Author: Taylor Schaar

Memorializing Nazi Victims–Berlin

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[I could not get photos to upload so I will add them later]

 

Of all of the places we visited on this whirlwind study tour, my favorite by far is Berlin. The city itself is exciting—gritty yet beautiful, historical yet in construction new. It seems that Berlin has changed just in the short time that I’ve walked the streets because countless construction cranes scream development, which is good for Berlin’s economy but not so good for it’s street culture. Berlin rolls many of my favorite things into a vibrant and vexing urban space. Hundreds of years of history, food from around the world along with delicious German dishes, dynamic public spaces with old monuments alongside truly magnificent urban art. I think I enjoy this city so much because of this mismatched nature. I could wander here for years and still find perplexing pieces of street art or commemorative plaques every day.

 

In World War II terms, this city is oozing history. Since Berlin endured such heavy bombing near the end of the war, many parts of the city (at least the ones I had a chance to explore) are new. But the Germans, more than any other country I’ve been to (including the United States), have engrained history into their everyday life. WWII as well as other historical events are commemorated and memorialized almost everywhere. Seeing this city for myself lends so much more meaning to the WWII knowledge I learned in the classroom. Visiting the Reichstag allows me to understand how terrifying the Reichstag fire of 1933 would have been to Germans and it starts to make sense that the Nazis used the event so strategically. Standing in the shadow of this enormous and democratically symbolic building made the history so much more real than any book or photograph has.

 

Each WWII site that we visited in and around Berlin spoke to me in a different way but all were powerful. The war started and ended here, not in London or Paris. The Nazis orchestrated their reign of terror from here. It is hard to fathom those facts in the middle of a modern city. But those historical places still exist. Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, where the Nazis murdered thousands of people, is still standing less than an hour outside of the city center. Our visit there was indescribable and I am certainly not going to attempt to discuss it here. The Topography of Terror Museum stands on the grounds of the old Gestapo (Secret Police) headquarters, where countless crimes against humanity were committed and coordinated. German museums held very little back and were the most comprehensive of most visited on this trip.

 

I spent a lot of time thinking about how Germany remembers the war. Last Friday evening I visited three memorials: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the memorials to the Roma and Sinti and Homosexuals (I hate that terminology but it is what it is) murdered by the National Socialist regime. I could write and write about all of the sites, but there were several things that I noticed. First, the size of the memorial pretty much corresponded to the amount of people that were killed by the Nazi regime. This may seem like a very obvious observation, but the more I thought about it, the more interesting it was. The Jewish memorial is situated across the street from the United States Embassy within view of the Brandenburg Gate and takes up almost two blocks of space. The 270 stones stand in stark contrast to the area around them. The Jewish memorial is incredibly visible and incredibly well marked, while the homosexual’s memorial is hidden in trees with no signage around it. If I hadn’t looking for it, I would not have found it. The memorial itself is a large block of gray stone with a small hole in it that loops a short film of a gay couple kissing. Since homosexual victims of the Nazis were less visible than other groups, it makes sense that this memorial would try to make the viewer try to engage up close to the subject matter, but the way that this memorial is so tucked away could make it even easier for people to forget that homosexual people were targeted by the Nazis. This is important today because the LGBTQ population still does not have enough representation or rights around the world. I’m not saying that a good memorial needs to be Statue of Liberty size to be meaningful, but some signage would be nice. The Roma Sinti memorial was interesting because of its proximity to the Reichstag/Bundestag. I could see the quotes written on the memorial while standing in the Reichstag yard. Since there is still so much discrimination of Roma and Sinti people in Europe today, the visibility to lawmakers could have been on purpose.

 

It’s hard to believe this trip is almost over. I am coming out of this month a better world citizen with immersive historical experiences under my belt and a new group of friends that I am able to discuss many historical questions with. The trip was definitely an adventure with some trip ups, but it was the experience of a lifetime.

