Pictures of the Trip

Here are the pictures I took during our trip. Enjoy!

Back Home

Wow, so I'm actually back in NY, spending some last moments with my laptop, uploading and copying pictures.

It's great to be home to see Ken, the cats, the DVR (I cannot lie), my favorite foods and my tea assortment, my books and my own bed with my own pillow. My shower that actually closes all the way and a shower head that doesn't fall on me. It was pretty harsh though coming back. Zaid gave me a ride to 42nd Street from where I took the A train to go home.

I almost dropped my laptop when I heard the first car honking and got a whiff of air that smelled like urin when I walked down the subway stairs. On the train, as I was trying to take off my bag, a big guy took the seat I had aimed for, and another one was leaning against the pole so that I had a hard time holding on. Good old New York. On the other end of the car a father was yelling at his child, b.... this and f... that. Yes, I'm home again.

When I woke up this morning I took a mental walk out of the Meierhof towards the lake. I sat on the bench and looked over the lake, up the Untersberg and across the other mountains of the Alps. I walked over to breakfast. I wonder what the castle is like now, without us there, all quiet and more magical even.

I took out our e-mail list and transferred some of my blogs to the BMCC blog page. I looked over our welcome letter to the alumni of the program. I looked over other people's blogs. I chatted with Jamie and I watched some law & order. It's good to be back.

I think a big part of why the seminar was so amazing was that we were treated with so much respect. There was the honor system in the Bierstube. There was all the meals and coffee breaks we got, we were almost treated like celebrities. It was like celebrities cruises, just in Salzburg in a castle. It was perfect. We had so much freedom and at the same time so many responsibilities.

It was such a good environment. I'll miss that. I'll miss so much of it. It still seems so close, almost as if I can really just walk out the door and I'll be back there. That'll change soon, but that's OK. All the intellectual stuff will be with me forever.

Day 7-7.5 – Last Day and Day of Departure

I still feel like the sleep deprivation is really messing with my writing skills. I have a hard time thinking of how to begin my sentences.

It’s 11 AM on the morning of our departure. Let me start with yesterday.

I didn’t get up until 10:30 AM which was so great. I went to sleep late the night before so it didn’t make that much of a difference, but I did feel more rested. A bunch of people went on some outings during the morning, but I decided to sleep in. We met at 11:30 AM to rehearse our skit for the presentations. At 12:30 we went to lunch and presentations started at 1:30 PM. All of them were really great. Our skit went over better than I had expected it, and people really loved it and laughed a lot.

We broke for coffee, and people were taking pictures of their groups, pictures of their old friends, their new friends. We went back to the seminar room for the last time. David, Astrid and Jochen gave us some notes on how the groups had performed. A bunch of goodbye-speeches, and we were off to our rooms. I docked my camera quickly and we were off to a walk around the lake, finally!

It was really beautiful and I got a ton of great pictures. Back at the Schloss we changed for the reception. I got tipsy off of a glass of champagne. Next on the schedule was a classical concert by a local music student for about an hour. It was nice to sit and just relax and listen to music. Not many of us had stopped and taken a break since we’d gotten here.

Afterwards we had a banquet, which was pretty much what we’d been doing at dinner every night except that everyone was dressed up and we got table service. The rest of the night was spent in the Bierstube. A lot of us actually didn’t even go to sleep. One group left at 5 AM, another at 8 AM, and a bunch of us just didn’t go back to bed. I did sleep for about three hours, was back up at 8 AM this morning, and off to breakfast.

Ola, Marie, Phil and I sat with Reinhold, Norman, Michael and Norman’s wife talking about politics, voter turnout, and Bush. It was a nice last breakfast and I was off to my room with some breakfast for Sandra who was still sleeping. I took a quick shower and packed. I went to the lake to write some postcards and went back to the little library area to blog, and I think for now this is the last one I’ll actually post before I’m back home.

