We arrived in Germany on a Thursday. The bus ride from Krakow to Berlin felt like a lifetime. Immediately after arrival we rushed to the Reichstag for a guided tour. The Reichstag is their Parliament building. I was really impressed with the history behind the building. The Reichstag’s interior is beautiful, with floor to ceiling windows. During World War II, the building was heavily damaged and the walls were vandalized by Soviet soldiers as they took Berlin in 1945.
Soviet soldiers signed their names and short phrases on the walls of the building. The graffiti, written in Cyrillic, was uncovered in 1960 when architect Sir Norman Foster converted the building to house the new parliamentary chamber of the Bundestag. Foster decided to persevere parts of these walls and incorporate them into the new building.
As you walk along the streets in Berlin you may notice cobblestone-size concrete cubes with a brass plate inscribed with names and dates. These brass plates are called stolpersteine, or “stumbling blocks”. These “stumbling blocks” remember victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. The stolperstein project, which is still ongoing, began in 1992 by artist Gunter Demning. The purpose of this project is to remember each individual person at the last place of work or residency before they fell victim to the Nazi regime. As of 31 January 2017, over 56,000 stumbling stones have been installed in twenty-two countries. The majority of of the stumbling stones commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The stolperstein project is the world’s largest decentralized memorial.
As our time in Berlin came to an end, one of our last days was spent visiting the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I thought the memorial was a very artistic and modern way for Germany to honor the victims of the Holocaust. The memorial consists of concrete steles in various sizes. I appreciate that the meaning behind the memorial is not straight forward – it’s very thought provoking. As you walk through, you are forced to look up. It is almost like it is acknowledging the horrors of their past and those innocents who lost their lives, but also saying that all there is to do now is to ask for forgiveness, repent and look toward the future. As a whole Germany has taken many strides in acknowledging their wrong doings. Although there is still work to be done, they are on the right path to reconcile their past.
2017
The Woman I Met on the Plane
On my flight to Europe I met a woman. I don’t know her name, but she was approximately forty or so and she loved conversation. She grew up around Manchester and was visiting her family. Her parents moved to Greenwich in 2005. I told her I was going on a study tour and visiting Europe for the first time. Her excitement was obvious. She was genuinely happy that a stranger was about to experience all these new countries. Naturally, I enjoyed talking to someone so welcoming and when I told her I was going to Berlin, she was even more enthusiastic. After living in Germany for over 10 years and marrying a German banker, this place was her home. She was flying from Newark, New Jersey because she had some sort of business trip prior to seeing her family. Unfortunately, her reaction to my program was less positive. I told her that this study tour was related to WWII and before I had the chance to speak about all the different museums on our itinerary and the fascinating memorials we were visiting, she started to rant. Ranting to me, a stranger! One who was completely unprepared for a kind woman on a British Airways flight to air her frustration regarding Germany and the Second World War. I suppose that while growing up in England, she learned about the war the same way I had. Germany was the enemy. Hitler was German, as were the Nazis and the people who murdered over one million Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the death camp I visited in Poland a few days ago. But then she moved to the country and fell in love. “Berlin is beautiful” she told me, “as is the rest of the country. There’s a culture that extends far beyond this war that people can’t stop talking about and how the hell can we move on if a war from seventy something years ago is still holding us back?” Bear in mind that we were three hours into the flight, it was approximately midnight in New Jersey and I was tired. I clammed up. I wasn’t ready for her outburst and it did not stop there. While impatiently waving her hands around she said, “Germany did this and that et cetera et cetera! Not every single German was guilty! My husband didn’t do anything, our friends didn’t fight anyone. How can we move on if this damn war is still hanging over our heads?” Of course, I didn’t have an answer ready. She wasn’t angry with me, rather she was frustrated with the German reputation.
Reichstag Building
After seeing Berlin, I understand what she meant by all this. The war is still visible in the city. Buildings with bullet holes are standing and functional.
The Reichstag, the building for the German parliament, has graffiti from the Russians on its walls. When the Red Army captured the city in the Battle of Berlin, the soldiers wrote their names on the walls as well as vulgar statements. The crude comments have been concealed, but the signatures are visible.
Reichstag walls with Russian graffiti
And unlike the Paris WWII museums, nothing is left out. In Paris, the Musée de l’Armée jumped from 1941 to 1944 completely passing Vichy France, a period in their past that reflects poorly on the French reputation. However, in Germany, it was all there.
Soviet War Memorial
Memorials to the Soviet Union still stand, as well as the Wannsee House, the building where Hitler possibly gave the order for the Final Solution to exterminate all Jewish people. It now functions as a museum which I had the privilege to walk through.
View of the lake from the Wannsee house
The scars from the war are still visible in Germany. WWII is part of their identity now. Anti-Semitism still exists, as does a small Nazi party. In the British schools that this woman attended, Germany will always be their enemy in WWI and WWII. These things are hard to forget.
Fortunately, I was able to walk through the city and gain a new perspective. Berlin is beautiful.
Berlin Cathedral
I sat in front of their cathedral at night and walked by Brandenburg Tor during the day. The bratwurst is delicious as was the Prater Garden we went to as a group.
Friends enjoying a meal at the Prater Garden
Personally, I don’t think the world will be able to let go of what happened in WWII. At least not while there are still people alive who endured it. My grandmother lived in the Philippines and she was there when her father, a doctor, was taken from her home and forced to work for the Axis Powers. She never saw him again. While these people remember the war, Germany will not be able to completely move past it.
Perhaps this is necessary. If we forget the past, it will repeat itself. That is why museums exist and buildings are preserved. However, it is unfair for innocent people to suffer due to the actions of someone else decades ago. I wish I could speak one more time to the woman I met on the plane. After spending time in Berlin, I believe we could have a more in depth conversation and hopefully, I would be more coherent rather than groggy halfway through a seven-hour flight. Overall, I really enjoyed the city. I feel as though I gained a whole new perspective on WWII and the German identity after seeing it.
Berlin: The Final Objective
Our westward track towards Berlin to finish up the trip was fitting considering that this was how the Soviet Red Army finished off Nazi Germany and thus the war in Europe. However, Berlin was a fitting end in more regards because it was also the site in which a wall rose and the Cold War began. The conclusion of the Battle of Berlin was the marking of both an end and a new beginning. Personally, although on a much more positive note, I know that I grew tremendously from this trip as an individual and an academic in many regards. Perhaps one of the most important areas of growth was in regards to perspective. This journey challenged me not just to understand the perspective of these nations in regards to WWII but to appreciate and integrate them into my own thoughts. Germany offered our group one final perspective on our journey.
One of our first stops was the Reichstag, the German parliamentary building. It was on this building that the famous picture of the Red Army soldier raising the Soviet flag was taken. We were given a splendid tour of the building with the most intriguing parts being the original graffiti left behind by the Soviet soldiers that took over the Reichstag. A lot of the writing consisted of family names and places they had been. For instance, from Stalingrad to Berlin was written several times. The graffiti discussing the battles the soldiers were in was especially interesting because it brought my mind back to a discussion our class had about why the Western Allies did not march on Berlin. I imagined not only reading words, such as from Normandy to Berlin, on the walls but also what the world may have looked like today if that decision was made. This is still something I have yet to answer satisfactorily.