Exploring Paris

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11223919_1118002898216077_6948178919004915214_nAfter three whirlwind days in Paris, I realized that it is completely overrun with tourists. Tourists EVERYWHERE. However, it provoked an unexplainable happiness within me. Paris really is the City of Love, despite my complete ignorance of French language and perhaps because of the hoards of people on every street. Of all of the places on this trip, I was least excited to visit Paris. I can’t pinpoint why, exactly, but my feelings about Paris started changing from the first moments we were there.

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Ceiling in the Apollo Hall of the Louvre

The first place I visited was the Louvre. Now, having heard it was large, I was prepared for a British Museum-sized place, something manageable in four hours or so. However, I am now convinced that I could visit at least ten more times and still not absorb as much as I’d like. The Louvre is overflowing with priceless treasures, so many that I continually lost my way as I wandered the halls. The building itself struck me more than any single piece of art (although I did find some paintings that I could spend hours and hours looking at). It’s hard to describe just how vast the entire museum is and every room is ornate and unique in its own way. I would be content walking through an empty museum to appreciate the architecture and design of the museum.

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Wall of Names

The World War II sites we visited were close to what I expected. Much of the information presented focused on the French Resistance during the war. I hoped to see a thorough discussion about collaborators and issues surrounding French collaboration with the Nazis but I interpreted a lot of the information as attempts to alienate collaborators in a way that detracts blame from everyday French in the success of the Nazi occupation and deportation of French Jews. The Shoah Museum was very well done, but I was again frustrated by my lack of French language skills because the numerous personal testimonies were lost to me. I did, however, find the wall of 76,000 names of deported French Jews to be very powerful because it adds a human element to an almost unfathomable number.

I spent my favorite moments in Paris relaxing outside a cafe in the beautiful weather with a cup of coffee, watching people as they tottered by. During this short visit, I tried my fair share of French wine and food and fell in love with everything. I liked things I never thought I’d like, especially escargot (snails). After taking a wine tasting class, I know a bit more about regions of France and the unique wines that come from each place. Apparently, to the French, “a meal without wine is like a day without sunshine.” The thing I love the most about French cuisine culture is it’s social aspect. In my life, meals are normally rushed because we continually race from one thing to the next. Here it is expected that you take your time enjoying the company you came with. I’ve had some of the best conversations with my groupmates because of our inability to use our phones. A lack of wifi combined with the French social atmosphere has allowed us to get to know each other beyond a surface level friendship. Maybe it’s the magic of Paris or just the fact that we spend 18 hours a day together, but by the end of the three and a half days, I feel the Parisian infection of joy and love. It’s hard for me to describe how much the energy of a place impacts me, but the atmosphere of Paris most certainly gotten to me.

Memory in Normandy

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“Think not only of their passing, remember the glory of their spirit” –Normandy American Cemetery

As I write this post on a coach from Bayeux, France to Paris, I am reflecting on the past week of traveling around Normandy and learning about one of the most well known periods of World War II—the D-Day invasion and subsequent liberation of France. On 6 June 1944, Allied troops broke through the German fortified Atlantic Wall, invaded five beaches in Normandy—Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword—and secured a foothold on the continent that would allow them to win the war within a year. We visited many of the important D-Day sites, including Utah, Omaha, and Gold Beaches, Sainte Mere Eglise, Pegasus Bridge, and Point du Hoc. The beauty of the small towns like Bayeux that dot the Norman countryside make it difficult to imagine that thousands of French civilians and Allied and German troops lost their lives in the occupation and fighting.

In addition to the above sites, we visited three cemeteries while in Normandy—the German, American, and British. Each differed in how it memorialized the fallen and I felt very distinctive emotions in each one.

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La Cambe German War Cemetery

The La Cambe German war cemetery, the first of our cemetery visits, preached the message of peace. As a quote in the modest visitor’s center said, “The soldiers’ graves are the greatest preachers of peace.” The cemetery itself was very peaceful as there were far fewer visitors here than at the American cemetery. Flat brown stones mark graves, with two men to a stone. Sets of five black stone crosses break the rows here and there, and the focal point of the space is a tumulus that serves as a mass grave for almost 300 soldiers. In all, over 21,000 Germans are buried at La Cambe. Here I saw the most graves marked unknown—zwei deutsche soldaten or “two German soldiers.” The site felt peaceful because of its simple design and lack of ceremony.