It’s been amazing, to say the least. I feel too exhausted and drained to actually express everything that I feel and that I’ve learned. It’s almost overwhelming. I guess the biggest lesson since we were such a mixed group is that it is possible to get along and be friends and respect each other, no matter the difference of opinion. I became friends with some amazing people this week. It’s like one of the speakers said, I’m not sure I remember exactly who, but if people get to really know you, they’ll look beyond your skin color and begin to see you as a person. Skin color can be replaced by any other distracting, irrelevant prejudice that stands in the way when people communicate.
I’m off to call Ken one last time, pack my bag and take some more pictures of the Schlossgarden. This isn’t the last blog! I’ll write more and reflect on experiences as they come up. Maybe with some distance from the actual event it’ll be even more interesting and more substantial than anything I wrote while I was here.

For now, I’m sad and happy to leave. I love the castle and the serenity that surrounds it. At the beginning of the week they said that the magic of the castle may get to us. It certainly has gotten to me.

Day 6 – Group Projects are Finalized

This is where we hang out for our coffee breaks, the back porch of the castle.

The day started with Reinhold Wagnleiter’s lecture on The U.S. of America and the World: Views from a Distance. I think the title does a good job in giving you an idea of what the lecture was about. We heard lots of numbers of how people respond to questions about America, as well as what some twelve-year-olds think about when they talk about America. “Dumb President” was one of them, and Reinhold said that that wasn’t even what they really said, it was much nicer (meaning dumb was nicer than the other words they used).

We spent the afternoon finalizing our research papers in the small groups and ours specifically writing our skit. After dinner we had our final lecture of the week: Emerging Diseases and Bio-Terrorism: Global Health and Economic Issues of Importance by Michael Thomas. Afterwards there was more rehearsing all over the castle and I finally settled in my room after talking to Ken on the phone around 2 AM. Chris was hanging out in our room and we continued to talk until about 3 AM. Sandra and I finally fell asleep.

Today is actually already day seven, but I’ll blog more about the entire day tomorrow when we’re back on the road again. For now, it’s almost noon and I slept in for the first time. I did wake up from the cleaning woman opening our door and after that I was in and out of sleep, but I do feel pretty rested. I still haven’t done the math of how many hours of sleep I actually got, combined, for the entire week. I’ll perhaps do that tomorrow on the plane. I do want to talk about my impressions while everything is still fresh but the reality is that I didn’t get ANY schoolwork done while here and that all the stress is starting up again as soon as we’re back. Still, hopefully I’ll be able to write a bunch on the plane or while we’re waiting around. I’m also planning on adding hyperlinks once I’m back on a real computer with a real mouse and not a touch pad.

I’m waiting for members of my group so we can rehearse. Sandra is still upstairs getting ready and Chris is sitting next to me on the couch and we’re recapping everything that has happened. It’s a pretty nice day today, although it’s a bit chilly, and I still want to walk around the lake and take more pictures. Chris and I just decided to do that tomorrow.

Well, I am going to go ahead and post this and hope that my group will start trickeling in soon. Ok, someone just got here.

Day 5 - German Students Visit

Blumen im Schlossgarden.

Our day started out with a talk by Nina Kolybashkina on Civil Society and Foreign Aid. Despite us all being sleep deprived and sick and achy, we loved the interactive talk and continued our discussions afterward. After lunch we broke off into small groups again and got lots of work done, since tonight some of it is actually due.

At 5 PM we met a bunch of Austrian students from near Universities. We all “adopted” a bunch of them and took them into our respective groups from our projects and talked about America and how it is perceived in the rest of the world, specifically from their point of view.

We did tell them to be completely honest, and despite knowing what Europe thinks of the U.S. and despite being a German living in the U.S., in a way it hurt and it was hard to listen to. I guess it is very different from knowing it subconsciously all the time and actually confronting it in another person. It was an amazing conversation though, and we talked about many other things such as a difference in legal systems (lack of a jury and no case law), the media portrayal of America and 9/11 and about the film industry.

At 7 PM we listened to Michael Daxner give a talk on Afghanistan. He has traveled extensively and just like Jan, the German intern at the seminar, predicted, he was quite amazing and knowledgable, just like this morning when we sat with him for breakfast and he explained along with Rheinhold how German grammar is actually much easier than English grammar and how there happen to be many more words in the English language than in German. It's been an honor and a treat to be around such intelligent and "vielseitige" people!

