Author: painter.114

Germany’s Honesty

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A painting of a Soviet terrorizing East Berlin on the Berlin Wall.

A painting of a Soviet terrorizing East Berlin on the Berlin Wall.

Berlin was different than everywhere else we had been so far. There was graffiti everywhere, but it felt like art not vandalism. It gave the city character. Then there was the fact that remnants of the war were around every corner. We visited Checkpoint Charlie (only about a ten minute walk from our hotel), the site of Hitler’s Bunker, the Wannsee House where the Wannsee Conference took place, and the Berlin Wall. We were always standing on or in a bit of history.

The biggest difference from the other cities I noticed in Berlin was how the museums were set up. There was much more text than stuff in the exhibits. There was still the basic Nazi propaganda posters, the maps of the invasions, and even the Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, played on a loop. But instead of the museums being filled with all those objects, there was more text next to each thing explaining what it was and giving the background on how it was important in the war. They were just more informationally based than based on how much stuff they could fit in a glass case.

The Berlin Wall outside the Topography of Terror Museum. A faded painting of the American flag is shown here.

The Berlin Wall outside the Topography of Terror Museum. A faded painting of the American flag is shown here.

Furthermore, the most shocking part about the museums for me was that they were so honest. We visited the German Historical Museum on May 27th, and it was arguably my favorite museum we went to. I loved how objective the museum was. All it did was state the facts of the war. In no way did the museum try to manipulate us into having a certain emotional reaction, leave out any important information (like how almost every museum in France conveniently left out information on the collaborationist Vichy government), or even try to put some blame on another country. This museum simply stated the facts, and it stated everything. There was information about the Holocaust and even a replica structure of how the gas chambers operated in Auschwitz-Birkenau. I was really surprised by this considering it was the Nazi-German government that operated the Holocaust. I thought that a German museum would leave out any information about Holocaust, and it did the exact opposite. The German Historical Museum gave me the most information on the Holocaust out of all the museums we visited in Europe. There was information on the deportations, the systematic killings, and even on the Nazi propaganda movie to depict Jewish people as awful, greedy human beings called Jew Süss.

 

Site of one of the assassination attempts on Hitler. This is located in the German Historical Museum.

Site of one of the assassination attempts on Hitler. This is located in the German Historical Museum.

The most interesting part about the trip was seeing all the countries’ different perspectives on the war. By the time we arrived in Germany, I figured that every museum we would go to would have its own thoughts on the Second World War. I had no idea how a museum in Germany would take a nationalistic point of view for the war considering Germany was the home to the Nazi party that caused all the destruction in Europe, but I thought they would at least try. Fortunately, the German Historical Museum did none of that. It was refreshing to be in a museum that just stated all the facts and let me digest all the information and interpret it for myself. As another student stated on the trip, he would rather leave a museum with questions based on the content than leave the museum with questions because of lack of content. That was exactly how I felt leaving the German Historical Museum.

 

Culture Shock in Poland

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As we drove across the city of Kraków, I immediately noticed how different it was from any city or town I had ever visited. It was a bit of a culture shock. The architecture and the public transportation were vastly different than anything I have ever seen. The buildings had a Tuscan flare to them; some were pink, some were green, some had huge archways, and some had high, intricate steeples. The main form of public transportation was a tram connecting wires that ran on tracks. It was interesting to see people not have to pay to use the tram.

The town square was my favorite part of the city. It was so open with many different restaurants, dessert shops, and quirky stores that sold the most unique items. There was also this clock tower in one of the corners of the square. It was so tall and so different from when I saw Big Ben in London. It was green, had a detailed steeple about fifty feet tall, and was numbered with faded, gold paint. It was so beautiful that two of the girls on the trip with me took the time to sit in the square and sketch the clock tower. The square also had about ten horse-drawn carriages that you could pay to take you for a ride around the square. I was shocked to see horse-drawn carriages because since I live in Piqua, Ohio, I have never seen one before. There was also this group of men who were in the square that had a rope attached to two sticks. The rope had many loops in it so that when he dipped the rope in soap, he made numerous giant bubbles float across the square. This was completely new to me. To see these men make bubbles for the kids running around the square was one of the sweetest and most uplifting scenes I experienced.

