2018

Accepting Responsibility

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The final stop on The Ohio State World War II study tour was Berlin, Germany. While in Berlin, we explored Germany’s perspective of World War II focusing on how Germans have accepted responsibility for their fault in the war and the Holocaust. The American perspective of World War II explains the war from the side of the victors, condemning the Nazis for their atrocities, but not involving the same amount of national reflection as Germany. I expected Germany to display remorse for their actions in World War II but did not know if responsibility for the war would be placed on the Nazis or the public. The conversation around the rise of the Nazis and their reign of terror was more open than anticipated with blame placed on the entire country.

Our first visit in Berlin was the German Historical Museum where we explored their World War II exhibit. The exhibit began by discussing the Nazi rise to power, explaining the German public’s attraction to Adolf Hitler and culminating factors that assisted the Nazi rise. As an American, I expected Germany to display bias in how the war was recounted similar to what we had seen in other countries. As the exhibit progressed, I did not detect German bias. Instead, the war was retold in a very straightforward, matter of fact way. For example, Nazi atrocities against Jews and the public’s lack of outcry was admitted, but no excuses were made as to how this occurred. The museum made it clear all of Germany was responsible for allowing the Nazis to rise to power and execute the Holocaust. Although Germany was defeated and in shambles after the war, there was not any request for pity. This contradicted the French museums we visited where many of the sites promoted a “look at our suffering” mentality.

The German Resistance Museum was one of the more interesting museums we visited because of how resistance was portrayed. My previous World War II studies have examined resistance in France and Poland, with the only German resistance discussed mainly the infamous Valkyrie assassination attempt on Hitler. The museum explored several avenues of German resistance such as efforts organized by university students who became known as the White Rose group. The sacrifice and bravery displayed by German resistors was acknowledged but not exaggerated. This was done to cement the reality that resistance in Germany was not widespread or effective on a large scale. This contradicts the France’s overstated portrayal of their resistance which suggested that with or without the allies the French would have liberated themselves. The honesty in how Germany displayed resistance is reflective of German efforts to accept full responsibility for World War II and the Holocaust.

The Reichstag Building

Murdered to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The longest continuous stretch of the Berlin Wall still standing

Contrasting Perspectives

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Staying in France opened my eyes to how perspective plays a role in remembering the war. I have learned about World War II in a way that I thought was universal; I have discovered that is not the case. I have studied the history of World War II all the way through high school and taken three college classes for my own interest, and each class was generally about the same. I started out by learning just the most basic parts of the war. I learned generally about battles and that was the extent of it. As I got older it became more specific, politics became more central and the approach more detailed. The way that I viewed not only the war but America was challenged during my time in France. I began to think about the role politics play a role in how things are taught and that just because I was taught something my entire life doesn’t mean it is correct. There is always more than one perspective to events.

When I went to the Arromanche’s 360 Theater, a 15-20-minute video showed the Battle of Normandy from a French perspective. I had not realized that I will probably see different perspectives of the war. We learned about the French perspective in class but it is one thing to read it and another to witness it.  At one point in this film showed, a map of France with flags of the invading and occupied countries and their movements as the battle progressed. The French flag was included in the invasion. When the Allies were surrounding Paris, the French flag was shown to be the first one advancing. Talking about the Battle of Normandy this past semester, we focused on Omaha and Utah Beach invasions. I never questioned learning more about these invasions than the others because I knew that these invasions were focused on because they were the bloodiest parts of Normandy. In the past, the French troops wasn’t focused on in the American school systems because they didn’t play a central role in the campaign as the other troops. However, the French made it look like they were more a part of the liberation of France than I have previously learned. The French portrays themselves more as victors than victims and align with the Allies even though they were the ones liberated by the Allies. The pride and ego of the French was seen in every museum that I entered and that portrayed themselves in the war.

In my time in Normandy I had the opportunity to visit German, American and British cemeteries. In each cemetery, you could see how the culture influences the design and structure of each location. The German cemetery was very simple. It had groups of larger headstones and the larger headstones were in groups of five stone crosses. The rest of the graves just had plaques. Then in the center of the cemetery there was a larger cross on a raised mound. In my opinion, this showed the German culture. The stone crosses aren’t the most beautiful things to look at but they do their job in memorializing the men who were lost. The German cemetery was very simple, to the point and very well kept. My dad’s side of the family is heavily German and the German cemeteries that my grandparents are buried in have a similar look to as the German cemetery that I walked through in France which is why I think it fits the culture.