OHIO in front of Reichstag
(left to right: Beau, Katie, Natalie, myself)
Russian graffiti in Reichstag
The German story about the war was largely made of analysis as to the rise of Hitler. In the German Historical Museum the displays on the rise of the Nazis was longer, at least if felt much longer, than the war itself. The German narrative also makes no attempt to deny the terrible acts committed by the Nazis. I believe this, in combination with the focus on the rise of fascism in Germany, serves as a sort of reconciliation for the German people and a service to humanity to try and prevent future atrocities. Another important stop in our story of Germany during the war was the courtyard in which Claus Von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg, along with his fellow conspirators, attempted to assassinate Hitler and establish control over the Third Reich. This was the story in the film Valkyrie, which featured Tom Cruise who really does look quite similar to Stauffenberg. Anyway, Stauffenberg represents a part of the small disjointed individuals that did seek to end Hitler. Stauffenberg’s intentions were not entirely pure because he only sought peace with the Western Allies and a continuation of the war on the Eastern Front. Regardless, the actions of him and his comrades serve as a reminder that not everyone supported Hitler in Germany.
Where Stauffenberg was shot with his fellow conspirators
Another interesting aspect of the telling of WWII in Berlin is the presence of Soviet memorials and museums. These interject the Soviet perspective into the telling of the German one and I am curious to know if there are any American or British monuments in their previous sectors. Regardless, the Soviet monuments make sense. I believe it is often lost on Americans simply how brutal the Eastern Front was. It was an ideologically death struggle in which the victory of one power meant the complete and utter destruction of the other. The Soviets suffered tremendously and Berlin served as their prize.
Soviet memorial, note the swastika he is stepping on and the child he is holding.
Soviet monument
I want to take the final bit of this final blog to discuss what made this trip so incredibly memorable: the people. This begins with the generous donors who allowed my colleagues and me to have the experience of a lifetime and grow tremendously in many regards. It is something that I am incredibly grateful for and cannot do justice for in words. Additionally, the faculty that led this study abroad were simply exceptional and the trip would not have been the same without them. Dr. Steigerwald: the man, myth, and machine and Lauren Henry never failed to make every moment memorable. Finally, I left Europe with twenty-two individuals that I am proud to call friends. They are amongst the remarkable individuals I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and it was hard to watch the trip come to an end. From the pubs of London and shores of Normandy to the museums of Poland and the beer gardens of Germany we never stopped making memories.
The study abroad family
Thank you to all of these individuals for both an efficient and aesthetically pleasing journey.
-Tyler R. Webb
Berlin: The Final Push
Throughout our trip, we frequently discussed the ways that World War II is presented and discussed between different nations. Our American perspective is of the Good War, the English collectively fought the People’s War, and France maintained resilient in resistance. These national memories are all generally positive. However, this is not the case for every nation. In Poland, we saw a nation who was devastated by the war only to come under an oppressive regime in the postwar era as well. Finally, in Germany, we saw a nation who started, lost, and then had to reckon with the atrocities of World War II.
Of all the places we visited, the German museums were the most objective and detailed in their presentation of the war. I believe this presentation of the war in its entirety stems from an effort by Germany to own up to its history. Here, WWII is not celebrated, only presented. With this presentation, one would be hard pressed to accuse the museums of glossing over or otherwise covering up any aspect of WWII. I find this to be a great success of the German narrative of the war. War, and particularly Germany’s ugly connection to WWII, is not glamorous. None of the museums we visited portrayed it as such and they were very open about the horrors committed by the Nazis. In this the Germans have given account of their part in the war without attaching any higher agenda other than that of remorse.
Our first museum in Berlin was the German Historical Museum.
Courtyard in the German Historical Museum.
The exhibit on World War II here began like others with an acknowledgment of the end of World War I and how its unstable peace influenced the interwar period. Unlike other museums, the discussion of the interwar period, the rise of the Nazi party, and the development of Hitler’s military state were the most detailed of our trip. The same was true of the museum’s discussion of the parts of the war that didn’t involve the Western Allies as directly, particularly the Eastern Front and the Holocaust. These areas often get brushed aside in favor of Western heroics but in the German museum they received their due diligence. This theme carried over as we visited the Topography of Terror Museum which discussed the development of the Nazi terror state under the Gestapo and SS. The pervasive employment of fear to bring the populace of a nation in line with the wishes of the state was the topic discussed here. This museum demonstrated again the unique history of Germany during WWII when compared with the other nations we visited.
Later we visited the German Resistance Museum and Memorial. This museum is situated at the Bendlerblock, headquarters of the Nazi Reserve Army and later the conspirators of the July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler. The plot, also known as Valkyrie, was organized by military officers who could not abide by the actions of Hitler’s regime. After their attempted assassination and coup failed, they were executed in the courtyard which now houses a memorial to all forms of German Resistance to the Nazis.
Memorial to those executed the night of July 20, 1944 in the aftermath of the Valkyrie Plot.
The museum discusses how German Resistance was far less common than in other areas and that those who did resist were truly the exception. Different rooms in the museum focus on different resistance groups and the running theme is that these were the bastions of society that the Nazi’s could not dominate. Try as he might, Hitler could never bring such things as the military leadership, clergy, or academia completely within his grasp. This owes to the nature of these organizations which transcend political power. Each one has existed before and after regimes around the world throughout history.
Memorial to German Resistance Movements
Our time in Berlin also featured visits to a few Soviet memorials erected in occupied East Germany after the war. These grandiose displays were less objective in their portrayal of the war.
Soviet memorial for the Battle of Berlin.
A common theme was the valiant, collective triumph of Communism over the evil of National Socialism. At Treptower Park large statues, murals, and quotes by Stalin dominate the large area and surround the central statue. This statue depicts a Soviet soldier crushing a swastika underfoot and is situated atop a mass grave of Soviet soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin.
Treptower Park.
Central statue and mass-grave.
Later, we visited the German-Russian museum. The museum is housed in the same building where the Russians forced Nazi Germany to sign a second, much harsher peace accord the day after signing its original surrender to the Allies. The exhibits here focused exclusively on the bloody war between Germany and the Soviet Union. The racial ideology and dedication of unprecedented resources on both sides lead to the bloody conflict that still pervades the memory of both nations.
We again confronted the Holocaust with our visit to the Wannssee House. This is where senior Nazi officers met on January 20, 1942 to discuss the Final Solution.
Wannssee House.
The museum within presents both the Functionalist (attributing the Holocaust to Nazi officials and bureaucrats working towards their understanding of Hitler’s goals) and Intentionalist (attributing the Holocaust solely to Hitler’s instruction) interpretations of the Holocaust but leans more towards the Intentionalist interpretation. Our discussion afterwards highlighted the merit of both arguments and what they mean for our understanding of the Holocaust and genocide. The Intentionalist argument makes the events of the Holocaust unique to the Nazis. The Functionalist argument holds that similar atrocities could be committed by any group unto another.
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
Wannssee House’s focus on the Intentionalist side recognizes that the Nazi leadership played a large part in the murder of Europe’s Jews. But, this interpretation also warrants criticism for inherently absolving idle German citizens of their part in allowing the Holocaust to happen.
It’s been one hell of a month and one that I won’t soon forget. This trip has taught me so much about the history of World War II and has also given me a deeper connection to that history by confronting it in-person. To anyone who helped make this trip a reality: thank you. To Dr. Steigerwald and Lauren Henry, who helped us navigate Europe and imparted lessons on academics and life alike: thank you. To my fellow travelers, with whom I’ve made countless wonderful memories: thank you. See you stateside!