This is a view inside the town square of one of the horse-drawn carriages.

This is a view inside the town square of one of the horse-drawn carriages.

 

One of the biggest differences I noticed was how people had to pay for food and souvenirs. In the states, it is normal to receive separate checks and pay with big bills at restaurants. In Kraków, it was the exact opposite situation. The waiters and waitresses could not give us change if we used a bill worth more than twenty zloty (the currency in Poland). If a group of us went out to dinner together, they also could not separate our checks. We all had to put in the exact cost of our personal meals and pay all together. When we all went to dinner to try pierogis our first night, we had a rude awakening when almost none of us had less than a fifty zloty bill. Instead of having us all pay separately, the waiter gave us all change for our fifties so that we could then put our money together to pay for the bill all at once. We were all very confused and blatantly showed everyone in the restaurant that we were tourists.

The biggest difference in Kraków was obviously the language barrier. I was expecting to have a very difficult time trying to communicate with the people of Kraków since I do not speak a word of Polish. I was pleasantly surprised when some of them spoke some English on our first night. I mistakenly assumed that most of the people I would encounter would also understand English. Being in Poland was the first time that I have had the problem of a language barrier, especially with no one there to help translate. This woman was asking us to come into the restaurant where she was employed to eat dinner. I told her that we had already eaten dinner, but the other people I was with were intrigued by the place and wanted to ask her more information. One of the others asked her if live music was played every night, and she just stared straight into her face. She tried again and the woman still just stared at her. We decided the best thing to do was to apologize along with apologetic facial expressions and walk away from her without finding out any information about the restaurant.

The most shocking part about Kraków was the proximity of this pleasant little city to the most heinous place that has ever existed. Auschwitz-Birkenau is 68 km from Kraków; that’s about an hour drive. Walking around the town square, we saw many posters advertising tours through the labor and death camp. It was bizarre to see this place being marketed as a tourist attraction. When we arrived at the Auschwitz camp, there were multiple groups of people just standing around. Some people were smoking, others were buying food, others were buying souvenirs, and others were staring at their cell phones. As I took in the scene around me, I felt uneasy. The site felt so touristy that it made me feel anxious and uncomfortable. Once our tour began, my uneasiness only grew. I took a picture of the gate to Auschwitz that read, “Arbeit Macht Frei.” This phrase translates to, “Work Will Set You Free.” After that I took one picture of the railway that runs through Birkenau. I took both pictures outside of each camp. It felt wrong to take pictures inside of either camps, and it was infuriating to see people who took pictures of the human ashes and some who even used “selfie-sticks.”

As we were walking through Auschwitz, I did not process we were really where so much murder took place until we entered the room filled with two tons of human hair found at the camp when it was liberated in 1945. I expected to see the suitcases, shoes, and random belongings. I never expected to see human hair. I immediately began to cry and tried everything I could to keep myself together while we were in that room. I was able to keep my cool until we visited one of the death barracks in Birkenau. These barracks were where they kept the people who were next to be gassed. When I saw the scratchings in the walls, I assumed that it was the prisoners that might have scratched their own names into the walls. Our tour guide then told us that it was graffiti from people who visited the site after the war before it was a tourist destination. My mouth dropped. I could not and still cannot believe that someone could be that ignorant and that disrespectful. When we left the site, I rode the bus back to the hotel in silence.

I still do not think I have processed my experience at Auschwitz completely. It is unreal to think that we were all standing in the same spots that so many people were murdered. It is sickening to me that I fell in love with a city that offers a deal on tours of this monstrous place. How could such an amazing city be so close to a place that symbolizes evil and death?

This is a view from the front of Birkenau. Through the fence, the train tracks can be seen going straight to the back of the camp.

This is a view from the front of Birkenau. Through the fence, the train tracks can be seen going straight to the back of the camp.

