{"id":1217,"date":"2015-04-29T23:41:37","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T23:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2015-04-29T23:41:37","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T23:41:37","slug":"history-eyh-2015-from-berlin-to-auschwitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/history-eyh-2015-from-berlin-to-auschwitz\/","title":{"rendered":"History EYH 2015: From Berlin to Auschwitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learning about the Holocaust is so important, and this semester, I was fortunate enough to be able to take a class about the subject\u00a0that not only allowed my classmates and I to\u00a0advance our knowledge through class reading and survivor speeches, but also took us to the most influential places of the time: Germany and Poland. \u00a0Before the trip, we heard many Holocaust survivors talk about their own individual experiences, which was extremely moving. \u00a0For example, for one\u00a0of the female survivors, Rachel Roth, we read her memoir and then attended her talk. \u00a0Having these two levels of learning\u00a0made her personal experience\u00a0that much more memorable for me, and I’m sure for the rest of my class as well. \u00a0Between the start of the semester and the beginning of March, we heard many more talks from other survivors as well as read more texts on the Holocaust, and then, during Spring Break, we took our trip to Germany and Poland.<\/p>\n

Our first leg of the trip was spent\u00a0in Berlin, Germany, which is a beautiful city. \u00a0To my surprise, and satisfaction, we spent most of our time in Berlin learning more about the perpetrators and how they were able to compartmentalize work and personal life, as well as the German people and their own ideas and reasonings\u00a0for electing and following the Nazi Party. \u00a0In our class reading, we learned that to many people, Hitler was a promise that “instead of hopeless unemployment, Germany could move towards economic recovery” (Speer, 16-18). \u00a0Another reason many people elected the Nazi Party was because they believed Hitler could protect them from\u00a0“the perils of Communism which seemed inexorably on the way”\u00a0(Speer, 16-18). \u00a0In my opinion, one of the best places we visited in Berlin\u00a0for reinforcing this information was in the Topography of Terror Museum, which explained so much about the perpetrators and how the Nazis\u00a0came to power. \u00a0That museum made me realize how the Holocaust was not as black and white as I had previously thought, but rather it was mostly gray area. \u00a0However, even though Berlin was the city that taught us mostly about the perpetrators of the Holocaust and the Topography of Terror was the best place for that information, I chose to reflect more on the Holocaust Tower in the Jewish Museum of Berlin. \u00a0The Holocaust Tower was the first time I felt the emotion I expected to feel while I was on the trip, and it also reminded me why I was there in the first place.<\/p>\n

We traveled\u00a0by train from Berlin to Warsaw, Poland. \u00a0Except for the glimpse I had from the Holocaust Tower in the Jewish Museum of Berlin, Warsaw was the first place where I felt a lot of emotion. \u00a0Through our reading I have learned that before the Holocaust, Jewish culture in Poland, particularly in Warsaw, was becoming a cultural hub. \u00a0In one of our readings, author Israel Gutman even compared people flooding to Poland for culture before the Holocaust to\u00a0people flooding to New York City today. \u00a0Poland was full of Jewish writers, actors, and artists, and at the time, the country\u00a0was one of the most prominent places for Jewish culture in the world, second only to New York. \u00a0(Gutman, Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising<\/em>) \u00a0During our tour of the city, we stopped for a long time at the Jewish Cemetery of Warsaw\u00a0where our tour guide, Alicija, gave us even more\u00a0information on the city before and after the Holocaust. \u00a0What struck me the most was how much the Jewish population of Warsaw has changed. \u00a0Alicija said that before the Holocaust, there were over three million Jews living in Warsaw, and today, there are only about four hundred residents. \u00a0This number stood out to me so much because it forced\u00a0me to realize, while I was standing in the cemetery, how many people–just in that city–were uprooted from their homes,\u00a0their jobs, and their lives. \u00a0This even included those Jewish people who were so prominent in society, like the writers, actors, and artists who Gutman explains in his book. \u00a0All of these people, to the Nazis, were nothing more than parasites. What stuck out to me even\u00a0more than that, though, was the\u00a0small number of people who live\u00a0there today. \u00a0There were so many people who refused to come back to their original home, even after they were liberated. Alicija also told us a lot about how many Jews in Warsaw were active in the resistance against the Nazi Party. \u00a0I have always been in awe of the bravery one must have needed to sacrifice their own life to resist the Nazi party. \u00a0I have always wondered what their mentality must have been like that made them strong enough to be able to do that. \u00a0One grave we looked at in particular in the Jewish Cemetery (the grave of Marek Edelman), explained to me just that.<\/p>\n