Outside of the Reichstag, home of the Bundestag, Germany’s Parliament.
Bundestag chamber.
Berlin Cathedral during the day…
…and at night.
Brandenburg Gate.
Berlin’s Sony Center.
With Dr. Steigerwald “The man, the myth, the machine.”
My partner in crime and roommate, Patrick O’Connor. Outside the 1936 Olympic Stadium where our fellow Buckeye, Jesse Owens, won four gold medals.
Krakow and Auschwitz-Birkenau
As soon as I stepped foot on the streets of Krakow’s old town, I knew that my blog post about the city would be conflicted. Krakow is beautiful and is one of the only parts of Poland that was able to retain some of its pre-World War II historical architecture. There were shops all throughout the main square selling, not just kitschy touristy items, but jewelry and some incredibly comfy looking scarves that I kind of regret not buying. The exchange rate between US dollars and Polish zloty makes it so that you can buy huge amounts of food for amazing prices. I ate my fair share of pierogis during our limited time in Krakow, and I am sure that once I get home I will find the frozen grocery store ones to be lacking. Overall, I had some of the most fun of the trip so far in Poland, so I want to be mindful in balancing that with a sensitivity for the most important reason we were there: Auschwitz.
Some art on the streets of Krakow
The Schindler museum was a fitting precursor to the experience. It is built in Oskar Schindler’s original factory and features exhibits dedicated to his efforts to save 1200 Jews, as well as a general history of the Nazi occupation of Poland. The museum offered a welcome contrast to the many others we had visited in France as it presented history more from a social than military perspective. The Schindler Museum’s design was considerably effective in giving the viewer some idea of the environments that the Polish people had been forced to inhabit. The room that covered the initial Nazi invasion was filled with swastika insignias; the tiles on the floor were even swastika-shaped. This atmosphere served to reinforce how completely the Nazis took over Poland and turned it into an unrecognizable place. Most impacting to me, however, was the exhibit dedicated to the ghettoes. It took you through a dimly lit hallway, and mounted on the wall were written personal accounts from people who had lived in the Warsaw ghetto. It was deeply moving to read descriptions from children as young as five-years-old who had seen their loved ones be killed right in front of them. It was even more devastating to realize that most of those Jewish people would have later been killed in death camps. It is those personal touches that help me to fathom such massive devastation on a smaller scale.
Looking through the barbed wire at Birkenau
Without a doubt, touring Auschwitz was a deeply moving and important experience. The exhibit that affected me the most emotionally was the room filled with 70,000 shoes belonging to the men, women, and children who had been killed at the camp. Most of them were practical leather, but some were decorative heels, and far too many looked as though they could have belonged to toddler-aged children. Witnessing that sheer scale and looking at the separate types of shoes drove home that every person killed during the Holocaust was a real human being. Even worse was the realization that those shoes belonged to only a tiny percentage of the 1.2 million individuals killed at Auschwitz. Another powerful experience was walking through the last remaining gas chamber and crematorium. It was hard to fathom that so many people had lost their lives in such a relatively small room. The last thing that helped to drive home the reality of the Holocaust was walking along the train tracks at Birkenau toward the remnants of the burnt down gas chambers. It felt surreal to stand in the spot where thousands of Jews were sentenced to death after disembarking from their crowded train cars, especially because I had previously seen so many photographs of it happening. Still, I expected to be more emotionally affected by the tour of Auschwitz. I think a large part of the problem was our tour guide. She was effective in conveying facts and statistics, but she seemed too rehearsed. There was a lack of emotion in her delivery that made it hard for me to connect the sites I was seeing to the atrocities that had been committed there in the past. Because of this, I appreciated Jon and Nicole’s site reports. Hearing the story of Primo Levy personalized the experience of being imprisoned at Auschwitz more than our tour guide was able to. His closing words also served as an important reminder that there is no bright side to the Holocaust and that we should not disrespect its victims by trying to search for a happy ending.
Berlin
Language translations between English and other languages have been difficult, especially the word laundry, but the translation for race in German is interesting. While at the German Historical Museum, Lauren Henry, our class instructor, told a few of us students why race was uncommon to talk about in Europe. She had learned that the word “race” in German means “breed” so it is weird to talk about race because they only refer to it when talking about dogs or other animals breeding. Regarding World War II, it makes it even clearer that when the Nazis wanted an Aryan (white, blonde, blue-eyed people) race, they saw humans as animals to breed. That is why they tried to remove the unwanted characteristics by their own selection.
I am very passionate about Gay rights issues so I was excited that across from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe there was a modern memorial for the gay people that were in concentration camps. The memorial was supposed to remember the gay people that were never freed from the camps and were thrown straight into prison after the war since being gay was still not socially acceptable. When looking at the memorial it was completely underwhelming. It was a concrete block with no signs or plaques anywhere explaining what it was for. On one side was a little window which you could peer inside to watch a video. The video was just of lesbian and gay couples today interacting and it felt like we were watching into their personal lives. I did not like it because it felt like gay people were to be watched and had no connection to the many horrors they faced from a non tolerant society.
We went to the Wannsee House and the German-Russian Museum as a great conclusion for the study abroad and of the war itself. The Wannsee House hosted the Nazi conference in January 1942 that “decided” to mass exterminate the Jewish population. Decided is in quotes because some people believe that it was always the intent of Hitler and certain individuals to kill the Jews while other believe it was decided at this conference after multiple methods such as deportation were no longer an option. The Berlin Senate would not allow the house to become a memorial or exhibition until the 1980s even though Holocaust survivor Joseph Wulf pushed for this initiative starting in 1965. Even if it took them awhile to recognize this house, the German-Russian Museum had no issues with pointing out the German’s faults during the war. This Museum houses the room where the Russians made the Germans sign a second peace treaty after they had already signed first peace treaty with Britain and America to end the war. Another part of the museum is a drawn picture of the Soviets taking over the Reichstag in Berlin. The Reichstag is the government building of Berlin where the Soviets thought Hitler was located but actually it was a converted hospital during the war and when they attacked the building they were in fact attacking a hospital. It was interesting to see that they had a painting in a museum showing this without giving this background knowledge because essentially the act hurt innocents and should not be glorified.
I just want to conclude by thanking everyone who reads these blogs or donates to the study abroad for scholarships. This was an amazing experience. Thank you.
Poland
Poland is such an amazing country and after being there I hope to go again next summer. The hotel we stayed at was fantastic, I could go to a 24 hour pierogi place, and I went gallivanting looking for street art in the Jewish Quarter.
The events we did in Poland were stirring. We went to the Schlinder Museum and I was shocked by the layout. After a few minutes in the museum, I reached a room with Nazi flags from ceiling to a little above the floor. I was frozen because I have only seen Nazi flags on walls in museums and this forced me to walk through them. I ended up waiting for another student to walk through with me. I can’t believe the Poles and French had to walk through these flags and had this fear passing by them. Eventually another section had large walls that matched the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. They looked like tombstones and a few quotes within the section talked about how the tombstones were eerily showing that they would be dead there. One quote made me burst into tears. “The ghetto has four huge gates. And through these gates we are not allowed. It is strictly prohibited. The no. 3 tram passes up and down the main street. We are not allowed on the tram. It is strictly prohibited either. That is why the tram never stops in the ghetto […]. Once a boy tossed few loaves of bread through a tram window to our feet.” This quote sounds normal till you see that it is attributed to “Roma Liebing, aged 5.” Sometimes you can forget how innocent the children were that had to go through this. That they didn’t know why they couldn’t ride the tram, go out the gates, or be like the little boy. The museum overall made me uncomfortable and sad and this was probably the most effective museum in understanding the pain and sorrow the population underwent.
Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II- Birkenau were very emotional places and I don’t think I can address all of the emotions. I did want to address my anger at certain peoples’ actions of disrespect in both locations. In Auschwitz I I saw couples take selfies and people take photos in areas where it specifically says no photos. I was sickened by the camp and already wanted to go back to the hotel. We headed to Auschwitz II- Birkenau. While crossing the street to head in, a car speeding down the road almost hit one of our study tour members, Patrick O’Connor. I walked out behind the car to cross the road and saw four white males in their late twenties in the car laughing. All of a sudden, the man in the back left corner did the Nazi salute and all the men cracked up and drove away. I still cannot believe that they would do such an action outside of a concentration camp where hundreds of thousands of people were killed. My faith in humanity was questioned at that moment because people find if funny to do things such as that.
France
Bayeux
I was the first to get hurt on the trip. Five feet out of our Bayeux hotel my ankle just gave out and twisted. While everyone went to explore, Chris Herrel and Michele Magoteaux stayed in with me. Our accompanying grad student, Lauren, took me to the pharmacy and I got a first hand view of the medical system.
The Musee du Debarquement de Utah Beach was surprising because it contained a Native American case about the Comanche code talkers. The Comanche code talkers were a group of Native Americans who mixed coding and the Comanche language into cryptic messages for the Americans. It was the only code to not be broken. None of the museums to this date had discussed other races so this was a shock especially being Native myself. The first code from Utah Beach on June 6, 1944 was a Comanche transmission that “the landing is going well” or “Tsaaku nunnuwee.”
We went to the American cemetery. I was going to see my one great uncle’s tombstone that resides in the cemetery. His name is Julio Romero.
He was a second division, 23rd regiment infantry soldier and died on July 27, 1944. It was a coincidence that another WWII study tour student, Chris Herrel, had his great great uncle buried there and was in the same regiment as Julio. One looming question is why only one of my great uncles was buried at Normandy and the other was sent back (Epimenio died the same month in battle.) We learned at the museum it was at the wishes of the next of kin, but my grandmother says her family was alerted of both deaths at the same time so it doesn’t make sense why one was sent home. I don’t know if I can talk too much about my great uncle’s death. It is still a very emotional matter for my family. I sent a photo of Julio’s tomb stone to my mother and she almost cried. I was very fortunate to get into this program and to get a scholarship to be able to see my family but I felt like the cemetery was not enough. While taking a diversity art class at Ohio State I saw a boot installation from an artist that had all the military boots with dog tags and photos of the soldiers or marines. I think it would have been nice to have the grave stones being more personal or individualized to show the individual cost. It personally feels like the cemetery neglects the pain and toil of Americans during the war. We look at Britain and they were bombed during the Blitz, France was occupied by the Germans, and the Germans lost the war, but for America it seems like they came in to save the day and the American population did not have a terrible experience. My family had a bad experience and it has affected us till this day. I do not feel comfortable sharing everything on a public blog, but this was very impactful for me. The next day the group went to see a movie with screens surrounding the room. After seeing my uncle’s grave the previous day I kept thinking that he could be in the videos of the battles and could have been seeing the horrors. Everything felt more real since it could have been my family, my great uncles.
Paris
In the Musee de l’armee, the integration of different nationalities and races within the French army was the stand-out issue when compared to race-issues from America and World War II. Moroccan soldiers fought for France during World War II and for many soldier’s this was the first time they had seen the empires’ main land. Germany had previous colonial African interests and had fought against the French for Morocco in the late 19th century. Had Germany had a more successful or prioritization of colonial Africa, would being Aryan matter less? In my book report on Soldiers of Destruction by Charles Sydnor, the SS Totenkompfdivision fired on surrendering Moroccan soldiers because of their race, but accepted surrender from white French soldiers. If Germany had a stronger colonial presence and citizenship as did France then there might have been a change in events but to what extent we shall never know. It is just a topic I never considered until this museum.
Last Stop: Berlin
Overlooking the chamber where the German Bundestag meets
After bussing from Kraków to Berlin on Thursday, we began our time in Germany with a guided tour of the Reichstag building, where the German parliament meets. Over the next week, we visited the German Historical Museum, the Topography of Terror Museum, the German Resistance Museum, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, the Soviet War Memorial, the German-Russian Museum, a bunker used during World War II, and finally the Wannsee House. We ended our trip by stopping by the Olympic Stadium, where Buckeye Jesse Owens dominated in the 1936 Olympics in the face of racism.
My first observation from the many museums we visited this week was that the Germans focused significantly more on the pre-war period than the other countries that we visited. The German Historical Museum spent as much or more time discussing the period from 1918 to 1939 as they did the war. Given that the Germans started the war, it makes sense that they focus on how the situation escalated to the point that it did. The German Historical Museum provided interesting context as to just how bad the German economy was after the Great Depression, which enabled Hitler and the Nazis to come to power. Money was worth less each hour and it had to be stamped with a new value every so often because the state could not keep up with the inflation. Overall, this first museum focused sparsely on specific battles and strategy and more on atrocities like genocide, the euthanasia program, the domestic effects of total war, and policies targeting Jews.
The view from the backyard of the Wannsee House
Following this theme, we visited the Wannsee House, where the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 sketched out the details for the Final Solution. The Wannsee House did well to discuss anti-Semitism in Germany back to the nineteenth century, showing that these ideals did not begin with the Nazis. However, the Wannsee House presented an internationalist view to the Final Solution, suggesting that the plan to murder Europe’s eleven million Jews was explicitly ordered and had always been the plan. This view implies that anti-Semitism inherently leads to an attempt to eliminate Jews and places all of the blame on the Nazis, absolving complacent German citizens of any guilt. Despite this controversial presentation, the Wannsee House ended the exhibit effectively by showing that the struggle for Holocaust survivors did not end in 1945. The last room contained powerful quotes from a dozen or so survivors and family members of survivors, with some saying they could no longer feel anything or trust anyone after the Holocaust. Not only did multiple “survivors” commit suicide, but the room also mentioned that Primo Levi and Joseph Wolf did so in 1987 and 1974 respectively. Despite living thirty to forty years after being liberated from the concentration camps, many were never the same.
The entrance gate to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which reads “work will set you free”
Along with Dr. Steigerwald and two other students, I spent my free time on Saturday visiting the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Sachsenhausen was used primarily for political prisoners, but conditions were still horrid. It was around eighty degrees outside that day, but the barracks felt significantly hotter than that. There was a small washroom in the barrack we visited, maybe ten feet by ten feet, where the SS forced hundreds of prisoners to cram in during the summer while in their winter uniforms. Additionally, Sachsenhausen provided more context as to just how big Auschwitz-Birkenau was. It took a few hours to walk around Sachsenhausen to see its entirety, but the size of Auschwitz-Birkenau dwarfed Sachsenhausen. Even when we saw Auschwitz II-Birkenau from a higher vantage point, the rows of barracks looked never-ending, eventually becoming too small to see in the distance. This helped to understand the massive resources put into the Final Solution and how the Nazis were able to murder 1.1 million people at Auschwitz alone.
