Introduce yourself
My name is Savannah Pál, from Hungary. I am 18 years old, and this is my last year in high school. I am exactly before the last exams. This is the period, when people should think what they would like to do with their life, for the first time. I always knew, that I would like to work with people, and somehow help, in making this World a better place. Of course it sounds naive, because most of the people start their life like this and then end up as a shop assistant in a food store, but if we look it thoroughly they do help, everyone need food. I would like to protect people, not individuals more like groups of people with negative discrimination. I believe we are equal. We born as equal person, and then what we do with our own life is our business but we should remain equal in every situation. This could be one answer to the question, “Why am I so interested in both Word Wars and the tragedies caused by the overturned values.” When I made my decision, how to continue after high school, considering these, I chose a university course which can equip me knowledge about law and social sciences at a foreign University.
Why do you find history of XX. Century interesting topic for a project?
I would say a project, with historical topic is completely different from a project with any other topic. I am not saying it is better or worst, it is only different and this difference makes me delighted. I think history, is one of the best teachers in the World, learning from the past’s failures could help a lot not to make them again. Those events, through the XX. century are not to ever happen again so for this reason learning and spreading knowledge about this period is pivotal. When we learn about history in the school we cram all the important dates and fights, but it doesn’t really has a “face”. Learning in non-formal way, in this case learning by listening tales, gives a “face” to it. I think this is the important part, to realise the exact weight of these events, because some from those youngsters going to be the leaders of countries they must be aware of these. The only problem is that we don’t know who, so we only have the hope that those going to make this change who has the right knowledge. Discussions about history between young adults from different countries can teach a lot. We all have different backgrounds and opinions, sharing these could bring new perspectives or at least make people more sure about their point. I think both of these processes really beneficial.
Why do you want to be part hungarian group in 3rd part of project?
For this question the first answer which has came to my mind was “to understand it better”. Sometimes it is only easier, not to talk and think about those unbelievable events which has happened in the XX. century, but I think this is the worst thing to do, and actually we don’t have the right to do it. So, we should learn about it as much as it is possible, of course there are many people who don’t have any care in these fields, but they should know about it, to not make these happened again. I know I can’t protect those people who have been victims of these events because they are already victims, but what I can do is to overtake the repetition of these events. So if I have the chance to translate knowledge from life stories and broadcast it, I can’t define how much happy am I.
What is best memory you have from the interviews?
I have a lot. After the project, I worked a lot with those interviews and I built up my personal statement, university application, around this topic. I sent my application to 5 universities, and I received 4 offers, this fact made me more sure about what we did there is amazing, but this is not my best memory, this is something nice. I lost my grandma few years ago, she was the World to me. This project gave me my polish grandma. While I am writing this I still have to fight with my tears. This is something which I am really grateful but the word “grateful” not that much able to make the reader feel what this means to me. She gave me her address, we are writing letters to each other, she sends me cards for my birthday, Christmas and Easter. I send her pictures about my prom and about other important graduating events. Opening her letters, waiting for the translation makes me the happiest kid on Earth. She is considering me as her grand-grand children, so what this project gave me is indescribable.