The next city we stayed in was Krakow, Poland, but before we spent much time there, we went to Auschwitz. \u00a0From this semester as well as the education I have received about the Holocaust prior to this class, I have always thought of Auschwitz as the most infamous camp that the Nazis had. \u00a0While I was in Auschwitz myself, I could not help but think of Rachel Roth’s memoir and how she explained her experience there. \u00a0While I was standing on the platform near the train tracks where so many people’s fate had been decided for them, all I could think of was Roth’s own experience after she was deemed healthy enough to not be executed right away. \u00a0In her memoir, she illustrates how she saw another prisoner who was sitting behind a table recording all of her information (first and last name, date of birth, and birth place) and she said,\u00a0“another girl makes some punctures on my\u00a0left arm and injects\u00a0a few drops of ink into the bleeding spots…she tattoos my\u00a0prison number, 48915, and a small triangle, half a Star of David, below the number, to show that I am\u00a0a Jew” (Roth, 252).<\/p>\n

Our last few days of the trip were spend in Krakow, Poland, which I would argue is the most beautiful city in the world. \u00a0We stayed at a hotel which was located in an area of cobblestone streets and old buildings, and at times while looking at all of the beautiful scenery it was hard to imagine that a city so beautiful could hold such significance in something as awful as the Holocaust. \u00a0The place I chose to reflect on in Krakow was the Wawel Castle,\u00a0a beautiful castle that held great\u00a0significance to such a terrible event in history. \u00a0To me, the Wawel Castle did well to\u00a0resemble the city as a whole: a beautiful place which holds an ugly history.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Reflections:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Berlin:\u00a0Holocaust Tower\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

What stood out most to me in Berlin\u00a0was the Holocaust Tower, which was a room in the Jewish Museum of Berlin.\u00a0 <\/span>This room was very powerful for a number of reasons.\u00a0 <\/span>The first reason was as I was walking in the hallway just nearing the room I could feel the temperature drop.\u00a0 <\/span>This was so powerful because I could tell it was coming, and I could tell it wasn\u2019t welcoming.\u00a0 <\/span>Then, when I opened the door to the room, I felt the rush of cold air and as I closed the door behind me, I was just surrounded by four incredibly tall walls which\u00a0created\u00a0an uncomfortable shape of the room.\u00a0 <\/span>The shape the walls made me feel like I was always standing in a corner, no matter where in the room I was.\u00a0 <\/span>Also, even though it was very sunny that day, you can tell in the picture\u00a0above\u00a0that from inside the room, the sky appears to be completely dark, which gave a sense of hopelessness to the atmosphere.\u00a0 <\/span>From within the Holocaust Tower, I could hear cars and noise from outside the walls as well, only I could not see any of it.\u00a0 <\/span>In the picture you can also see how tall the walls are which made me feel very small, and the ladder that leads to the top of the walls is not within reaching distance, so no one can get to it, which also shows hopelessness.\u00a0 <\/span>All in all, the room is very eerie, but it does well to resemble the Holocaust and how many of the Jews must have felt.\u00a0 <\/span>At first when I was actually there, it reminded me of how they must have felt in the camps: the feeling of being trapped.\u00a0 <\/span>Now that I have finished the trip and have been to the camps and to many other areas having to do with the Holocaust, though, it reminds me more of the Warsaw ghetto, and how they must have felt being trapped by a tall wall that they couldn\u2019t escape from.\u00a0 <\/span>It reminded me of how it must have felt hearing the noises of normal life bustling outside the wall but not being able to experience any of it themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Warsaw:\u00a0Marek Edelman\u2019s Grave<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Jewish cemeteru\u00a0we went to in Warsaw, one grave stood out to me more than the others.\u00a0 <\/span>It was Marek Edelman\u2019s grave, and the reason it stood out to me was because of the quote it had on it: \u201cThe most important is life, and when there is life, the most important is freedom. And then we give our life for freedom\u2026(English translation)\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>This quote stood out to me so much because I think it really summed up everything we have been learning about in the course so far, especially having to do with Warsaw, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.\u00a0 <\/span>In 1943,\u00a0 <\/span>many people were willing to sacrifice their lives for their freedom, as well as the freedom of others in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and then again with the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marek Edelman was a cardiologist who was also a Jewish-Polish political and social activist.\u00a0 <\/span>He was a leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and before his 2009 death, he was the last surviving leader.\u00a0 <\/span>In 1943 he became the head leader of the Uprising after the death of former uprising leader, Mordechaj Anielewicz.\u00a0 <\/span>After this resistance movement, Marek Edelman also contributed to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, which, as we learned in our reading as well as from our tour guide, Alicija, about 16,000 members of this movement were killed and another 6,000-7,000 were badly injured.\u00a0 <\/span>The quote on Marek Edelman\u2019s grave does well to emphasize how even though people knew what they were risking, they were willing to do anything to fight for their freedom, because \u201cwhen there is life, the most important thing is freedom.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>They knew that life without freedom wasn\u2019t worth living, and this was the key to their bravery that I have been in awe of for so long.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Auschwitz<\/p>\n