Switching gears, we also visited the German Resistance Museum, where we learned of the small group of resistors within the German military. Connor Mason explained the July 20, 1944 coup plot to kill Hitler, sue for peace in the west, and continue to fight the Soviet Union. Even when their chances looked bleak, the few resistors stated that they were determined to be on the right side of history. Hitler survived this plot, like multiple others, with the help of inexplicable luck. The briefcase with the explosives was moved to the other side of a table leg, likely saving Hitler’s life. This can be applied as a general theme in war that we have now observed multiple times: Despite the obvious importance of strategy and tactics, outcomes are often influenced by pure luck.
I write this blog over the Atlantic Ocean, wondering how the last three weeks flew by so quickly. Visiting five cities and four countries has allowed me to put an image to everything we learned about in class and further my knowledge of topics like the Blitz in London, D-Day and the subsequent breakout from the beaches in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the bloodlands and atrocities in Poland, and the rise of Nazism in Germany. More than that, visiting many museums has taught me that the war was very different for every country involved. In the United States it was the “Good War,” in Britain it was the “People’s War,” and in France it was persevering through Nazi occupation and helping to retake their country. In Poland, however, it was a somber period characterized by destruction of life and culture. In Germany there was a similar feeling of sadness, as many of their own, especially youth, died for an unjust cause. However, this was coupled with the sense that the Germans especially view World War II as a war to be learned from, not on the battlefield, but politically and culturally.
I conclude with a massive thank you to everyone who made this study tour possible. While my blogs were academically focused, these three weeks have done so much more than teach me about World War II. To everyone who made this possible, and especially Dr. Steigerwald and Lauren Henry: Thank you for this incredible opportunity.
Poland and the Bloodlands
As soon as the plane landed I could tell that Krakow wouldn’t feel the same as the other cities. The buildings and cars inside the city epitomize Eastern Europe. The city is quiet, even if there are 800,000 people living in Krakow you’d never be able to tell. The streets were empty most of the time and the local restaurants were never filled up. What stood out to me the most about Krakow simply from just observing was that the city felt…sad. It is no question that Poland as a country has been victimized for centuries and the country carries a very sad and depressing history with it. In Krakow, the city was a victim of two harsh occupations and lost many of its Jewish residents during the war. I felt that in the city the painful memories of this part of Krakow’s history still exist. In the Jewish sector, I met a street vendor selling Nazi memorabilia no less than thirty feet from a victimized Jewish family’s home. I can’t tell if it’s that Krakow citizens choose to ignore what happened during the war, or if they have just accepted that they can’t escape it and want to move on. Or maybe it was just one ignorant street vendor and I shouldn’t generalize.
Our first stop was the Oskar Schindler Museum. Today the museum is in the same factory where Schindler saved 1,200 Jews during the war by allowing them to work in his factory. Schindler kept his Jewish workers better fed and protected them from Gestapo raids. The museum wasn’t entirely what I expected. It focused on how Jews were treated pre-war, during the war, and during the Soviet occupation. The exhibitions were very in your face with Nazi propaganda and Jewish suffering. Seeing the prison cells and learning of torture methods the Nazis used was incredibly unsettling. I don’t do well in these places, I usually have to step away from the exhibits for a few moments to clear my head. This museum does its job to make you understand how significant Schindlers contribution to their survival was, and just how lucky they were. However, as we’ve discussed throughout the trip, museums typically are biased and put exactly what they want the audience to see in the light. This museum didn’t have anything on Polish collaboration with the Nazis inside the museum. This made me frustrated because it was an obvious attempt to not make Poland look bad by covering up a dark piece of history. However, this vice aside the museum does a good job of illustrating Schindlers contribution.
On Wednesday, we went to Auschwitz. Honestly one of the smartest things I did on this trip was not have any expectations for the camp before going. This ensured I became overwhelmed. The only mental Picture I had from the camp was from Schindler’s list and the same popular photos inside the camp. But even looking at the infamous “Work will set you free” gate was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. The camp resembled a factory. Rows upon rows of barracks, barbed wire and gun towers illustrate plain and simple what exactly went on here. I never thought I’d stand inside one of the Gas chambers either. I couldn’t wrap my head around it, for the majority of the time I was inside, I couldn’t believe it. To stand in the same room where thousands were murdered was like a bad dream. But, I realize now more than ever having seen it first hand, how important it is for humanity to look at its dark history to not repeat it. However, the situation really didn’t get grim until we went over to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. This was the true Jewish extermination center. It was a massive field situated in front of two massive crematoriums. It resembled a cattle farm situated in front of a slaughterhouse. I couldn’t get over just how mechanized and factory like the Nazis made this process. After touring Birkenau, we went outside the perimeter to listen to both Jon and Nicole’s insightful site reports about Jewish Transportations to the camp as well as Primo Levi’s personal story of survival in the camp. Having read Levi’s story myself previously, hearing the details a second time around was just as unsettling a second time. Both were solid reports, which isn’t an easy feat to accomplish after a day like we had. Everyone was quiet that night, as I expected. Poland wasn’t an easy place to feel good spirited.
Bye-Bye Berlin
May 25th
The 25th wasn’t a very busy day in the sense that we had a seven-hour bus ride from Krakow to Berlin. It was kind of nice to be able to sit down and just relax for a few hours because the entire trip has been so busy and packed with activities. Once we reached Berlin, we were running behind schedule, so we had to rush to make our guided tour of the Bundestag. The tour was interesting because the building itself, the Reichstag, did not entirely relate to WWII history, because the building was never actually used by Hitler during the war. The building was seen as a political symbol, and was captured by the Soviets upon their invasion of Berlin. The most memorable thing about the building was that it still contained the original graffiti left by the Soviet soldiers who captured the building in May 1945. I thought the fact that the German government displayed the graffiti and left it in its original state is an incredible testament to the history of the building and the city as well.
May 26th
The German historical museum was teeming with historical artifacts and information from German involvement in both WWI and WWII. It was laid out chronologically, from the era before German involvement in WWI all the way through the end of WWII, and was very thorough in the way it laid out the progression of events. The museum presented the information without much embellishment – they did not attempt to glorify or gloss over any of the things the Germans did during WWI or WWII, and instead presented it as-is in a very matter-of-fact manner. I appreciated this because it felt like the museum was not trying to present a “deeper meaning” behind anything and was there to educate people on what happened and exactly how it happened.
Later, we went to the Topography of Terror Museum, which was extremely reading intensive, seeing as it had no artifacts to view in the museum. It was interesting to see how the Germans presented the rise of the Nazis – they laid out exactly how they came to power, and the lesson behind the entire museum was to educate the public on how to prevent something like this from ever happening again. It was strange to see this shift in how a museum is presented – the countries we had toured prior had been the victors in WWII, and were proud of their accomplishments in WWII to defeat the evil that had arisen in Germany. This museum, however, seemed largely apologetic and placed a large emphasis on the notion that this was a one-time issue and that it would never happen again. The museum made it seem as if the Germans were progressively working towards a future that was the polar opposite of what had happened in the 1930s and 1940s, and this would be a theme that would be carried on throughout other German museums and memorials that we saw in Berlin.
