Author: coen.47

Study Abroad 1001: Comparative Studies of Cities in Europe

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It may be a cliché, but everything in London just felt ancient.  There are castles and cathedrals from medieval times, books way older than the U.S., and countless artifacts stolen by the British resting in the British Museum.  I think it gives cities there a much smaller and cozier feel as the buildings are squat and tightly packed.  London was the third city that I went to on this tour of Europe and it was the first that had genuine skyscrapers and even those were confined to a limited part of the city.  New York may be the closest U.S. contemporary to London, just in terms of sheer size and history, but New York is still very young and there are hardly any remnants of the old city left.  One of the biggest surprises that London gave was how clean it was.  The air may have been terrible, but the streets and the Underground are practically spotless.  Another surprise that London had for me was how each part of the city had its own distinct feeling and look, almost like New York and its boroughs.

Paris, on the other hand, has such a distinct style throughout the city that it was hard to tell which neighborhood I was actually in without significant landmarks.  The city’s style is graceful and beautiful, but it simply gets boring.  If I couldn’t see the Le Sacre Coeur while I was in Montmartre (there is an excellent Dali exhibit there, by the way), I could have been in the Latin Quarter instead and not know the difference.  There are two areas in Paris that stand out from the others in my mind, however.  At night, the Champs de Mars is unlike anything I have ever seen.  The park is alive with Parisians and tourists, and people trying to make a quick buck selling wine and champagne, all gazing at the beautiful Eiffel Tower lit up before them.  Montmartre is the other area that will always stand out for me because of the good memories I shared with several of my comrades.  Nothing compares to sitting on the steps of Le Sacre Coeur at midnight while bartering for cheap drinks and listening to street musicians.

Krakow is as old as London or Paris, but the city shows its age in every neighborhood and lacks the modern skyscrapers of the other two cities.  The Old Town of the city dates back to the middle ages and the surrounding neighborhoods feel like they haven’t changed significantly since the 18th century.  I’m sure every street corner has history, but you would never know it unless you asked.  The Jewish Quarter of Krakow has sidewalk restaurants with live music that rotates from venue to venue every fifteen minutes.  With the right people by your side, dinner can continue an hour past when you finished your meal and you won’t even notice.  I know I didn’t.  This city has heavy history from World War II and it takes a lot of contemplation and discussion to begin to comprehend it.  It’s not perfect dinner conversation, but that’s what you talk about when you eat with a bunch of history students.

In all actuality, Berlin as the city we know it today is only twenty or thirty years old.  Not only was the city almost leveled by the Allied bombing campaigns and the Soviet invasion, but East and West Berlin were reunified beginning in 1990.  I think this is why Berlin was my favorite city.  The city felt fresh and new and chose to confront its enormous baggage rather than hide it.  The new German parliament, the Bundestag, exemplifies this by reclaiming the building of the German parliament of the Weimar Republic and making it symbolic of the new German state.  The design of the building places heavy emphasis on transparency of the government and placing the people of Germany above the government.  While the city was recently rebuilt, it carries its history from the war with it.  A small plaque commemorating a Jewish victim of the Holocaust may be found outside of a beer garden, grocery store, or even your hotel.  Sites of extreme evil, like the former SS headquarters, are now museums dedicated to educating the public about the atrocities committed by the Third Reich.  Berlin may be ashamed of its history, but it does not try to hide it as the city moves forward.  I find it very inspiring that victims of the Third Reich can be remembered right outside a place meant for enjoying the company of friends and I’m not sure that I can find this in the US.  It may be hard to find a memorial to murdered slaves in the deep south, or to find a museum dedicated to educating about the Native American reservation system in the plains state.  Maybe the US can learn from Germany about dealing with generations of baggage and do some remembering instead of neglecting.

The first picture below shows the exterior of the Bundestag, which is the old Reichstag.  In order to reclaim the building from its difficult past, the new German Republic built their parliament in the husk of the Reichstag but made significant changes to the building, such as large windows and an enormous glass dome.  The second picture was taken from the gallery of the Bundestag.  The structure of the parliamentary hall places the public above the government, making a government for the people quite literal.  The final picture is of a Soviet monument in the middle of Berlin.  While it was built almost immediately after the capture of Berlin, it still remains as a symbol of the Russian conquest of Nazi Germany.