\"Auschwitz\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was so insane to go to Auschwitz for many reasons.\u00a0 Obviously, the first reason was that it was so shocking.\u00a0 Before standing in Auschwitz myself, I knew that it was going to be bad.\u00a0 I knew about the Holocaust and I knew how bad it was for the victims, but I never really let it affect me that much because it seemed so far away.\u00a0 Being taught about the Holocaust in America was effective and I learned a lot, but it was not\u00a0and never will be as powerful as going there myself because while the teachers in America may be excellent and the material may be very educational, it is all second-hand.\u00a0 We as a country never had to experience this tragic event, so we are teaching and learning something that is, and will always be, foreign to us.\u00a0 Being there myself made it a lot less foreign, and a lot more real.\u00a0 It made me open up and fully realize that the victims of this tragedy were ordinary, everyday people who were put into this awful place just because one radical group deemed it so, and while I knew that prior to this trip, I never was able to comprehend it like I can now.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Going to Auschwitz was also so numbing because that is the place everyone knows about when they think of Nazi death camps.\u00a0 That is the place you start learning about when you first learn about the Holocaust, and that is also the place that our last book focuses on, which makes it that much more real to read it.\u00a0 While reading the last book and learning all the particular facts about building and maintaining Auschwitz, I cannot help but envision what I saw there for myself, whereas if I were to have read the book before the trip, I would envision it as pictures I have seen through other readings.\u00a0 This has made me realize that experiencing something through pictures and experiencing it through real life drastically changes your views on it as well as how you will continue to learn about it. \u00a0For example, one thing from our class that\u00a0made Auschwitz more powerful to me was the talks we had with Rachel Roth prior to the trip, as well as the memoir of her’s that we read. \u00a0Being able to put a familiar face to this tragedy made it seem so much more real. \u00a0I still have a hard time imagining the Rachel Roth I know as being a victim in that horrible event, but yet\u00a0when I was there, I couldn’t help but imagine her standing where I was standing, only I was a tourist and she was a victim. \u00a0I’m not sure if guilt is the right word for the feeling I had\u00a0about being a tourist at Auschwitz,\u00a0but it is the only word that comes to mind when trying to explain the feeling that has followed me back home. \u00a0After we walked out of the gas chambers in Auschwitz, one student said something that put to words what I had been feeling the whole day, she said, “No one walks out of a gas chamber.” \u00a0Guilt:\u00a0I am no better than the victims of the Holocaust (and I am no doubt worse than some), so why have I been granted this fortune while others were not? \u00a0While my experience at Auschwitz has\u00a0benefitted my education more than I can put into words, it has done much more than that. \u00a0It has changed me as a person. \u00a0It has made me realize how fortunate I am in my own life and how other people have died to have\u00a0the same rights\u00a0in which, I’ll admit, I tend to take for granted.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0Krakow:\u00a0Wawel Castle<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/span><\/p>\n