The American cemetery was extremely emotional for me. I was moved by seeing the numbers of the dead in person and knowing that this is only a small portion of those who died in the war. The American cemetery is beautiful, massive and well kept; however, I think it was one of the flashier military cemeteries in Normandy, because I think its was design shows the people look at all our countrymen who died for you. This place overlooks the water and is designed very well, but I think that the intentions behind the design was that “we did this for you and we suffered saving you.”

The British cemetery is not as flashy as the American cemetery but it personalizes the dead soldiers. The British cemetery is medium sized compared to the previous two. There was a plant or flower placed in front of each tombstone and most of them had a personalized statement written on it. The British designed this with the idea of memorializing these men in the most honorable way possible. They personalized it and brought a piece of home to France for the fallen, and it was a truly beautiful sight.

The French film that I watched and the cemeteries that I visited altered my perspective and helped me to accommodate other cultures and histories. Each culture, American, Germans, British and French, all have a different take on the war. It was a check on reality knowing that just because I learn something one way does not mean it is the only way. After visiting all the cemeteries, I could glimpse how each culture represented the war and how they honor their fallen. By doing this, I can get a better outlook of the war. This will allow my perspective and opinions on the war to grow more nuance over time.

Historical Clarity, Contemporary Nuance

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As a dancer, artist, and historian, Berlin is a dream city. The contemporary dance scene and famous street art in modern day Berlin is progressive, socially conscious, and internationally renowned. Her history is rich, vibrant, complicated, and well handled. As a student in both the arts and history, I take on the complicated burden of gauging Berlin’s complex and problematic history with her successes in the 21st century. My favorite dance works happening in the world right now are in Berlin, but I know they took root in the 1930s through artists who collaborated with the Nazis and cooperated with Goebbels. How, as a student in 2018, am I to make of this nuance?

Well, ultimately, no one can change the past. Berlin handles history well. From the German Heritage Museum, to the Wannsee House, to the German Resistance Museum, and all the way through to the Berlinische Galerie which I visited days after the trip, World War II was discussed in earnest. Never do curators of these historical landmarks attempt to deny, justify or glorify Germany’s perpetrator role in the war. In true German fashion, I noticed all history was told in a very matter of fact way. Facts were laid out, and audiences could choose, or not choose, to make what they will of them. Even the placement of a large Holocaust memorial, directly in city center, is a blatant acknowledgement and apology for the undeniably bleak nature of German history.

This sort of history then encouraged me to think about the way in which all the German art I love is made. It is unapologetic, narrative, and experimental. It is the work of a people who needed to start new and reconcile with their own pasts as well. The dance specifically is violent. It is unashamed to show the brutality of humankind. Artists are responsible for relaying the world around them as they see it, just as historians are meant to relay the world behind them as their modern eyes perceive it. My favorite German dance artists from Pina Bausch to Sasha Waltz all create raw work that does not indulge in their complicated roots, but there is an acknowledgement that the roots are there.  I had the opportunity to catch a few performances during my time in Berlin, including one from Sasha Waltz, and they all demonstrated the latter statement to me.

As I said, no one can change the past, it is how the past is handled that shows character. Modern Germany does the best she can with her history being one of the most vulgar in human history, and if anything that is something I can respect.

There is Nothing to be Proud Of

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There is Nothing to be Proud Of

On our first day in Krakow, we toured two of the three main camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. That was neither a happy nor a fun day, but it was one of which I am glad to have been a part of. We stood and toured through barracks, offices, and a gas chamber, all which existed solely to aide in the killing of over one million people, the majority being Hungarian Jews. Today, these same facilities are a museum to teach about the atrocities committed there, and to warn against their recurrence.

It was surreal to walk between the offices at Auschwitz-1 and to see an I-beam gallow on your left with a kitchen right behind it. Auschwitz-Birkenau existed, only seventy-three years ago, as a death factory. Factories produce goods and farms produce food, but at Auschwitz, thousands of SS soldiers worked to produce death, with any manufactured goods, stolen possessions, or profit,  as the byproduct. It was bizarre to see such a place in today’s world, where the only goal was to eradicate as many other human lives as efficiently as possible. Such a place does not need to exist.