That night, a big group of us decided to experience a true German pastime and visit a traditional bier garten for dinner. We found ourselves at Pratergarten, which is supposedly the oldest bier garten in Berlin. It was a very relaxing, laid-back social atmosphere that was full of good conversation, delicious food and amazing beer. Here, I felt like I was experiencing German culture to its fullest and felt truly absorbed in the moment. I loved it so much that I wanted to return to Prater, and (luckily) I found myself back in the bier garten just a few days later.
May 27th
Today was spent walking what seemed like all across Berlin in the scorching heat of the day. We began at St. Mathias church where we listened to a site report and then traveled to the Bendlerbloc and Claus von Stauffenberg memorial. This site was interesting because it was the site where von Stauffenberg and the other anti-Hitler conspirators were executed after the failed Valkyrie plot, the assassination attempt on Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair. Additionally, we toured the museum dedicated to the assassination plot and learned more about its conception, its development, and its execution, and the effect it had on the Nazi political structure once it failed. I could not believe the extent to which it affected the Nazi political structure and the amount of executions that were carried out as a direct result. Once again, it was a very reading-intensive museum, but it was also very informational and gave me much more detail about something that I previously knew very little about.
We later walked to the Soviet War Memorial that was dedicated to the Soviet liberators of Berlin during WWII. It was strange to see such a large monument dedicated to people who then occupied the city under an oppressive regime for so many years after the war. This memorial, as large as it was, paled in comparison to the larger memorial that we would see the next day in the Tiergarten.
May 28th
We took the train to Treptower Park to view the Sovet Memorial to the war, and it seemed more like an entire park itself than just a memorial. The Soviet memorial was one of the most beautiful and well-designed parks/memorials that I had seen during the entire trip. It was massive in all aspects, from the mature trees lining the walkways, the large carved walls that depicted Soviet war scenes and quotes from Joseph Stalin, and the immense main statue that towered over the rest of the memorial. Once again, it was strange to see such a glorious memorial to a country that occupied the host country for so long and caused so much social distress and unrest during the Cold War. For people that may not know of the exact tensions between Russia and the other countries after WWII, the memorial may just seem like a magnificent memorial to the army that had liberated an entire city from evil. The memorial made no mention of any Soviet acts after WWII, so if only taken at first glance, it was incredibly awe-inspiring and overwhelming in its intensity and size.
Later, we traveled to the German-Russian Museum in Karlshorst to view the building in which the German-Soviet pact was signed to officially end WWII between Russia and Germany in May 1945. This museum also conveyed the message that Germany was at fault during WWII and that they would be doing their best in the future to right the wrongs that they had committed during this era. This was a common theme in German museums, and not something I was used to seeing after touring museums of the countries that had emerged victorious from WWII.
May 29th
This was our last day in Berlin, and it began with a trip out to Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin. Potsdam was beautifully lush and located near a large lake, and provided a much needed change in scenery after being in a city for several days straight. We first stopped at Glienicker Bridge, a short detour from our day of touring. This bridge was featured in the movie Bridge of Spies, and was the division point between east and west Berlin during the Cold War.
The main attraction of the day was the Wannsee House, which was both beautiful and menacing. Set back in a vibrant garden and overlooking the lake, the Wannsee House was the location of the Wannsee Conference, where it is widely believed that the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was decided. After touring the museum dedicated to the conference, I gave my site report on whether the Final Solution was actually decided at the Wannsee Conference or not. It was interesting to compare the actual museum to the book I read – the museum presented the information and evidence in a very different way, and attempted to place the blame on the Nazi party alone. I found that I enjoyed the museum more and got more out of it because I had read about the Wannsee Conference and researched it extensively, so I was able to compare more of my prior knowledge to the knowledge being presented to me in the museum. Overall, it was a great exhibit, but it really pushes the Intentionalist argument and does not really do much to support the Functionalist argument on who is to blame for the Final Solution.
We then stopped by the Olympic Stadium, which was home to the 1939 Olympic games in Berlin. This stop was purely for a fun photo op, and to visit the street dedicated to none other than Jesse Owens, a fellow Buckeye. It was here that I realized that our trip, which had seemed so long from the start, was finally drawing to a close, and I was overcome by a wave of longing and sadness – longing to continue the trip and the adventures, sadness that I would not be able to spend time exploring the world with these people ever again. It was here that it hit me just how fortunate I am to be a Buckeye, and how being a Buckeye presented me with an incredibly opportunity like this in the first place.
We concluded our day as well as the trip with a group dinner at Lindenbrau, a traditional German restaurant not far from our hotel in the Sony Center. Here, we came together as a group one last time to celebrate and reflect on all we had accomplished as a group in the past 23 days. We listened to DS give us an extremely touching “After Action” report of the trip, in which almost all of us made cameo appearances featuring our marvelous misadventures. It made me proud to be included on such an incredible trip with a group of such wonderful people. We enjoyed conversation and company as well as wienerschnitzel and Berliner Pilsner and had one last bonding experience together before we traveled back across the pond to being the next chapter of our college experience. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities that this program has presented me, and the memories and friendships that came along with it. The past 23 days was an adventure that taught me much about myself, other people, and the world, and will serve as cherished memories that I will keep with me for years to come.
Blue Skies and Tailwinds,
Katie
What is there to say about a massacre?
Following London, our trip continued to northern France. We stayed in Bayeux and took daily excursions to the beaches of Operation Neptune, national cemeteries, and museums. The cemeteries and their distinct characteristics had the most profound impact on me. We visited cemeteries established by the United States, Great Britain, and Germany and each presented a different narrative of the war and how it is remembered. Observing these monuments, I was reminded of a quote that speaks to the idea of remembering the dead. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut said: “There’s is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead.” Each of these cemeteries says something about the massacre that was World War II.
The American cemetery was the one I knew most about prior to visiting. It is a grandiose display that pays tribute to the heroism of American soldiers who died during the liberation of Nazi-occupied Western Europe. To Americans, World War II is known as the Good War; we were victorious and came out of the war relatively unscathed. Fittingly, the cemetery is a celebration of the American war effort. It is not bombastic, but it is patriotic in a uniquely American way. The cemetery pays tribute to the good American boys who came across the sea to save the world from Hitler’s evil.
The cemetery overlooks Omaha beach where many American soldiers came ashore to liberate Western Europe.
Its rows of orderly, white headstones serve to impress the magnitude of American losses.
Rows of headstones at the American cemetery.
Memorials placed throughout the cemetery reinforce the narrative of good vs evil. This narrative is a celebration of the American cause for entering the war. The Americans helped win the war and did so at a comparably low cost. This is not to disparage the losses of American families related to the war, but the absence of civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure compared to other nations participating in the war are the reason why America remembers a Good War. American losses were important and meaningful, but they were also a magnitude of order lower than that of nations who saw their countryside ravaged and their civilian populations devastated. The American massacre, while tragic, is one that ultimately has a happy ending. These men died to secure a world safe for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Their sacrifice, while tragic, achieved the end it set out to.
John O. Fry, Jr. one of the Buckeye Twelve, Ohio State alumni who are buried at the American cemetery.
The German cemetery offers a stark contrast. Here there are rows of small, sober grave markers of the German soldiers who died during the Normandy landings. It is a much more somber place that seeks not to celebrate but to remember. Here there is nothing of the Nazi cause, only dead men. Little is said of the dead; those whose names are known are marked accordingly and those who unknown are simply labeled “A German Soldier.”
The German cemetery.
