovered Leonard. Nonetheless, Herr Silverman’s discussions are where Leonard proves his uniqueness; in these discussions a student asks a question and the class answers, most students answer the more logical and satisfactory answers, an example of this is when Leonard asks what an American teenager should do with an inherited Nazi gun. In this discussion, several of the students gave answers such as putting the gun in the Holocaust Museum in DC or destroying the gun as a way to stop Nazi recruitment. In the end, no one really understands the question or asks why Leonard would bring up such an absurd and specific question except Herr Silverman who suspects something is wrong with Leonard. From this revelation, Herr Silverman feels a responsibility towards Leonard as he see a younger version of him and knows that Leonard needs someone who understands his pain, something Herr Silverman never really got the opportunity of having. Finally, when Leonard decides to kill Asher Beal (his tormentor) and commit suicide after all the constant abuse and consequences of being