Pretty much everyone went out last night with the Germans while I stayed in, so I can't much talk about what they did. It's still early and I haven't even seen too many people. Lectures start in about 50 minutes.

It's about that time during our trip where we all realize that it's coming to an end. We really only have tomorrow left. It's a bit sad, but it's also exciting to realize how close we've come together in just a bunch of days. Most everyone has been so nice and real and stimulating to talk to. I must admit that I didn't think that Salzburg would do this to me. And it's not even over yet.

Day 4 - Dachau

Our bus to Dachau left at 9 AM this morning. I was scared all night last night about if I could handle it emotionally. I shared that sentiment with many others that I talked to. This whole week has been, yes, amazing and life changing, but also emotionally draining. I haven’t gotten much sleep, I haven’t had much alone time or play my guitar-therapy time, and it’s showing in me being on the verge of tears throughout certain events during the day.

So we were off to Dachau. We all got individual audio guides so we could be independent of tour guides and also explore individually and privately if we chose to do so. I walked around alone. I listened to a few recordings but soon abandoned the guide and the map. I found the cloister attached to the site. It reminded me of my Mom and how she always wanted to be a nun. How she was a saint in so many ways, how she had lived through World War II and had been lifted up as a five-year-old to hand Hitler, who was passing through her town on a wagon, some flowers.

I missed her, and I thought about her for a while. I grew up with the Holocaust reminders all around me. I watched the documentaries growing up, I’ve seen all the pictures, and besides feeling melancholy about my Mom, I really wasn’t quite moved by anything I saw. Well, I was moved, but not in a new groundbreaking way that made me cry or feel desperate.

I’ve also done so much research about genocide and read and learned about other instances of incredible cruelty, so in a weird way going to Dachau seemed like nothing much more than repeating old history to me.

We got back on the bus. I talked about other things, not Dachau. The girls next to me talked about other things, not Dachau. It was odd, to say the least. We got back in time for dinner. After dinner I played with Marlene and Ella, two little girls who were carefree and took my mind real far away for the time I spent with them.

Then, we had the fireside talk. It was unstructured, and people were invited to share comments or ask questions. The emotions began, and I realized that I began to be affected. I even felt like crying at one point. I meant to say something, but since I don’t have the guts to keep my hand up sometimes I gave up after a few failed attempts. I did start to notice that what I had anticipated to feel at the camp I began to feel now.

The talk ended with Phil reading from his notebook, reading a story about his family’s personal part in what we had learned about that day. There was lots of sniffing, and when the talk was officially finished, many people stayed in place crying, many people’s faces were buried in other people’s arms. I figured I’ll stay and give out a few hugs, but I felt too emotional, and I figured I’ll go to my room and write my thoughts down, just like Phil had done earlier today.

I did learn something after all.

Growing up in Germany I knew about the Holocaust. I even remember at one point thinking about how what if somehow the Holocaust had been forgotten or wiped from History through some freak event and one day information emerged about what happened, like papers of some sort. We would be so shocked. So shocked. I thought about that reaction verses the reaction we have on an every-day basis knowing our past, and growing up with this knowledge, thus never really learning it without knowing it beforehand. I think this was around the time when I started promising myself that I wouldn’t be immune to the daily news, that I wouldn’t sit by and eat my TV dinner while people were reported shot or killed on TV. I would act. I would do something about it. My activism was born.

Growing up in Germany, I never heard anyone say, “I am proud to be a German!” Certainly if anyone did, she’d be called a Nazi or looked upon in a suspicious way. Moving to the States at 17 and being exposed to the hardcore patriotism of rural North Dakota with the National Hymn and hand-on-the-heart standing ovations to the flag, I didn’t quite know where to place that feeling of confusion.

I realize now that I grew up with guilt about the Holocaust, guilt about being part of a country that has such a horrible history. I remember meeting the first Jewish person ever after moving to NYC in 1999, and feeling guilt and having to consciously get over that. I remember meeting black people and in a weird way feeling guilty to be white and wishing I was black. I had grown up knowing about my country’s history, but at the same time not really being patriotic. We never talked about how our country was great, we really rather talked about issues in a global context. This may sound cool, but at the same time I was less aware that the rest of the world wasn’t like Germany. I remember the first moment when I realized that the way I was living was actually the minority of how people lived. The large other part of the world’s population lived in much less convenient conditions than the ones I knew all my life and had taken for granted.

I got married to Ken who is American. 9/11 happened. I read 1984. I learned more about American patriotism and the "God Bless America" theme. After initially wanting to move to the states to be a cool hip American teenager I began to realize how shallow my ambitions were and that there wasn’t anything substantial behind them. I started to gain a picture of Germany that I hadn’t had before since I hadn’t been able to step back and see things from a distance. I began to see America very critically. For slavery, for all its acts of terrorism in the past, for its hypocrisy and inaction.

I have to word this carefully and I don’t want to offend anyone and please hear me out, this is all said with a deep love for humanity and to figure myself out. Being German and naturally being more critical of things especially my own government, it was more OK to me to be critical. Ken doesn’t quite like me bashing the U.S. sometimes, but I realize now more than ever that perhaps part of this criticism is a fear to repeat history, and a fear of other people not seeing what’s right before their eyes.

Not until I read 1984 did certain things in every day life make sense to me. They only made sense because I read the book. I could have never predicted that before. I was sick of the post 9/11 world of flags and God Bless America. Why not God Bless the World if you have to even use God, why not just Let’s do what we can ourselves to make this globe a better living environment for everyone. What do we have to be so proud of? Do we continually celebrate our accomplishments or do we spend more time and effort on the things we need to work on in order to be better, in order to stay positive and to look forward?

Patriotism still has a bad connotation to me. Some philosopher once said something like if there was no patriotism there would be no more war. That made me think. Maybe being proud of my country isn’t enough. Maybe I need to be proud of my world. And if my country does something to be ashamed of, I should be ashamed of it. But maybe that isn’t enough. Maybe if my world does something to be ashamed of, I should be ashamed of my world. I am, after all, a global citizen, I share responsibility. The people in Darfur are as much my fellow humans as my next door neighbors are, as my family in Germany is. Maybe if we all start feeling a little more like that there is a better chance of preventing another genocide.
______________________________________________

07/18/07: I am finally adding Phill's story (with his permission of course).

My mother was born in Mannheim, Germany. I’m not sure exactly how far that is, but it’s a lot closer to Dauchau than New York. That is where her mother and father were born. It is where their mothers and fathers were born too. I’m told my Great Grandfather, Philipp, worked for the German railroad as a train conductor. It was his job in the rail yard to make sure the right locomotives were on the right tracks attached to the right cars and headed in the right direction. It was a modest job that afforded him the ability to keep his family’s bellies full and a warm bed to sleep. With war on the horizon that was a luxury for most. He thought it quite odd the number of empty cattle cars being shifted about, but again war was coming and it was not his place to ask questions.

Time had passed and the cattle cars came back full, filled to the brim. They were not loaded like cattle and they were not packed in like sardines. They were not animals though they were people. Human beings treated with a level of disdain and disregard people reserve only for other people. Not even dogs are made to suffer like this. After all, the Nazis made sure to feed the dogs.

For a time, my Great Grandfather was able to resist acknowledging what was happening. All he saw were the hands. Only hands are not people. Only hands cannot look you in the eye. My Great Grandfather had his family to feed and now war was no longer just on the horizon.

In this time, my Great Grandfather’s son, my Grandfather, also named Philipp would take lunch to his father. Walking through the train yard, he too passed the hands. At fourteen years old and with a rebellious streak as long as the cars of hands, he had not yet learned not to ask too many questions. “Who are you? Why are you here?” were met with pleads and cries for help. “Move along or you will be shot,” shouted the guards any time he would linger too long. Soon, my Great Grandfather gave up eating lunch. He and his son agreed the hands needed it more. Each day would be thousands of more hands and each day my grandfather would bring a few of them his half loaf of bread and cup of water.