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Normandy American War Cemetery

Our second cemetery stop, the American war cemetery, is nestled along the coast, overlooking Omaha Beach and the English Channel. This is the only cemetery I knew about before coming to Normandy because it is so iconic in American war memory. By far the most grand of the Norman war cemeteries, uniform rows of white crosses and Stars of David line the plots, overlooked by a towering statue representing the “Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves.” As I entered the cemetery, the National Anthem resounded over the grounds and I was overwhelmed with emotion. I felt pride for my country and pain for those who have and will lose their lives to war. I also struggled with feelings of confusion. I have been learning so much about how many lives were lost during the war, yet this site glorifies death and sacrifice. I do not think we should remember American lives as more valuable than other lives, but the grandeur of that place made me question how we remember war losses today.

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Bayeux War Cemetery

The Bayeux War Cemetery holds mostly British soldiers, but there are also several hundred Germans and Poles. Although the most simple of the three—it stands unassumingly along the side of a busy Bayeux street–this site moved me more than the others. The site itself is the most beautiful of the three because flowerbeds and flowering trees surround the headstones. Each headstone contains not only name and rank, but also the insignia of his company and a personal epitaph from family members. Walking along the rows, I saw messages from parents, children, and wives of the fallen. The explicit knowledge of the people that lost someone they loved made the deaths much more real for me.

These three cemeteries each send a different message. The German cemetery calls for peace; the American site glory for the fallen; the British seeks to add personal connection to the terrible sacrifice of war. The more I reflect on these three sites, the more I try to understand how these very different ways of memorializing soldiers that were killed in action contributes to how we remember the past. These places profoundly shape the way that we think about the sacrifices of the many that lost their lives during World War II.

Living History in London

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While experiencing London for the past six days, I thought about the various cultural aspects of British culture that I have observed. We ate bangers and mash and had drinks in London pubs, attended the Chelsea versus Liverpool football match, and experienced Wicked in the West End to try to get a sense of the culture of London. We also visited a variety of museums and monuments that commemorate World War II as well as British figures like William Shakespeare and Queen Victoria. My entire time in London was packed with experiences, but the most striking thing about London was how old it is. Many buildings are older than any we have in America and they all have interesting and convoluted stories. Londoners are living in history everyday. As British artist Hew Locke said of the HMS Belfast and other historical places in the city, “many London monuments [have] become so familiar to residents that many no longer really notice or think about them. Monuments can be so visible that they become invisible.” As I was talking with an RAF Sergeant in a pub, he shared his frustration that many Brits do not appreciate the history around them or take the time to notice the majesty of such an ancient city.

One of the most overwhelming cultural sites I had the privilege of visiting was Westminster Abbey. London is dotted with historical cathedrals and churches, but none are as grand as Westminster Abbey. Other cathedrals I visited, All Saints by the Tower and Saint Paul’s, were impressive, but Westminster Abbey has almost a thousand years of stories to tell through its numerous memorials and effigies throughout. Edward to Confessor founded the Norman Church in 1065 and the building itself is more beautiful than I could have imagined, with gilded carvings, intricate ceilings, and glittering stained glass windows. Before this trip, I could not comprehend why the British are so attached to the royal family, but after seeing the burial sites of several hundred years of kings and queens, I am beginning to understand the cultural significance of British royalty. The royal family has profoundly influenced the development of English culture, values, and tradition. There have been 16 royal weddings in the Abbey, and many more royals and affiliated figures have been buried or memorialized there. Tradition runs deep in the Abbey and its contributions to British culture cannot be understated.

I learned and experienced so much during the first leg of our tour of Europe. London is an incredible city that combines the past with the present in striking and exciting ways, allowing one to observe the ways that history still affects everyday life.