Almost everything about the city was different from my small hometown in Ohio. Kraków has been the only place so far where I truly felt like I was in a foreign country. The language barrier was not as intense in England or France. I was introduced to new architecture, a new public transportation system, a town square, a horse-drawn carriage, and a completely different language. It was a culture shock, but it has been my favorite city so far as well.

Scratching the Surface in Normandy and Paris

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During World War II, the Vichy government in France collaborated with the Nazis. It deported people to concentration and death camps who were considered unworthy of living as well as accommodating other needs of the Nazis. This bit of history is learned when a student starts studying World War II in depth, but when students are taught about the war in middle school they are just told that it only took six weeks for France to fall to the Nazis and that is the end of the lesson. What I found in France is that the museums pretty much stop there too and move on to D-Day.

A photo displayed in the Caen Memorial Museum showing three French boys staring at a tank.

A photo displayed in the Caen Memorial Museum showing three French boys staring at a tank.

On May 15, we went to the Caen Memorial Museum. The museum started off with a downward spiraling staircase taking us through the years leading up to World War II. The downward spiral is supposed to symbolize the world’s descent into hell as Nazi Germany gained more and more power. Then came the section on the invasionn of France. This part of the museum made me feel like I was being geared to pity the French much more than I normally would have. It was dimly lit with pictures of recently homeless French children and dead soldiers. Having studied World War II in depth for the past four months, it was easier for me and most of my classmates to pick up on the manipulation of the museum.

A photo also displayed at the Caen Memorial Museum. This photo depicts that the French people were lively and happy, and then suddenly surrounded by the Nazi forces out of the blue.

A photo also displayed at the Caen Memorial Museum. This photo depicts that the French people were lively and happy, and then suddenly surrounded by the Nazi forces out of the blue.

Then the museum had a very small section on the Holocaust. It displayed the basic information that most people already know about the Holocaust. It had said that the Germans were systematically killing Jews and others in an effort to exterminate undesirables. However, there was absolutely nothing in the museum about how the Vichy government, under the control of Marshal Pètain, helped deport people from France for the Nazis. In fact, there was nothing in the Caen Memorial Museum or any museum we travelled to in Normandy or Paris that even mentioned the Vichy government.

 

I have learned in these past months that the French government ignored the Holocaust for a few years when the war ended. It is evident that the French government knows it made a mistake in doing this, but I found a quote in the Caen Memorial Museum that almost excuses the lack of action from the French government: “It took some time, however, for comprehension of what had been happening to sink in, given the near impossibility of grasping a reality so monstrous that it seemed inconceivable to those alive at the time.” This was at the very beginning of the Holocaust section of the museum. This quote is blatantly excusing the French government for ignoring the Holocaust for so long.

There is a similar pattern in most governments where the state barely acknowledges something they did wrong if it is acknowledged at all. I have yet to see information in a museum about the Japanese internment camps that were set up in the United States after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. Children are told that Thanksgiving was a time when the Pilgrims and Native Americans shared a dinner when they finally settled their differences. In reality, it was a celebration thrown on by a hand-full of colonists after they massacred an entire tribe of Native Americans.

Another student mentioned during a reflective talk that he would have preferred to be left with questions after having received all the facts instead of having questions because of a lack of facts, referring to the museums we have seen. This moment just keeps reoccurring to me because he was one-hundred percent correct. Without all of the information, there is no logic in drawing conclusions about a specific topic, especially one about a serious blunder made by a government. The museums in Normandy and Paris gave the impression that it is much better to forgive and forget than to actually discuss what went wrong and why. If we choose to forgive and forget, how will we ever learn from our mistakes?

London: Something to Offer at Every Corner

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I think it really hit me that I was on my way to London when one of the flight attendants asked me what I wanted to drink in a British accent. I remember thinking, “Holy crap, I am really going to England.” As soon as I landed and tried to find my way to the Tube, I was introduced to the very friendly locals. I must have looked very obviously confused and lost because about six people offered me help between me landing at the airport and making it to the right hotel.