Among them, there are likely Nazi fanatics who were fully devoted to Hitler’s cause. However, there are likely also those men, young and old, who were sucked into the German war machine without much devotion at all to the cause they died for. Here these things do not matter. The cemetery only seeks to mark those among the many killed in World War II who were German and died at Normandy. This cemetery celebrates neither cause nor combatant. Instead it remembers the men who died because of their participation in the war, regardless of circumstance. I will be able to speak to this more fully after visiting Berlin but I believe this is reminiscent of the general German perspective of World War II. Germany was host to a hateful regime that perpetrated horrendous crimes against the world. As it emerged from occupation as a new nation, this history demanded to be dealt with. The Germans do not celebrate the war but they do not ignore it. Rather they mark the tragedy of the massacre so that it is not forgotten.
Finally, the British cemetery commemorates both a cause and cost of the war. Here the headstones are more personal; they bear the emblem of a soldier’s unit, his name, date of death, age, and a personal inscription from his loved ones.
F. H. Rigg. Age 26. Killed July 23, 1944.
“To the world he was just one but to us he was all the world. Wife and family.”
The British fought the People’s War and in their cemetery the fallen seem the most like people. Each headstone offers an intimate connection with the fallen and the family they left behind. The British cemetery also contains graves of Polish, Czech, Soviet, and German soldiers in addition to those dead from the British Empire. The inclusion of foreign graves shows that the People’s War isn’t exclusive to British people. Instead, the narrative focuses on the personal cost the war wrought on people throughout the world. The cemetery seeks to remind us that wars are fought by people and that each of those people leaves behind a life full of family and friends, some never to be seen again.
Central monument at the British cemetery.
Of all three, I found the British cemetery the most moving because of its articulation of loss at this much more personal level. This cemetery speaks not only to a massacre of soldiers and civilians but also the ravaged families that massacre left in its wake.
The three cemeteries all serve as a reminder of World War II, a massacre that claimed a terrible cost. Today, as every day since the war, we must wrestle with what and how we say of this massacre. We must be careful in this regard to do proper justice to the many facets of the war. The sacrifice of young men and civilians the world over should be commemorated and remembered. These tragedies define much of our world today but we must be careful not to idolize war. Idolizing war only leads to more war and more dead. Rather we should honor these dead by living for peace and a world with fewer massacres.
Graves of unknown soldiers at each cemetery.
In addition to the cemeteries, we visited several others sites in Bayeux, a small town in the north of France. We then moved on to Paris. Here are some pictures from both:
Pegasus Bridge
A crater at Pointe du Hoc
OHIO picture at Utah Beach
Mont-Saint-Michel
Centre Pompidou museum of modern art.
“International Klein Blue” by Yves Klein
Musée d’Orsay
Sunset OHIO along the Seine
“Stop! This is the Empire of the Dead.” Paris catacombs
The catacombs
Grand Musée de l’Armée (French Armed Forces Museum) at Les Invalides
The Louvre
“Winged Victory of Samothrace”
“Liberty Leading the People” by Eugène Delacroix
L’Arc de Triomphe
France
With this blog, I write about my experiences in France, where we stayed in Bayeux and Paris. Bayeux is a sleepy town in the Normandy region, with old, thin streets and stores that mainly close by 10 pm. Paris is the polar opposite, and is the cultural capital of France. Bayeux mainly feeds on tourism brought on from the D-Day Invasion, while Paris has moved on, and is a business capital of the world. In this blog I will talk about many things, like the invasion beaches we saw, Pointe du Hoc, war cemeteries, and museums.
Bayeux in World War Two is a rather interesting case. The Germans stationed here were not a cutthroat division, and retreated from the Allied Invasion, leaving the town nearly unscathed, although I’m not sure of what happened in regards to bombing raids. Paris also went relatively untouched and was occupied by Nazi Germany for much of the war.
In American memory, Omaha seems to be one of the most remembered beaches, with the opening of Saving Private Ryan being there (it was filmed in Ireland), and more casualties happening here than others. So, what was found was a bit surprising: beachfront properties. The land wasn’t preserved much, but a monument opens to the beach. There’s no museum accompanying the land, but restaurants are named after it nearby.
Utah Beach was a more preserved beach, with sand dunes marking the nearly untouched area. Surrounding the beach were a museum, monuments, and decaying war memorabilia (like a German Flak gun). The water was also at a lower tide when we arrived, meaning the water was receded like it would have been on June 6, 1944. Standing at the edge of the water watching the waves ebb and flow, one could not help but to think that we were seeing what an American soldier would have seen over 70 years ago. Needless to say, Utah Beach was a very touching place to be.
Pointe du Hoc was a German controlled area invaded by Army Rangers on D-Day. These Rangers were tasked with disabling artillery guns which could have been problematic in the beach invasion. Once these men scaled the nearly vertical rock face, the guns were not found in the expected site, but were found and disabled soon thereafter using thermite grenades. The site is now an American monument site and is pocked by huge craters from shelling and Nazi bunkers. Actually being there and seeing the effects of naval bombardment was mesmerizing, as I had always seen footage of ships firing cannons and not thought about the effects on the the receiving end of the firing. Besides going into the craters, going into the bunkers that were occupied with Nazis also had another humanizing feature. Hearing our own voices reverberate against the concrete, it is hard to imagine how deafening the shelling would have been.
View of Pointe Du Hoc
In our time in Bayeux we were also able to tour cemeteries for America, Britain, and Germany. The American Cemetery was gorgeous, with views of the Norman coast and pine trees dotting the land. The markers are also phenomenal, with either a white cross or Star Of David marking burials. Inscribed on each is the name of the soldier, rank, division, state, and date of death. While there, I was blessed to place an Ohio State flag on the grave of John W. Atkinson Jr., First Lieutenant with the 101st Airborne Division who was killed on June 8th, 1944. He grew up in Portsmouth (very close to Chillicothe, my own hometown) and attended The Ohio State University. There are twelve Buckeyes buried in the cemetery.
The British Cemetery was a jarring experience, because according to British belief, all soldiers deserve a respectful burial. These led to graves for not only Britt, but also Americans, Australians, Canadians, Czechs, Germans, Italians, Muslims, Poles, Russians, and likely more that I did not see. This display led to a remind that World War Two was a truly global conflict. The tombstones also included an inscription from the family of the lost, which was especially jarring.
The last cemetery I can discuss is the German War Cemetery, which was very different from the other two. The cemetery had to play the line of how to honor war dead from a country, when the country was under one of the worst regimes in history. This complex question has raked my mind often, and I think that the best answer is in the cemetery we toured. The tombstones are flat at ground level, typically with two soldiers buried in each plot. In the middle of a cemetery there is a hill with a cross with two Germanic figures underneath it, and the hill has unidentified bodies interred in it. As we walked past it, a French teenager stood at the peak and sang a Whitney Houston song at the top of his lungs. Even though this was a cemetery for Germans who defended Norman beaches from Allied forces, I could not help but to be extremely bothered by the disrespect I witnessed.
German Cemetary
The last part of the French portion I want to discuss are the museums that we saw. Generally, these museums shared a common thread of discussing the war and showing artifacts. Typically, the French museums offered portions on the French resistance and the Free French Forces. In nearly every one of them, a picture of Jean Moulin (who briefly united Resistance forces under General de Gaulle) is shown. What was missing bothered me, there was barely a mention of the Vichy government, of France’s surrender in 1940, or many things that could paint France in a negative light. If you did not have background knowledge of the war and toured some of the museums, you would think that France fought gallantly, then some years passed, and General de Gaulle led forces into the heart of Paris and drove out the Germans singlehandedly.