As my mother tells me this story she adds how ashamed my family was that this was all they could do. As more and more full cars came and more and more cars returned empty, my family’s shame grew as well. After all, what could half a loaf of bread and cup of water do for so many suffering thousands? I know what it did. It brought someone hope. Each day, one more person knew they would not die of starvation or thirst just yet. The rest of the world has not given up. Not all is lost, yet.

Soon thereafter the whispered questions reached my Great Grandfather’s bosses. Because of his skills as a conductor he was not expendable, but he was not above being punished. He was sent to the Russian front. He was lucky to return home alive after the end of the war.

At the same time, the German Army came to take my Grandfather to fight. He refused. “Fine,” they told him. They would take his little brother instead. Only then did he agree to go. He fought in the panzer division at the Battle of the Bulge. He was captured and held as a prisoner of war. His little brother, only 12, was drafted to fight. My mother stops telling the story for a moment, then he is not mentioned again.

This is the story of my family as it has been passed down to me. This is the story that passes through my head as I walk to Barrack X. I approach the entrance in a strange mixture of calmness and curiosity. Each step requires more and more effort and becomes more and more difficult. It was the showers. My panicked legs carry me outside before I could tell them to run. I’m thankful I don’t choke on the lump in my throat and I’m still able to breathe. I make my way to the back of the barrack and take heavy labored steps in the direction of the small path through the trees, desperate for any kind of shelter from everything.

Here I found the killing grounds, the blood trench and the tiny square of earth where thousands of undocumented people’s ashes were laid to rest. These might be the hands. This is where they most likely met their end. Could it be that one of the hands that took the half loaf of bread are here? Is there a chance these nameless hands sent to nameless graves were touched by my family generations ago? There is no way to know for sure. In the bus ride back I have started to come to peace with this.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to be here, to have seen what I have seen, and to share what I have shared. I struggled the entire time I was here with wanting to take something with me. A rock, stick, blade of grass, a picture, postcard or a souvenir… something. But then I realized I don’t need to. I have this story, my story. That’s not something I can pick up off the ground or buy in a shop. I have learned the truth about my family history that I did not have before today. That is something I will never loose like a rock or stick. It will not die like a blade of grass. It’s so much more personal than a souvenir. This is my story to tell. This is my story to pass on.

___________________________________________

Also, if you'd like to read my graduation speech which was inspired by the Salzburg Seminar, and particularly this day, read it here.

Day 3 - Meeting Champa and Party in the Bierstube

Ksenia hanging out by the lake.

Today is actually the morning of Day 3. It’s a little past 7 AM in the morning and I am about to leave for breakfast after which I still have some work to do. We are leaving today for Dachau at 8:30 AM, but I’ll report in detail about that tomorrow.

Yesterday, we listened to our first lecture by Champa Patel, Creating Inclusive Societies. Champa was especially charming and charismatic in a way that she drew everyone in and held our attention beyond the compelling issues we talked about, such as her grassroots work in her community with young kids that still have to develop aspirations that we take for granted. She’s the chair of ENIGMA youth project where she works with asylum seekers and youth offenders, etc.

After lunch we again divided into our small groups to work on our project. We hashed out last details and worked on our research. At 5 PM we went to watch the movie “What’s Cooking?” directed by the same woman who directed “Bend It Like Beckham.” It was really good, if you have netflix make sure to put it on your queue.

After dinner we had an hour’s worth of introduction to Dachau by Astrid and David. I think I speak for a large part of the group when I say that I’m a bit scared to go, a bit scared of what I’ll feel and how it will manifest itself.

Perhaps because of that or maybe because it was Champa’s last night here, a large chunk of the seminar attendees gathered at the Bierstube later that night. After I played table tennis with Jan, the German Intern, we started watching the crowd that had gathered to dance in the main room. It was quite a sight and we ended up laughing and squealing (at least I squealed) watching everyone having a blast and looking at some really fun pictures that were a result of the madness.

When I finally got back to our room at 2 AM I was too tired to draft my blog for the next morning which is why I’m writing this now. I’m off to breakfast and then a quick session with Kelly, my partner in our group for some revisions on our research, and then off to Dachau.

Oh, and there seems to be something going around: both Shiraz and Funda lost their voices, someone else was coming down with the flu, but all in all we are in good spirits and really making this the best time we can.