World War II Study Abroad Program

  1. Please provide a brief description of your STEP Signature Project. Write two or three sentences describing the main activities your STEP Signature Project entailed.

We visited the battlegrounds, military headquarters, concentration camps, cities and countries that the millions who contributed towards and/or were affected by this colossal clash lived, fled, and died. The major cities that we visited are London, Paris, Krakow, and Berlin. In England, we discussed the Battle of Britain and will visit the Winston Churchill War Rooms and the Royal Air Force Bomber Command memorials. In France, we first stopped in Normandy and toured the beaches where the Allied forces made their entrance into Europe in the summer of 1944. We saw the American, British and German mass grave sites where thousands of men are laid to rest. Next, we traveled to Paris and I presented my report on life in the city-of-light during Nazi occupation, the Free France resistance movement, and the efforts provisional Vichy government in Southern France during this time. After this, we flew to Krakow to experience first-hand the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp where 1.1 million Jews, Poles, Roma, POWs, and other tortured souls were murdered between 1940 and 1945. The trip ended in Berlin on May 31st, after visiting the German resistance museum and studying the effects of the war on German civilians. These are simply the “main” excursions, as we visited multiple historical sites every day and on the weekends, were able to embark on additional educational and cultural trips.

2. What about your understanding of yourself, your assumptions, or your
view of the world changed/transformed while completing your STEP
Signature Project? Write one or two paragraphs to describe the change or
transformation that took place.

This trip allowed me to visit the places that I have learned so much about throughout my studies and independent research of World War II. I really got to see first-hand the reprocussions that war and death have on persons and how the horrendous loss of life that is called WWII still effects people to this very day. This tour also taught me that while there are evil people in this world that aim to perpetrate evil, the large large majority of people are innately good and even when under severe persecution, threat, and immediate danger, strive to help their fellow humankind and do good onto others, even at the risk of their own life.

3. What events, interactions, relationships, or activities during your STEP
Signature Project led to the change/transformation that you discussed in
#2, and how did those affect you? Write three or four paragraphs describing
the key aspects of your experiences completing your STEP Signature Project
that led to this change/transformation.

The most profound and moving part of my STEP Signature Project was visiting La Cambe, the German cemetery in Normandy France. As I walked throughout the thousands of gravestones I was brought to tears by reading the birth and death dates listed. The majority of these “men” were really just boys; twenty, nineteen, and even eighteen to seventeen years old. I am twenty, and I have an eighteen and sixteen year old brother who I think of as near children. These boys were swept up from around Germany, handed a loaded gun, and shipped off to a foreign country to “defend the Fatherland” and the horrors being committed in unimaginable number by their country and government. Of all the tragedies and deaths that occurred during this period in time, this is not “the worst”, but it was so profound to me to see the ages these boys died and where they ended up in the ground. This experience really contextualized the horrors of war that are felt on all sides and helped me to better understand why a conflict like WWII can never happen again on this earth.

4. Why is this change/transformation significant or valuable for your
life? Write one or two paragraphs discussing why this change or
development matters and/or relates to your academic, personal, and/or
professional goals and future plan

 I think it is all to easy and common to ignore all the horrors of the world as day-to-day atrocities and assume that some governing body, somewhere, will deal with them. But the injustices that happen day in and day out can and will eventually lead to mass suffering if they are not dealt with immediately and properly. The whole world, America especially, ignored Germany and Hitler and his new racist regime and tried to turn a blind eye to Germany’s militarization and movements into foreign soil just until it was too late and they could not ignore the problem because the Nazi regime had occupied the large majority of Europe and was inflicting pain and death onto millions of persons. So what did we do? We went to war and defeated Germany and the Axis powers and in the wake of two sides of battle and killing millions and millions of innocent civilians were killed.

This realization really helped cement the idea in my mind that violence and hate have no place on this earth. I am now inspired to work to counter such ideas of hate, anger, and violence that exist in my country and throughout the world. The educated minds of the free world should be constantly striving to defeat ideas of racism, sexism, bigotry, and hate at their root source as soon as these ideas come to the surface, not hope that someone, somewhere will deal with the problem, until it is too late. Hate cannot defeat hate and anger cannot defeat anger, they must be defeated by education, diplomacy, and goodness.

 

a German “soldier” who died 5 months short of his 18th birthday

 

The American War Memorial and “those boys who have died for the freedom of France”

One thought on “World War II Study Abroad Program

  1. I think we can all do with a reminder of these lessons in modern times. Thank you for taking the time to share this, Shannon.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *