MAKING MEANINGFUL MEMORIES

[WARNING: This article is about a TVS student trip to Auschwitz and contains some graphic descriptions.]

Dr. Michael Roemer, Director of Global Education

Last winter, I had the opportunity to embark on a journey with students that resulted in one of the most meaningful trips with students that I have had. It all started with a conversation between a visiting German teacher – who was part of a school-to-school exchange between TVS and his school, Auguste Viktoria Gymnasium (AVG) in Trier, Germany – and Upper School history teacher, Mrs. Hillary Relyea. The German teacher, Mr. Schweitzer, and Mrs. Relyea were talking about the Holocaust and Genocide class that she was teaching that semester. Because he, too, is a history teacher, he asked if he could observe one of her classes, and she invited him to share his perspective on the Holocaust as a German. The class was a hit for our students; they had the rare opportunity to hear stories about how Germans have responded to the horrors of the Holocaust in the post-war decades. Mr. Schweitzer even shared a little about conversations he had with his grandfather, whose brother had been an SS soldier during the war.

After the class, Mr. Schweitzer told Mrs. Relyea about a trip he and another teacher from AVG had led to Krakow and Oswiecim (Auschwitz in German) to visit two Auschwitz camps and some of the ghettos where thousands of Polish Jews were forced to live before being sent to work and death camps. They talked about the power of witnessing that dark place in history on their students and how such experiences were much more impactful than talking about it in class or watching videos about it. At some point, the two of them began thinking about how our schools could partner on a joint trip to Poland in a cross-cultural experience that included both witnessing the traumatic events of WWII in Poland and the opportunity for our students to talk about not only the weighty subjects like that but also more mundane topics like school and life in general in our two countries. They shared their idea with me, and we began planning the trip.

When I was nine years old, my family and I were living in Japan, and my parents decided to visit the Hiroshima Peace Museum. It was one of the most unforgettable experiences of that year in Japan, and I visited again when I was studying abroad in Kyoto my junior year in college. Seeing the damage caused and suffering of the children, especially, changed my world view, and I knew how powerful taking students to Auschwitz could be. However, I knew the trip needed to be about more than that. We would be traveling for eight days, and the trip needed to have some light-hearted aspects as well. We also needed to find ways to take advantage of the truly unique component of this trip: the fact that students from the U.S. and Germany would be experiencing this journey together. We called this the “Holocaust & Human Rights” trip.

The trip began with the TVS students spending two days in Frankfurt to learn a little about the history of Jewish influence (the Jewish Museum of Frankfurt offers centuries of examples of positive influences and prominent leaders in the city who were Jewish) and suffering in Germany (we visited the remains of a former Jewish ghetto, where Frankfurt Jews were forced to live from 1462 to 1811). As down time, among other things, we also visited a traditional German square (named Römerberg - Römer is my last name in German), and the group successfully solved a German escape room. On our third day, we met up with the AVG group at the Frankfurt airport and flew together to Krakow. In Krakow, we leisurely toured the main square, a group willing to brave the cold night air saw the famous fire-breathing dragon outside the castle, and students shared snacks and candy from each other’s home countries and played games together. It was powerful to see how quickly cultural differences and language barriers were dropped as the students became fast friends. 

On our second day in Krakow, we visited some famous synagogues and learned about how the Nazi army had destroyed cemeteries and used tombstones as paving for some of the concentration camps they built, often forcing Jews to deface these sacred markings of departed loved ones, friends, and neighbors. We also saw the ghettos where Jews from all over the country were forced to live: quarters getting smaller and smaller as the months passed, food in shorter supply, and their dignity violated repeatedly as they were viewed and treated as less than human.

The two days we spent at Auschwitz I and II perhaps affected all of us the most profoundly. First, I think we were all surprised to learn that there were almost 50 “Auschwitz” camps. The Nazis systematically killed two-thirds of all Jews living in Krakow. Oskar Schindler (whose Krakow factory we visited) is credited with saving the one-third who survived, approximately 1,200 people. The first compound we visited was meant to be a holding place for forced workers, children, and others deemed healthy enough to work until they died. Few people survived more than a few months, so every camp the Nazis built could be considered a “death camp.” We saw the cramped quarters where dozens of people slept, the rows of wired fences to contain the prisoners (the few successful escapees did so when they were doing forced labor off-site), and the wall against which thousands of people were stood up to be shot. We also walked through one of the gas chambers. 

Of all the rooms we visited, one that stood out most to all of us was a room that had children’s drawings penciled on the walls. We learned that these were exact recreations of what people found after the Nazis had fled the camp. The children drew images of life before incarceration, of Nazi soldiers shooting people trying to escape, and of family and friends who likely had been killed or died of inhumane living conditions. It was a painful reminder of what the children in those camps were witnessing and how they used the only means they could to recapture the past and tell their story to the future. 

After a somber day in camp I, the students were divided into two groups (mixing TVS and AVG students), and they attended a workshop together. First, experts shared stories from some of the victims of the camps (including non-Jews), then the students were placed into small groups and asked to prepare a short presentation based on the detailed stories they were given. The students worked together to share the voices of those long gone, the voices of those who had lost and suffered so much. It helped us all move beyond the mind-numbing statistics of those who died and put faces and names to some of the victims. Seeing the TVS and AVG students working side by side to tell these stories was powerful.

The next day, we visited the second largest camp in Auschwitz. It is an expansive compound of barrack after barrack as far as the eye can see, most famous because it was the end of a rail line for the famous cattle cars that brought millions of people to their last stop. That was where more than one million people were killed. They were either put to death immediately in gas chambers, were shot, or they were used for labor until they died. The conditions there were worse than those of the camp we visited the day before; on average, people only “survived” for a week or two because they were given very little food, they were dressed in thin rags (regardless of the weather), toilet breaks were allotted once a day and in large groups, they slept like sardines on hard wooden planks, and they were forced to labor throughout the day. Disease killed many of them, diseases that could have been prevented or cured if the Nazis had wanted them to survive.

One of the most impactful experiences for me was when both schools offered candles and a moment of silence at a space dedicated to such acts of recognition. We planned with AVG teachers before the trip so that a special candle for this purpose could be made. First, the AVG students placed their candle and the group huddled together in solidarity and respect. Second, I asked one of the Jewish students from TVS if he wanted to light and place the candle. Without hesitation, he agreed. The moment he placed the candle on the stone marker, he took off his hat and knelt. It was the most emotional I had seen him on the trip so far. As a trip leader, I never know what experience will have the greatest impact on our students. This one, obviously, meant a great deal to him and to all of us, German and US American, as we moved in close to be a part of that moment.

We have a tradition on TOE and Trojans Abroad Programs called B.A.S.E. camp. It’s a time when we ask students to share their “Bests” of the day or the trip so far, they “Acknowledge” people who did something special for them (a member of our group or complete strangers), we talk about “Self-care,” and we discuss “Expectations” for the next day. On our last evening in Frankfurt together after the AVG students had headed home and it was just the TVS group, each student shared a Best. They smiled as they talked of new friends they made and how much they enjoyed hanging out with the AVG students. I also asked them if they felt that visiting Auschwitz and being there was different from learning about it in school or from videos. Unanimously, the answer was yes. The students went around the table describing the room, the object, the image, or the moment when they were hit hardest by the tragedies we witnessed. For each of us, that moment when we wanted to break down and cry (and several did) was different. It was clear that this experience had changed us. We found friends, we learned more about our cultures - German and U.S. - and we felt the sobering weight of the unimaginable tragedies that millions of people suffered during the Holocaust.

I was humbled to be a part of that journey, and I remain grateful to Mrs. Relyea, Mr. Schweitzer, the TVS and AVG students who chose this experience, and everyone who supported the trip. It was a journey that we are all likely to remember for the rest of our lives.