On the first day, we had an exercise to help us learn how to navigate the Tube. We went to Trafalgar Square which is very close to Westminster. We all decided to walk down to Westminster to see Big Ben, Parliament, and the Westminster Abbey. We could not go into these places yet, but it was nice to walk around. We got a quick lunch, and that is when we found out there are almost no trash cans, or litter bins if you were raised in England, in Westminster. Another student and I even passed a man on a different day when we could get in the Abbey that said, “If I do not find a trash can in ten minutes, I’m throwing it all on the ground.” Professor Steigerwald then told me that is because the IRA favored trash cans as a place to deposit bombs. This killed or severely injured a lot of people near tourist sites. They decided it was safer to just have no trash cans in the Westminster area.

London was very unique in the way that it has balanced mix of old architecture and modern architecture. Some of the group went to the Tower of London in the afternoon on May 10, and there was this amazing view of this mix from a spot inside the Tower. It was everywhere. Parts of Westminster Abbey have been around since before the 1100’s and just down the street there is an office building made entirely of glass. It felt as if they were trying to keep the city up with the times without losing all of the history and beauty in the old buildings.

This is the Tower of London surrounded by modern architecture.

This is the Tower of London surrounded by modern architecture.

I also realized that London can have many surprises. A group of us wanted to go to the Globe Theater on May 12. We did not leave in time to make it there, nor did we really know how to get there. We ended up getting off the tube at a station where the Monument was. The Globe had already closed, but the Monument was still allowing people in for five more minutes so we all made the spontaneous decision to walk up the 311 steps to the top to see this amazing view of Tower Bridge and basically the rest of London. We only stayed up there for about twenty minutes because the place was closing, but I easily could have spent a couple hours just looking out at the city of London. It was just a spontaneous decision we made so that our tube ride wasn’t wasted, and it turned out to be worth the time and the pain in our calves.

View from the top of the Monument looking out to the Tower Bridge.

View from the top of the Monument looking out to the Tower Bridge.

I don’t think London would have been as great of an experience for me if it was not for all the walks by the water. One of my favorite things to do was to go down to Westminster at night and walk across the bridge to see the London Eye lit up across the water and the lights of the Parliament building reflecting off the river as well. The same group that went to the Monument also walked down to the river right by the London Bridge, and we all sat on the ledge of the walkway right by the water. It was the simplicity of walking down the river in the middle of this fast-paced city that made me love doing it so much. I have never felt more content.

Bethany, Erik, and me sitting near the London Bridge at the edge of the river.

Bethany, Erik, and me sitting near the London Bridge at the edge of the river.

London Calling!

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Hello all!

My name is Alessandra Painter and I just completed my second year at The Ohio State University. I am majoring in English with a minor in Legal Foundations. I am from the small town of Piqua, Ohio. I usually just say I’m thirty minutes north of Dayton because no one ever knows where or what Piqua is. I have never left the country, and probably would never have the opportunity to if it were not for this program. So, I am extremely excited to be able to explore Europe with this amazing group of students.

I have wanted to study abroad since I learned that it existed. I had been searching through the numerous programs Ohio State offers since my first year to find the one I really wanted to do. Of course, I ended up wanting to go on all of the trips. But during the first month of my second year, I saw the World War II program on the list and it immediately caught my interest. After I attended an information session, I knew I had to do everything I could to be accepted on this trip. I am beyond excited to go to all four of these countries to experience their culture, their language, and obviously all of the history they have to offer.

I will be giving my site report at Bletchley Park in England. Visiting Bletchley Park is actually what I am most excited for on this trip. I loved studying about the Enigma machine, ULTRA and Alan Turing. I cannot imagine what it will feel like to stand in the very spot where some of the most intellectual mathematicians cracked the German code. I am very, for lack of a better word, giddy about being there.

I am so grateful to be given the opportunity to go on this trip and cannot wait to fly out in just four short days!

See you in London,

Alessandra