Adolf Hitler

A War of Country Against Country

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The wall quote at the entrance to the Churchill War Rooms.

One of the many meeting room tables in the Churchill War Rooms.

The main meeting desk in the Churchill War Rooms.

Our class learned about and discussed multiple aspects of World War Two in seminar all semester, and the term “People’s War” was thrown around a lot in discussing the English experience. The reality of the term “People’s War,” truly did not hit me until I visited London and the Churchill War Rooms. The theme of a “People’s War” in Britain is emphasized throughout the museum. Before visiting London and the War Rooms, I always thought of World War Two as a battle between militaries and leaders, for example, Hitler vs. Churchill, or RAF vs. Luftwaffe. After leaving London, I see how much effort individual people made during the war, especially in England! Getting the support and help of a country is difficult, and it is extremely impressive that Winston Churchill was able to do just this. Each Churchill speech or statement  was strategic in that it made the country rally together to fight the Axis powers. In the museum, there was a tablet with around fifty Winston Churchill quotes, broken up by date. The most  powerful came in  his first speech as prime minister in 1940, when Churchill said, “You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.”  Thus Churchill conveyed to his people that the war was not world leader against world leader, or even military against military,  but a total war of country against country. This quote left such an impression upon me, I even jotted it down in my cell phone. Seeing London and the War Rooms allowed me to fully comprehend the “People’s War” in England.

Becoming Grounded In History

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Selena Vlajic, me, and Henry Dolin getting onto the HMS Belfast.

Selena Vlajic, me, and Henry Dolin getting onto the HMS Belfast.

There’s so much I want to say about this trip, so much I want to tell everyone about. I want to talk about the weather, or my impressions of the city, or what I love and hate about our hotel, or about visiting so many cultural sites. Basically, I want to convey everything I’ve seen and experienced since I arrived at Heathrow this Wednesday.

I guess I can sum up everything with a quote from a quote from Sweeney Todd: “There’s no place like London.” Up until even this past semester, reading about London, even knowing that I’d be visiting it soon, was like reading about a fairy-tale kingdom. It was so distant, it didn’t seem real. But being here, absorbing the sights and sounds and smells of the city have brought home the history and the reality of where I am. I’ve visited the Churchill Museum, the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Bletchley Park, the Shakespeare Globe, and so many more. Finally, London feels real to me. I’m actually here.

And not only has London become more real to me, but so has the war I’ve been studying for nearly my whole college career. Yes, it has always seemed real to me. There’s too much information and too many testimonials from veterans and survivors for me to have felt the war to have been anything but a reality. But when I stepped into the Churchill Museum and began exploring where Churchill helped to plan the war and where soldiers slept, ate and worked round the clock to keep Britain from being invaded, I felt myself become part of the war; I could see my place in history and how it related to me.

And then in Bletchley Park, I had another one of those moments when I saw the war through a whole new light. Standing there among the huts and the mansion where the British Army, Navy, and Civil Intelligence Services broke the Enigma codes, which helped to end the war a few years earlier, I realized I was standing in history, where important events took place and without which I might not be around to write about this study abroad trip. As I went through the museum at Bletchley and saw a full-length Nazi flag displayed near the code-breaking exhibit, I thought to myself: “If it weren’t for the people who were part of the Bletchley Intelligence Project, I couldn’t be sure where I’d be now. I might not even exist.”  Standing there in that museum, I put my hand on the swastika and sent it a mental message, as if to address Adolf Hitler’s ghost: “All that you and your followers stood for, the people here helped defeat. And I live to remember it.”

With the statue of Alan Turing at Bletchley Park.

So what can I tell you about my study abroad trip so far? Only that it has been edifying beyond belief, and made the Second World War more relevant to me than ever before. As the days go by, and as we travel between locations, to different museums and battle sites and historic places of note, I’m sure that awareness will only grow deeper. And at the end, I will be able to look back and know that this trip has greatly influenced not only broadened my knowledge of WWII, but also made me appreciative of all the sacrifices that were made so that someday I could come here and write about it.

I will write again from Normandy. Look forward to more musings and photos and discussions of the places I’ve been. Good night everybody.