Living in a Study Abroad Student’s Paradise

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Our three days in Poland was the first time I have ever been in a country where I did not understand one bit of the language.  It was a very humbling experience because even our best attempts to say thank you were met with blank stares or reactions as if we just insulted their mother.  The weird thing is, however, that there wasn’t a language barrier.  Almost everyone I interacted with at restaurants or museums or shops spoke some measure of English and certainly more than enough to get business done.  This was super convenient, as I didn’t have to wage the war of miming out what I had to say or anything else we might see in the movies, but I did feel weird about it.  I think its because I know that most foreign visitors in the US would not get the same experience that I had. In the US, there almost seems to be an expectation that everyone visiting or living there must be able to speak our language, but the expectations of Americans abroad is that everyone will still speak English.  In that respect, Americans are the spoiled children of the international travel community.  I didn’t even hesitate to use English in my interactions because I just hoped that they would understand and getting confirmation that the Poles in Krakow speak English over and over from different people just reinforced that behavior.  By the end of the last night, I wasn’t even attempting to say thank you in Polish (its pronounced “jin-koo-yah” by the way) to the waiters because I just knew they would understand.

My cultural guilt aside, the lack of a language barrier makes Krakow a great place for English speakers to visit.  There is a very rich history in the area, and a lot of it lay just inside the city.  The Old Town area is a UNESCO Heritage site dating back to the 11th century and has all of the tourist trap restaurants and shops that you could ever want.  The food is amazing and features a lot of perogies, sausage, and cabbage.  The best part of all is that the currency exchange rate is very much in favor of the US dollar, making a lot of what you do, see, and eat very cheap.

The area around Krakow is also very important to World War II history.  When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, they instituted a regime that persecuted Poles, Roma, and most of all, Polish Jews.  Dedicated to telling the Polish wartime experience, the Oskar Schindler museum uses original photographs, personal stories, and general history to give visitors a picture of how the Germans persecuted Poles during the occupation.  I thought the museum did an exceptional job in addressing the subject matter, but I am still not sure how I feel about the location of the museum, which is Oskar Schindler’s enamel factory, where he saved the lives of close to 1,200 Jews during World War II.  The museum may have some information on the persecution of the Polish Jews by the Germans, but the main focus of the museum is the persecution of the Poles as an ethnic group.  As such, placing the museum in a site that is very prominent in the Jewish experience of World War II almost feels like the city of Krakow is attempting to elevate the suffering of the Poles under German occupation to the same level of that of the Jews.  This is not the case at the most powerful museum that I have been to on this trip, Auschwitz-Birkenau.  The size of both camps in absolutely astounding and horrifying.  The group that organized the museum has done a great job in giving the unvarnished truth of the camps through their guided tours.  Words fail to describe Auschwitz.

The pictures in this post are of cathedrals near the center of the city in the heart of Old Town.  Not too many other pictures came out of Poland because of the gravity of the topics we discussed in Poland.

The Big Three: Roosevelt, Churchill, and Charles De Gaulle

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In the view of this American history student, France has been massaging the Anglo-American narrative of World War II to suit their purposes.  Rather than emphasizing their victimization by Germany, France’s national war museum, the Musee de l’Armee, plays up their involvement in the war after the capitulation of France.  I do not dispute that Free France fought in the war, but for them to call themselves a victor of the war and to include De Gaulle among the likes of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin misleads visitors of the museum.  The French view that they were a victor of World War II is very prevalent in the war museum in Paris, Les Invalides.  The building itself was once the military hospital and hospice for soldiers and veterans, but now houses the Musee de l’Armee, among other museums, and Napoleon Bonaparte’s tomb.  The impressive World War I section showcased many of the weapons used by both sides and discussed broad strategy.  The information presented about World War II, starting with their interpretation of the Fall of France, convinced me less.  The Musee de l’Armee treats the German invasion of France as a conventional defeat, rather than the surrender of the nation and the creation of a collaborative French government.  It also emphasizes the small successes the French achieved during the invasion, like the Maginot Line not surrendering to the Germans or the escape of French troops from Europe.  The museum fails to mention that many of the French soldiers that escaped at Dunkirk returned to France soon after and were captured by the Germans or that the Maginot line was bypassed completely and rendered useless.  It also does not mention that while the French inflicted over 100,000 casualties among the Germans, they suffered almost twice as many, not including the 1.5 million troops taken prisoner after the surrender was made official.  There even is a lack of information that points to France’s reluctance to aid the Allies.  Events such as the British sinking a French fleet for refusing to join them against the Germans after the fall of France and the rise of the Vichy Regime are glossed over in the museum.  Pictured below is the part of Les Invalides containing Napoleon’s tomb.