I was further confused while looking at where the Final Solution was carried out, and because that experience makes it even more inconceivable that people still choose to identify with Nazi ideology today. I saw many artifacts of destruction, more than I could list, at Auschwitz but not a single one could have helped me understand why there are such people as “Neo-Nazis.” Nothing I saw could explain why people around the world could know that a place like Auschwitz exists and still choose to rally or march in its favor.

Auschwitz was so moving because it was so personal. The tour took our group passed the long hallways full of confiscated shoes, luggage, and cookware; the Jews were told they would be resettled, so many brought home goods to start a new life. It was easy to compare a piece of myself to all of those things, whether it was the shoes that I was walking in, the luggage that I purchased for this trip, or the plates that I bought to furnish my first apartment. What’s more, buying new shoes and moving out are nearly universal experiences, which anyone could quickly identify with. The Auschwitz museum made me feel the weight of every one of those 1.2 million lives, and their experiences, which were snuffed out for hate’s sake.

Putting myself in the victims’ shoes made it even more incomprehensible to consider that some of these Neonazis are people I am also supposed to identify with. Nearly a year ago, protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue, the “Unite the Right Rally” brought Nazi imagery and ideology out in full force in the American South. American men, my age or a little older, marched with tiki-torchers in the night, shouting Nazi slogans like “blood and soil,” and “the Jews will not replace us.” These people, my compatriots, proudly waved swastika flags and used the Nazi salute to protest some perceived threat to white nationalism, which frankly disgusts me.

Neonazism, white nationalism, and racial extremism have always been confusing to me, but they never offended me until touring Auschwitz. I realized that the holocaust had always been at a distance, in movies or textbooks, which kept me from truly understanding what it meant to be a Nazi supporter. I have seen the remnants of some of humanity’s worst acts against itself. I have seen the torture cells, and execution cells in Auschwitz 1, and the wood plank bunks where up to 10 emaciated bodies were forced into a space built for four in Birkenau. I have seen the scratches on the walls of the gas chamber gouged out by dying Jews whose last few minutes on this Earth were sheer terror. These are remnants of the Nazis; memorials to the men, women, and children who suffered, for no fault of their own, at the hands of truly hateful men. The holocaust produced only death and terror, nothing productive or to be proud of. I do not understand why, while these remnants exist, Neonazis exist, because there is nothing productive, or to be proud of, there.

On the Fence

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On our last leg of the trip, we visited Berlin, Germany. I was excited to come here and see the war from the other side’s point of view. After visiting multiple sites, like the German Historical Museum and the Topography of Terror, I had mixed feelings about Germany’s presentation of the war. In both museums, Germany definitely owned up to the atrocities they committed, and did not attempt to gloss over the gory details. However, while many of my classmates were very impressed by this show of humility, I am on the fence—or should I say wall. Obviously Germany has to be honest about what happened during the war—when the entire world is watching you there’s very little wiggle room. Additionally, I would expect that Germany be honest as a bare minimum. What I personally thought was lacking was any explanation or emotion surrounding how the entire nation came together under the Third Reich and supported Hitler and his policies. The museums were very matter-of-fact in their presentation of data, and I felt like there was a piece of the story missing; they were clear about the “what” but not necessarily the “how” or “why”.

The other sites we visited, including the Reichstag and the Wannsee House, I was more impressed. Our tour guide at the Reichstag was very informative about Germany’s new government and all of the ways they have made their government transparent—even the building is completely see through—and divided power to prevent any dictators. At the Wannsee House, which was on a very scenic lake, there was more emotion and direct quotes from people who suffered in the Holocaust and other Germans who lived while Hitler was in power. This was my favorite exhibit, because I think it tried the most to understand  and explain what happened leading up to and during the war, rather than just stating facts and events. Although, the Holocaust exhibit at the British Imperial War Museum is by far the best I have seen, which is slightly disappointing on Germany’s part, considering they were the most involved. Overall, it was very interesting to see how Germany’s war history lines up with my American knowledge.