In one example at the Caen Museum, there is only one picture from the roundup of Jews in the Paris Velodrome d’Hiver. Accompanying it is only a small description and no further explanation of the role that the French played in the Nazi regime. 13,152 Jews were arrested by French police in the two day round up, and they were then sent to extermination camps. The Caen museum was the only one that I saw that mentioned this; not even the Musée de l’Armée in Paris spoke of it. In a later discussion, we learned to be aware of who designs museums, as they may slant the museum to shine lights on some things and ignore others. It seems victims of French-Nazi collaborators are a group that has had the light taken away from them in the collective French memory, which I find to be a travesty.
We now go eastwards to Krakow, Poland. After learning more about D-Day and the Normandy campaign than I ever thought I would learn, I look forward to seeing a different viewpoint of the War. In my eyes, the Norman region thrives off tourism related to the 1944 invasion. Paris enjoys being one of the most renowned cities in the world, with barely a mention of a world war two in sight (asides from occasional plaques commemorating the heroic efforts of the French resistance). I look forward to portraying my experience to you all again soon.
Au revoir,
Beau Bilek
Poland: A Tale of Suffering
Poland suffered tremendously during World War II as its cities were only “liberated” from one occupier to be replaced by another. As the Cold War came to fruition the Polish peoples endured a prolonged occupation at the hands of the Soviets. However, the concentration camps, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, still stood on Polish soil. Although the Soviets proved to be harsh occupiers, they did work with the West German peoples to transform this hellish place of death into a place for education and remembrance.
My first steps into Auschwitz were amongst the most emotional moments I have ever experienced. As I gazed upon the sinister sign that greeted the thousands that died in the camp, “arbeit macht frei,” the reality set in that I was now in a place where approximately a million individuals died. This phrase, which translates into “work sets you free,” was just one of the many lies the Nazis told the Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners, and more that were sent to the camp. Simply put, there was no hope. There was no hope for freedom. The guard towers and electrical barbed wire killed most that tried to escape if they somehow made it past Nazi execution. These camps were designed for industrial scale murder, a fact made obvious by the museum. I appreciated the design of the museum in this regard; there was no attempt to censor the horrors. Instruction on the Holocaust should not be censored; our global society must appreciate that these atrocities arose democratically.
The entrance to Auschwitz-I
The “Gate of Death” through which trains entered Auschwitz-Birkenau
As we walked through the camp we saw many remnants from its victims. For me this made the humanity lost in the Holocaust all the more tangible. It is one thing to see pictures of these objects in textbooks; it is entirely another to see the shoes of a child sitting amongst the other 70,000 stolen from Holocaust victims only feet away. When we made over to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was the largest section of the camp, reality further set in. I was astonished at the sheer size of the camp. In order for the Nazis to massacre on an industrial level this camp was filled to capacity and its crematoriums and gas chambers constantly functioning. All that really remains of these structures are their skeletons; however, this is more than enough to convey their capacity to kill and the suffering they caused. As we neared the end of our tour of the camp we walked down the same path that those condemned to death did. Only after one of my colleagues, Jon Schulman, exceptionally spoke specifically about the role of luck in surviving such a place was I really able to reflect on that walk towards death. He also discussed the reversion to primal instincts in order to survive inside the camp.
Remains of a crematorium/gas chamber in Auschwitz-Birkenau
Tracks where individuals were off loaded to suffer
The combination of being at Auschwitz and Jon’s speech caused me to question whether it is inherent in humanity to carry out such evils as the Holocaust. Although I have yet to satisfactorily answer this question I have gained great insight to guide my thoughts from this experience.
Where the huts used to be for the victims in Auschwitz-Birkenau
View through gate into Auschwitz-Birkenau
D-Day Everyday in Normandy
This picture epitomizes Bayeux’s charm
Because of the comments of some of the people who went on this study tour last year, my expectations for Bayeux were relatively low. They made it seem like the town was a boring place with nothing much to do aside from drinking at the hotel. I guess their advice was not necessarily untrue—I spent quite a few fun nights at the hotel pool getting to know everyone a lot better—but last year’s group definitely undersold Bayeux’s charm. Walking through the cobblestone streets, I immediately felt an urge to start singing Beauty and the Beast lyrics. Bayeux honestly looks like something out of a fairytale. It also has plenty of cute shops and delicious restaurants. The meal from my first night there may have been the best one I ate in France altogether. It was four courses, including a perfectly cooked steak and chocolate mousse for dessert. Overall, Bayeux offered a welcome small town contrast to the fast pace of London.
Most our time in Normandy was spent at sites that related to D-day, and the first place we visited was the Caen Memorial Museum. It presented a uniquely French perspective on WWII, and I found myself thinking about When Paris Went Dark, the book that I read for my site report, more than a few times as I wandered through the exhibits. I could not help comparing the way the museum presented France’s role in the Holocaust as opposed to how it was portrayed in my book. Although the Caen Memorial did feature an extensive section devoted to conveying the horrors of the Holocaust, it gave very little space to the Vichy regime. It also made very little mention of how the French police would choose to persecute Jews independently of the Nazis. Further, I noticed that the museum presented the Marshall Plan a bit more critically than the way it is often portrayed in the US. They seemed to imply that America’s aid wasn’t entirely crucial in Europe’s recovery. Conversely, something that stood out to me at all the museums, but particularly during the 360-degree movie at Arromanches was how detrimental the Allied bombing was to Normandy. From an American perspective, the pre-invasion bombing is often glossed over and presented as a necessary measure. We don’t seem to fully acknowledge that it killed thousands of French people. The French, and particularly the Norman perspective on the Allies seems to be incredibly complicated. They were grateful to be free from Nazi occupation, but they had to endure unimaginable losses to achieve that freedom.
At Omaha Beach
Being able to stand on the beaches and cliffs where the battles of D-day took place made World War II, which always felt very distant from my reality when learning about it in class, seem tangible. Particularly Pointe du Hoc because there were still German bunkers set up and craters pitted in the ground. It was far easier to imagine the 2nd Ranger Battalion climbing those cliffs than it was to associate the Omaha Beach that we saw with its “Bloody Omaha” moniker. The area has been developed and is surrounded by beach houses. My initial reaction to this was a bit negative. I had thought that Omaha would have looked more like Utah Beach, which is isolated and features a museum. I also understand, however, that France has mostly moved on from the war and it would be impossible for all of Normandy to stay permanently frozen on D-day.
Robert Forrest’s gravesite at the American cemetery
Touring the British, American, and German cemeteries was another experience that helped me to visualize the mass devastation of the war. I was struck by the fact that every one of those tombstones represented an individual life, many of whom were men my age or younger. This was especially true in the British cemetery, where each of the graves was personized with messages from the families. It was difficult, but moving to see how so many people had lost their only sons and the fathers of their children. The American cemetery, while breathtakingly gorgeous, was also more uniform and lacked that sense of intimacy. Because of this, it was extremely special that we could learn about an Ohio State student who was buried there and place a flag at his grave. Robert Forrest was a year younger than me when his bomber plane was shot down over France, but at only nineteen he had managed to become a pilot. It was a privilege to be able to learn about his and so many other personal stories throughout the week in Normandy.