HIGHLAND
FLING
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New Toys This summer, Highland Park underwent much tweaking and construction to improve three of its facilties. This included a new stadium by the turf, complete with fenced bleachers, a new commentator’s box, and wheelchair-accessible ramps.
INSIDE NEWS The Supreme Court’s Summer p. 4 FEATURE Back-to-school Interviews p. 6 My Story: How does the U.S. look to a Bulgarian? p. 3 Club Spread p. 7 A&E A Disappointing Horror Film p. 3 SPORTS Euro Cup 2012 p. 8 Olympic Woes p. 8
My Story: A Site of Sorrow Sylvia Marks We’ve all heard of the Holocaust at some point in our school careers. We’ve all heard someone in our lives mention the atrocities the Nazis committed toward the Jews during Hitler’s reign in Germany during the 1930s and early ‘40s. And we’ve all definitely formed a picture in our mind of the horrors and the setting in which these crimes against humanity took place, whether by basing our visual off our own figments of imagination or pictures. However, despite the history lessons, memorials, movies, and imaginary terrors, I realized that one experiences a mental pain ten times more intense after physically standing in the grounds of Auschwitz. “Arbeit Macht Frei.” That terrible slogan is the first thing one sees upon entering Auschwitz. Work Sets You Free. Of course this was not the case for anybody who entered the camp, as most were gassed in the gas chambers immediately upon arrival, and others worked until they literally dropped dead from sickness, starvation, exhaustion, and abuse. However, from the looks of Auschwitz, one might not initially peg it as a place where so many terrible things happened… “…Propaganda,” the tour guide announced to my group. “That in these grassy plots were flower beds; that’s what they [the Nazis] showed on film to the German people to try to convince them that it was actually just ‘relocation’ and ‘isolation’ of the Jewish people—not slaughter.” I shuddered as we walked along the gravelly road up to one unit. Inside, I was confronted by display upon display: a huge pile of eyeglasses behind the glass, prosthetic limbs that Nazis would take away from victims for their own usage, kitchen supplies, hairbrushes…an array of objects that the people who entered Auschwitz and other concentration camps thought they would get back. I saw suitcases as well, all marked with beautiful and unique penmanship of adults and children who wanted to make sure their belongings that they were told to bring along would not become mixed with another’s. It was all terribly sad to see, but was nothing compared to the wave of emotion that hit me when the tour group entered a room full of human hair. Shaved off of everyone upon arrival, this marks one of the lowest points of human dignity. These people were no longer themselves; they were simply a body and a number. “No pictures in this room out of respect please.” The tour guide did not need to say this twice.
We left that building and entered another, this one known as the “prison” block. Throughout the hallway, pictures of victims and their names, arrival dates, and death dates, covered the walls. Karas Maier. Date of Arrival: February 1 1942. Date of Death: February 2 1942 said one framed picture. Eventually the Nazis trashed the process of photographing those who entered the camp because they exterminated such huge numbers of people every day that it became too difficult to keep track of which prisoners were still alive or dead. Next came the shooting wall. The gas chamber. The creamatorium. The silence in these places was tangible. Looking up into the hole at the top of the gas chamber in which the Nazis dumped two cans of Zyklon B for every “batch” of people was overwhelming. With heavy hearts and grim facial expressions, the tour group boarded a bus to be taken 100 meters down the road to Birkenau, the location of the infamous train tracks, the place the cattle cars entered holding overloads of prisoners, the place where any shred of hope was surrendered. A lump rose in my throat as I entered a wooden barracks. How could this place be real? I wondered. How could such a mass murder have happened in this beautiful countryside? Torn by bitter emotion and awe at the serene setting, I stared at a watch tower in the distance that lay against a serene background of mountains and trees and an azure sky.
A cattle car used to transport the Nazis’ enemies to and from Birkenau.