Some other sites we visited were the Olympic Stadium and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe. I really enjoyed both of these—and not just because I needed a break from museums! The Olympic Stadium was really cool to see, especially since former Buckeye Jesse Owens raced there. Furthermore, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe was my favorite memorial I have visited on this trip. The various sized blocks and uneven ground makes a sort of maze, and when you walk through alone it is supposed to symbolize people during the Holocaust; you never know where you’re going, who you’ll see, or never see again. It is a powerful experience and very unique and well-done memorial.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe

View from Reichstag

Auschwitz and Identity

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Judaism is a major part of my life and identity. This is an identity that I wear on my sleeve, devoting much of my time to working with Jewish organizations. My faith is at the core of who I am, which is why, despite having studied the Holocaust extensively, visiting Poland was extremely difficult for me. In Poland, I visited Auschwitz concentration camp for the first time. This devastating experience left me with two large takeaways that kept running through my mind while in the death camp. First, unsurprisingly, I was struck with pain and disgust at the inhumanity that occurred in Auschwitz. No matter how much material one reads on the Holocaust, nothing comes close to conveying the true horrors of the Nazis like seeing this place in person. When studying how the Holocaust happened, we generally discuss it from a “meta-level,” examining the political and societal downfalls that led to the atrocity. However, while physically being at Auschwitz, I was struck with the personal nature of the Holocaust. People perpetrated these crimes directly. The Nazis working at Auschwitz made daily decisions to murder, torture and terrorize. I truly could not understand how human beings could treat other human beings in such a way. This inhumanity was the most disturbing feeling when seeing the camp and the one that was most impactful as well.

My identity has played a large role in my experience on the Ohio State WWII Study Tour. I am a proud American, and many of our sites have only made this grow due to our valiant effort in the war. Surprisingly, despite my disgust and sadness, I felt a similar feeling at Auschwitz as well because of my identity. I am a proud Jew. With my faith, I feel as if I stand alongside the millions of Jews who have been persecuted or killed due to their religion. And yet, there I stood at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Jew in 2018. The last of those who perpetrated the crimes of the Holocaust are finally dying of old age taking their warped and hateful ideology with them. I am member of a vibrant Jewish community back in the States and that is something I will never let anyone take from me.

Traveling to Poland and Auschwitz was a deeply meaningful experience for me. As a Jew, I was deeply saddened and disturbed. As a Jew, I am determined than ever to preserve my faith as well as protect others in vulnerable communities across the globe.

Disillusionment

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May 23rd:

A watermill in Bayeux.

Bayeux, France was a nice change of pace from London, England. The quiet and peaceful town was full of shops and restaurants, ready to please any local townspeople or tourists. Bayeux was one of the first major towns liberated by the Allied forces after the Normandy Invasion. The town is also home to the Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England in the 11th -century.

One of the better museums our study abroad group went to while staying in Bayeux was the Caen Memorial Museum. The Museum was built in 1989 and contains two main sections: one focusing on World War II and another on the Cold War. Our main objective was the WWII section, which started us off descending down a spiraling staircase. This indicated the falling infrastructure of France and other countries following WWI. Once we hit the lower level of the section, the magnifying glass was on top of France.

After Nazi Germany defeated France on 6 June 1944, France was split into a territory occupied by the Nazis and the newly formed Vichy France, under the control of Marshal Petain. The new puppet government went down a path of collaboration and offered little resistance. Petain believed the defeat was the result of plotting among “anti-French forces”, embodied by Jews, communists, and foreigners. He sought to bring the nation together; by excluding those he considered responsible for its defeat, and relying on traditional values: work, family, country, piety, and order. Europe falling under Nazi control was an apparent belief in Vichy France and fueled the collaboration between the two countries.

Revolution Nationale poster designed by R. Vachet in 1942.

In 1942, R. Vachet followed this trend when he designed a propaganda poster, Revolution Nationale. The poster depicted a house tumbling down under the Star of David on the left while the house on the right stands firm and peaceful with a resting French flag perched on top of it. This poster paints a clear picture on how the collaborative French state under Petain viewed the Jews as a faulty people. Alongside this poster were Petain memorabilia and other objects that made it obvious who and what Vichy France saw as enemies and its future corruption. With different plaques at other museums, like the Musee de l’Armee in Paris, stating that the French Resistance had a bigger role in liberating France than it actually did creates a disillusionment of the history these museums portray.

On to Poland now! Au revoir!