In our last city, Krakow, Poland, one landmark that stood out\u00a0to me in particular\u00a0was the Wawel Castle.\u00a0 <\/span>It originally stood out to me because of its beauty and architecture, and then really became interesting when I learned the history behind it. \u00a0<\/span>From acting as the seat of the Polish monarchy when Krakow used to be the capital of Poland, to becoming the residence of many important officials across the country in all eras, the Wawel Castle has always been a major place of power in Poland. \u00a0The Wawel Castle\u00a0was where Hans Frank resided after the Polish invasion during World War II.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Wawel Castle was in the same city as Germany\u2019s General Government during World War II, which was why it was a popular location for Nazi officials to reside.\u00a0 <\/span>I thought it was interesting to see with my own eyes the place where Hans Frank resided during the Nazi era because after reading Rachel Roth\u2019s memoir as well as the book <\/span>Resistance<\/span>, I have learned so much about Hans Frank and how much responsibility he had for the persecution of the Jews in all of Poland.\u00a0 <\/span>It was so fascinating to see first-hand where he was at the time all of those life-changing decisions were being made.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Since I hope to one day be a doctor myself, I am\u00a0horrified but yet fascinated at how the German doctors that joined the SS were able to perform such vicious acts on the prisoners of Nazi camps. \u00a0When doctors are supposed to be healers, how could they become murderers? \u00a0We learned about the psychology behind Nazi officials in Berlin but the ideologies behind the SS doctors were\u00a0not discussed very\u00a0much on the trip nor in the class, which is why I chose to write my research paper for this class about the doctors of the Holocaust and why they chose to do what they did. \u00a0Berlin intrigued me to expand my knowledge on these certain perpetrators because the city made me realize that most of the monsters and murderers were average, everyday people. \u00a0It was not always noticeable if someone was a Nazi or not when they were not on the job. \u00a0I want to follow up learning about this and how doctors, in particular, were able to compartmentalize work and personal life.<\/p>\n

Taking this trip to Germany and Poland and seeing all of these sights along the way made my Holocaust education so much more meaningful and memorable. \u00a0Learning by text about a subject such as the Holocaust\u00a0is entirely different from actually being able to go\u00a0somewhere and get first hand accounts. \u00a0It was imperative to be as\u00a0engrossed as we were\u00a0in\u00a0the knowledge we learned in class before we left, because I feel like if we hadn’t had so many great texts and speakers, the trip wouldn’t have been as meaningful. \u00a0All of the readings made me appreciate the sights and tours that much more because I knew the history behind each place. \u00a0Until this trip, the Holocaust has always seemed so far away in my mind, almost as if I knew it happened–because I had learned about it so many times throughout my schooling–but it didn’t seem real; it felt more like a story. \u00a0Now that I have been to the most prominent places having to do with the Holocaust, however, it no longer seems just like a story, but like real history. \u00a0This is no longer stored in my mind as some piece of horrifying fiction but rather as a devastating time in history that I hope is never repeated in any fashion, and\u00a0I feel like it is now my duty to encourage others to be educated in a manner that makes it more real for them, too. \u00a0There was a quote I saw on the class syllabus at the beginning of the semester that read, “Whoever hears an eyewitness, becomes an eyewitness to the Holocaust.” \u00a0After this class, the experience I had in these countries, the discussions I have shared\u00a0with and\u00a0the talks I have heard from Holocaust survivors, I now consider myself fit for this eyewitness category. \u00a0As time goes on, there will not be any more survivors to tell their stories, and it is up to the younger generations to keep their memory, traditions, and, most importantly, this education and knowledge, alive. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

Bibliography<\/p>\n

Alicija, Warsaw tour guide<\/p>\n

Gutman, Israel. Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.<\/p>\n

Roth, Rachel Chencinski. Here There Is No Why. Ed. Ram Roth and Sheldon Gladstein. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2002.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speer, A. “Inside the Third Reich.” Weidenfeld and Nicolson (1970): 16-18.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learning about the Holocaust is so important, and this semester, I was fortunate enough to be able to take a class about the subject\u00a0that not only allowed my classmates and I to\u00a0advance our knowledge through class reading and survivor speeches, but also took us to the most influential places of the time: Germany and Poland. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":1247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holocaust","et-bg-layout-dark","et-background-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}