Museums in Normandy tell a tale of World War II different from their Parisian counterparts.  Be it their strong connection to the Allied forces that came in June of 1944 or their dedication to the friends and family they lost during the liberation, the Norman museums adhere more closely to the narrative of World War II widely accepted by the US and UK.  Another possible explanation for this narrative being used in Normandy is that the D-Day invasion beaches are visited by large numbers of US and British citizens.  The Utah Beach museum was one of the most comprehensive  that I have been to.  Its small but detailed collection of artifacts, scale models and restored vehicles, including an absolutely beautiful B-26 Marauder medium bomber, really helped give a concrete sense of what the soldiers were dealing with in the campaign.  The narrative it tells follows closely with what I learned in my extensive research of the beach landing.  The Arromanches 360 Theater showed a film that gave a very good sense of the war by showing actual footage. While shorter than I expected, the film shows the Normandy campaign and highlights the hard fighting the Allied forces faced, but also the price the Normans paid during the bombings for their liberation.  Below is a picture of Utah Beach during a rising tide.  The picture highlights how little the troops landing on the beach had to work with as the tide rose.

Not all museums in Normandy are so well done, however.  The town of St. Mere Eglise, a vital crossroads in the Utah Beach invasion, was seized by the 82nd Airborne on D-Day and remained in their hands until relief from the beach reached the town.  US control over the town was vital for the survival of the beachhead at Utah and many of the 82nd spent their lives taking and defending it.  The town currently makes this history  central to its identity, going so far as to hang a mannequin of a paratrooper from their church steeple.  The museum for the airborne, located in the town, is insensitive in the presentation of information by using interactive videos and games on tablets to disseminate the information.  This is great for children, as it keeps them engaged with subject matter and exploring the museum, but I fear that it makes the topics discussed seem light hearted.  The tablets make the Normandy invasion seem like part of a game and detract from the seriousness of the topic and I fear that many who visit the Airborne museum in St Mere Eglise will take away the wrong message, or worse, nothing at all.  The picture below is the church of St Mere Eglise.  If you look at the top left of the church, you can see the parachute of the mannequin, and below that is the mannequin itself.

How the British Remember Their War

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In London, it is easy to see that World War II was the “People’s War” for the British. Just about everywhere I turned, I saw evidence of World War II. Every museum, monument, and cultural site that I visited during my time here mentioned it in passing, at the very least. Outside of the magnificent St. Paul’s Cathedral, which has the best views of the city by far, a small monument to victims of the Blitz stands. A memorial to the merchant marines of both world wars stands in the plaza next to the Tower of London. The Churchill War Rooms are an interesting mix between information on the former prime minister and the people who supported him in ordinary roles as radio operators, runners, and record keepers. Bletchley Park is very similar in that Alan Turing and the other major players in the intelligence operation there seemed to take a back seat to the typists, radio operators, and messengers. Although the restriction on talking about their work was relaxed in the late 20th Century, many of the ordinary workers of Bletchley Park still didn’t talk to their friends or families about their contribution to victory in Europe, out of what I assume is extreme dedication to and pride in their work in the war. The British members of the Greatest Generation had their defining moments during World War II and it shows in how the British people remember the war. Not only do they memorialize the troops fighting overseas and on mainland Europe, but they also remember the citizens of London who withstood the Blitz for so long, and those who were not fit for military service but contributed in the vital military industries and worked the necessary clerical jobs.

This picture is the recreation of the cabinet room in Churchill’s war rooms. For a slightly taller than average man, the war rooms were less claustrophobic than I was expecting. However, this was without the full complement of staff and visitors that the war rooms received during the war, and I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for those working there every day—particularly for those who had to sleep in the war rooms

This picture is of the statue in the RAF Bomber Command Memorial. The design of the memorial really shows how much the British people care for their WWII veterans. The design of the building is very sleek and clean, using a brilliant white stone that contrasts very starkly with the bronze statue. The statue itself is very large but at a scale that makes the figures seem even more heroic. The result of these attributes is an awe- inspiring memorial for those who lost their lives fighting for their country in the skies.

 

This third picture is of the entrance to the main building of Bletchley Park. The grounds of Bletchley Park contain a small pond, a beautiful Victorian-era manor house, and many wooden and concrete huts. The huts were not present when Bletchley was first built but were instead constructed when the UK decided to house its intelligence operation. The sheer number of buildings that the British built just for intelligence is astonishing, especially when you consider that Bletchley may have had an interesting and complicated history before the war but is now the place where the German enigma code was cracked. In a way, the British sacrificed a cultural site for the war effort and didn’t bat an eye. I’m sure that has since changed, as it is now a relic of the “People’s War.”