Polish People Hope to Perceive Their History From a Controlled Perspective

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The Polish sites we visited help demonstrate Poland’s desire to remember World War II in a way that coincides with their own self-image. The new Holocaust Law passed earlier this year by the Polish government represents Poland’s national claim to innocence in regards to their complicity in the Holocaust. When we visited Auschwitz and Birkenau, it was evident that the Polish government wanted to control how the site was presented to the public. All tour groups needed to be accompanied by a guide inside both camps, and there was a systematic structure that predetermined what aspects of each camp were open to the public. The Poles want to make it abundantly clear that the Nazis were solely responsible for creating these death camps on Polish soil and engaging in the mass genocide of minorities the Nazi’s deemed to be inferior. It’s not difficult to understand where the Poles are coming from and their desire to separate themselves from one of the greatest atrocities in human history. As I walked through Auschwitz and saw each step of the extermination process, I just felt helpless. Each pair of empty shoes, each strand of hair, and each personal item confiscated just hit me with a new wave of despair. There are no words that completely describe the essence of that place and the horrors human beings had to endure.

Nevertheless, the Polish claim of national innocence towards the Holocaust is a fallacy. The participation of some Polish people in the Holocaust is a part of their history. Our tour guide told us that there were Polish people in the area who worked in the camps and others in nearby towns that knew about them. During the chaos of war and widespread destruction, some of the Poles were just doing what was necessary to stay alive. It’s not right, nor does it provide justification for their actions. But it is a part of Poland’s history even if the central government chooses to deny it.

On the drive to Auschwitz and Birkenau, the tour guide talked about focusing on three different aspects when touring the camps, memory, awareness and responsibility. She asked us to remember the victims as well as the oppressors of the camps, recognize the impact of the Holocaust on the rest of Europe, and try to comprehend how something like this could happen. However, if the Poles choose to ignore their roles as both victims and oppressors in the Holocaust, they lack the full awareness of what happened and will never successfully answer why something like this could happen. By putting forth their own national interests above the historical account of events, the Polish government’s emphasis on controlling how each camp is presented distracts from the meaning of each site and Poland’s war experience.

Over-Dramatic Histories

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There are ghosts at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The walls of ruined gas chambers could talk, and the murky barracks creaked with moans of despair. And we listened. By this point, we all know the narrative. “In 1939 Hitler invaded Poland,” “The Holocaust was the mass slaughter of Jews, homosexuals, Roma-Sinti, Russian POWs, and other undesirables” etc. Especially for a group of students who find themselves knee deep in World War II studies for four or more months now, these things become desensitized fact.

There seems to be a gradient. When one is ignorant  about a topic, they cannot care because they know nothing about it. When one starts to learn, one starts to care more. Eventually, the student reaches the point  at which they discover that the more they learn, the more they realize they need to learn. When it comes to Holocaust studies, there is always more to learn, and more that will forever go unknown. Getting lost in this gruesome, fascinating, painful subject begins to make one numb to the horrors being presented, because you get used to and instinctively protect your psyche. This desensitization  allows the student to dive deeper into the studies, but visiting sights like Auschwitz-Birkenau are a reminder of the importance of what we are studying.

My heart was heavy in the concentration camp. My body felt as though it weighed one thousand pounds and my palms could not stop sweating. I felt pain for my comrades who have personal connections to this most horrible display of human cruelty. Whenever I felt my skin truly crawl,  as when we looked at the hair of thousands of victims, I reminded myself that at least I had an out, the victims did not. There is no greater way to forward one’s Holocaust education than by stepping on the exact path that someone else stepped to go directly to their death.

As I spoke of in my blog about Normandy, history is more than treaties and diplomacy. It is difficult to really get the humanity in history across in a classroom setting contextualized with exams and stuff classrooms. Of course, part of this discourse we are used to hearing is “the Holocaust was bad.” But do people know how bad? They can conceptualize it, but hearing the whispers of someone’s grandma in a gas chamber, someone’s mom in a women’s prison barrack, and someone’s son in the hands of Josef Megele, contextualizes it. The Holocaust is a cry against humanity, and forcing myself to put my ear right on the speaker reminded me the importance of why I study what I study, and why I have always made memorializing it an imperative.

Issues in Poland

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My time in Krakow allowed me to see that Poland itself has a unique historical narrative because two totalitarian regimes occupied the nation in the span of a few years. I tried to look at how they tell their history now through the sites we visited. In our class this past semester, we discussed current events in each of the four countries for the program. In Poland’s case, our topics of discussion circled around its government’s recent laws that prohibit people from saying or implying that Poland collaborated with the Nazis. I almost was looking for changes that indicated that they had manipulated their narrative in response to the law. However, nothing has changed drastically yet in terms of this law. Auschwitz-Birkenau and Oskar Schindler’s old factory, which functions as the exhibition showcasing Krakow under Nazi rule, helped explain Poland’s national character currently, particularly with their version of WWII.

At Auschwitz and Birkenau, the museum regulates tours with their own hired guides, rather than allowing us to have a tour run by our own translator. The tour was also timed, demonstrating their control of how they share the history of both camps. Viewing both of the concentration camps was overwhelming, because much of it remains as it was when the Soviets liberated them in January 1945. This sameness was especially apparent at Birkenau, where there are still just chimneys from where buildings once stood before the Nazis tried to destroy them, and there are still railroad tracks going through the main entrance. Another interesting aspect of both places was the way they tell Jewish and Polish history. They make a conscious distinction between all Jews and Poles, rarely using the phrase Polish Jews. This distinction indicated to me a nationalistic viewpoint for the Poles, in which they want to remind visitors to these museums of the persecution of Poles, such as Polish political prisoners. It was odd that they did not denote Jews who were also Poles specifically, but I believe it was to clarify why Nazis sent them to Auschwitz. The guides often talked about the Poles themselves, showing that a huge part of their personal narrative was how Nazi occupation affected the entire Polish population.

The distinction between Poles and Jews was not so clear in Oskar Schindler’s old enamel factory. There, it was about all of the Poles and how they had to handle the Nazi occupation.  Oskar Schindler was part of the Nazi party and employed about 1,200 Jews in his enamel factory, saving their lives in the process. In the old factory, they have placed a museum devoted to life in Krakow in WWII. It was most beneficial to see the exhibition “Krakow under Nazi Occupation” because it offered a closer insight into the people of Krakow’s occupation by the Nazis, not something that you would be taught in a regular WWII class. In it, they share photos, documents, and personal stories that I had never seen before of what it was like in Krakow during the war. Upon contextualizing the information within this museum to my wealth of knowledge of WWII, it was easier to understand Poland’s struggle to come to terms with what happened during the war. According to the museum, Polish Jews from Krakow were either outright killed or died immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. The numbers they gave for this fact do not include the murders of Jews from other Polish towns and of other non-Jewish Poles who went to camps or died at the hands of the Nazis. Poles dealt with both Nazi and Soviet occupation and terror in a short span of time and rightfully so, view themselves as victims in those cases. However, in all the places our class visited while in Poland, there was no acceptance or admission to any type of collaboration. This lack of information shows that while the official Holocaust law is new, refusing to accept that at least some Poles collaborated with the Nazis is not simply a contemporary issue that the nation is only facing now.

Living in a Study Abroad Student’s Paradise

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

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

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

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

The Battle Between a Victim and a Perpetrator

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While in Poland, we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was the hardest site for me thus far. There aren’t words to describe this experience, so forgive my futile attempt to do so. Our visit was broken down into halves – the first half in Auschwitz I and the second half in Birkenau. During our time in Auschwitz, we walked through old barracks that were transformed into the museum. The main focus of the tour of Auschwitz was the exhibits presented; Birkenau’s focus was the site itself. Birkenau was partly intact, with only the crematoriums and half of the barracks destroyed. The walk through this camp was intensely unreal. Standing in the same place that millions stood awaiting their death, walking through the hospital barrack where many knew their end had come, and visiting the crematoria rubble where so many perished hit me in my core. I have studied World War II and the Holocaust since high school, but standing in the same place as the victims of these atrocities made it the most real it’s been thus far.

During last semester, we focused on the Polish claim to innocence concerning the concentration camps. Poland recently passed a law that forbids people from saying “Polish concentration/death camps” or hinting to Polish complicity because they want to ensure everyone knows these camps were German. This law is controversial because the camps were in German-occupied areas at the time and were staffed by mainly Germans. But many Poles also worked there. By making this law, Poland seems to be claiming that they had no part in the persecution of Jews. This is not supported by what we learned this past semester or by our guide in Poland. While we were at Auschwitz, our guide stated that the Poles in the surrounding villages were aware of the camp and that some even worked on the camp complex. I was surprised by her willingness to declare that the Poles had a hand in the camp given the new law.

On the other hand, the exhibits at Auschwitz gave a different impression than our guide. It did not say explicitly that Poles were or were not a part of the persecution and massacre of Jews, but instead focused on Poles being victims. This site was not changed in the last year after this law went into effect. Thus, I think the information in this museum foreshadowed the making of this law and lent a view into the national feeling of innocence and victimization. The makers of this site consistently categorized Poles and Jews that died at Auschwitz separately. This makes me think they wanted to remind the viewer that the non-Jewish Poles were also persecuted. The emphasis on the victimization of non-Jewish Poles reinforces the claim to national innocence. Additionally, I think Poland believes they can claim this innocence because of the recognition and display they provide for the Jews – particularly the recognition of the German role. Poland has come a long way since World War II, but this new law and mindset hinders their forward growth.

An American in France

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Going into France, I knew that being an American would affect the experience I would have there. They speak a different language, one that I have not studied, and while the culture is similar to our own, there are distinct differences in societal norms. Americans often split the check when we go out to eat, which they don’t often do in Europe. In France it was also very apparent to our group that Americans are much louder than the French. Just by talking in our normal volume it felt as though we were disruptive in most of the places that we went. While these difference. They influenced the interactions that I had with the French people. I found myself constantly searching for ways to be less noticeable and stand out less as a “loud American” in public spaces.

Small cultural differences are also noticeable in the way that history is taught and presented in France. As I walked through Les Invalides in Paris and visited the Arromanches 360 Theater in Normandy, I noticed that the “facts” of World War II are presented differently in France than they are in the United States. In particular, I saw this in the way that they portray the involvement of the French in the liberation of France. At the Arromanches 360 Theater it was clear that they viewed, or wanted to show, that the French played a nearly equal role in the Battle of Normandy and the subsequent liberation of Paris. The focus of this video was very much on the French effort during Operation Overlord. The French flag was seen in every part of the video, quite often alongside the British and American flags. Towards the end, the focus of the video turned to the rebuilding of France and their rise out of the ashes of WWII. At Les Invalides these differences became very apparent in the emphasis placed on Charles de Gaulle and his role in the liberation of France. I also noticed that an in depth analysis of Vichy, France was really nowhere to be seen.  In my studies of World War II in America, this emphasis is almost opposite. Vichy, France is seen as a collaborationist state to Nazi Germany, and Charles de Gaulle played a minor role in Operation Overlord and the liberation of France. De Gaulle led the charge to liberate Paris because the Allies were more focused on chasing and defeating the Germans than liberating Paris. At Les Invalides his involvement was presented as though he led the charge into Paris because of his status among the Allied Powers.

My perspective as an American definitely influenced how I saw these differences in the portrayal of the history of WWII. Although the United States joined WWII late, they were one of the Allied Powers and played a major role in Operation Overlord, as well as the subsequent battles and the defeat of Nazi Germany. The French resistance did play a part in the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris, which I do not want to undervalue. However, I found it upsetting that they placed their efforts on the same playing field as that of the other major Allied Powers. It seemed to me that they had warped their own history out of pride, and that they wanted to be seen more as victors than as victims. This makes sense because culturally, France is a very proud nation. They are focused on having a cohesive national identity, which could be damaged by looking too far into the involvement of Vichy in the war or being seen as victims of Nazi oppression. When I take a step back from my own national identity, it makes me wonder about the things that I have been taught in school and how the American culture plays a role in how that history is portrayed.

At the cliffs of Arromanches with the remains of Port Winston in the background.

Fifty-two Raised Eyebrows

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52 Raised Eyebrows

This French leg of our journey felt like a sort of pilgrimage for me. I began learning French, and adjacently, French History, eight years ago in the 7th grade and have been fascinated since. Those years, combined with building my expertise on the origins of Vichy France this past semester, meant that the nine days of speaking French and learning how the French presented their own narrative should have been some of my favorite. Those nine days were incredible, if not also incredibly cynical. Touring museums like a historian means asking “why” often, and always being willing to raise an eyebrow when a plaque or display makes an especially proud claim. The French museums we toured raised a lot of eyebrows.

We began at the Caen memorial museum, which guides its visitors down a descending spiral hallway representing the downward spiral of the political climate leading up to the war. The symbolism was impressive, but the exhibit skips from the invasion of Poland to France’s capitulation, curiously omitting any explanation for France’s fall. Later, the museum’s only mention of the Vichy Government, France’s constitutional governing body between 1940-1944, was relegated to two small displays, only summarizing that they existed. This was especially striking, because it came right before an entire room, with a much higher budget, dedicated to the Resistance. These were all presented in French, English, and German, which was not a consistency throughout the museum.

Our group was lucky enough to have a few who could read French, which was helpful when we came across the few displays left untranslated for some reason. The reason raised all fifty-two eyebrows on our trip, because the Caen Memorial Museum presented different stories away from anglophone eyes. The biggest was a claim about the Allies’ superfluousness in liberation, because, according to the museum, the French were able to, and did, liberate themselves. This pattern repeated itself on a much bigger scale at Les Invalides in Paris.

France’s national military museum describes a history nothing short of valiant, heroic, and any other similar adjective which hadn’t been used too recently. Like the Caen museum, Vichy received a single section of displays out of the three floors concerned with WWII. None of the displays discuss Vichy’s politics, origins, or goals, but they did feature three cases of Petain memorabilia that compared his worship to Hitler. These displays were unironically surrounded by two other floors of ephemera worshiping DeGaulle. Les Invalides also, luckily in English this time, made some questionable claims about France’s participation. Namely that the French forces inflicted a staggering 160,000 casualties during the 1940 battle for France, forgetting to mention they suffered over one million, and that the Maginot Line “never capitulated,” because the Germans simply went around it. A full summary of these dubious displays would be longer than the entirety of this post, but suffice to say we found many more.

None of this is to say that I feel like my dreams of visiting Paris were dashed. I can honestly say that every day in France helped me to grow as a historian. Whether we were at the German, American, or British cemeteries to appreciate their symbolism and those buried there, or visiting Saint-Mère-Eglise, a vital town to U.S. D-Day paratroopers that has become a theme-park of a museum, I learned how to become a more responsible history consumer. I realized I’ve never been to the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C. while touring Les Invalides. Seeing their national museum made me ask, how many of these same questions or raised eyebrows would I have at home?

The Loud, Crazy Americans

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Being in France made me feel like I was in a country unlike my own for the first time. In Bayeux, the difficulty resulting from the language barrier shocked me. By the end, I got the hang of it, but the first few days were difficult. I had to guess and hope they weren’t saying anything important. As an American, I ignorantly believed most things would be in English in other countries. Most of the exhibits we visited displayed French commentary with some English descriptions. This left me feeling disconnected from the experience because I didn’t know what they were trying to present with each object. I think this expectation is unique to an American because English is such a universal language. Thus, I assumed that it would be more prevalent in other countries. The realization that a place could be so different from my home sparked a new way of interpreting different cultures.

One thing I have noticed that differs between France and the United States is how we treat spoken language. The French are much quieter than we are. Perhaps traveling in a large group makes a difference, but wherever we go we are the loudest in the room, reaffirming the loud American stereotype one city at a time. It startled me in Bayeux because it’s such a peaceful, country town. I think this can be attributed to a difference in our cultures.

While in France, the stereotype that the French don’t like Americans popped up in my head a couple times. When our group went through security at the Caen museum, the security guard told us that bags of any kind were not allowed – not even purses. This wasn’t a big deal – all of us with a bag returned to the bus and put them in our seats. Once we returned to the security line, a couple in front of us had their bags checked by the same security guard and gained entrance. I ventured that maybe the rule only applied to school groups, but upon entrance to the museum, we saw two French school groups with their purses and backpacks. What I felt to be discrimination shocked me because I have never been discriminated against before for being an American. I encountered discrimination against Americans on a personal level at our hotel in Bayeux. I was talking in the lobby with two other girls at a conversational level when we were shushed by one of the employees. Not only were we shushed, but there were other people in the lobby that were talking at the same level but not reprimanded.

These experiences of discrimination in France have caused me to have a different outlook on France and other countries. Although this effected my time in France, I’m grateful I had this experience because it isn’t something I would experience at home. This is part of experiencing a different country and understanding a new culture. In France, this consisted of understanding French social expectations and how they interact with each other. My experiences did not match up with my expectations but instead taught me the valuable lessons of understanding new cultures and adapting to a new language.