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.
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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.

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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.

Day 2 - Lectures Really Start, Small Group Projects Are Assigned

Mozart's birth house in downtown Salzburg.

It seems impossible to have enough time and peace of mind to sit down to write a real, comprehensive blog about what’s been happening. We finally got out of our last session today at 10 PM after which I rushed to my room to wait for Ken’s phone call and subsequently went to the Bierstube, the basement “bar.”

I now have my carefully dosed medicine of one beer in me which is pretty helpful with my jet lag sleeping problems. I’m loopy and hungry, but I’ll try to at the very least give a rough account on what went on today.

We started at 9 AM with a lecture by Norman Yetman on The First Universal Nation: People in the 20th and 21st Century. He opened his lecture with Frost’s “Mending Wall” and went on to talk about immigration, race, identity, and many other things. After a short coffee break we went back for a plenary discussion and got introduced to our Small Group Project.

Each group (there are seven of them) gets assigned a country pair and is supposed to research on immigration, both historical and current. I was assigned to the USA-Mexico group along with seven others including the faculty advisor. Before lunch we also had our group picture taken with the Sound of Music background. After lunch we briefly met with our groups. Around 2:45 PM we went on a walking tour of Salzburg after which Roberto, Sandra and I went shopping. I bought way too many German books and ended up loosing both Roberto and Sandra and ended up taking a cab back to the Schloss.

Dinner! We ate and got a make-up of the Schloss Tour which had been rescheduled since we weren’t here yet yesterday when it was supposed to happen. The tour was decent and we went to our next lecture straight after that: Mapping Ethnocentrism. It was quite long and many folks I talked to (including myself) nearly nodded off during, although we all agreed that the content was fascinating, but I guess what David said about the jet lag hitting you really hard on the second day became true for most of us during the lecture.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but still go to the Bierstube. I played some table tennis and foseball with Nate.

There’s so much more. Great conversations. Moments of feeling a new connection within our group. Making new friends. Having really “big” conversations. Having life-changing realizations. I hope there will be detailed descriptions of those. For now, stay tuned, and I’ll see you all tomorrow!

Day 1 -- Traveling and Welcome

To your right you can see Shiraz at the airport in Salzburg, Austria, and other members of our group.

So here we are, it’s 23:40 according to our Austrian timed alarm clock in our room. Sandra and I are conveniently rooming together, taking away my worries of waking up and only being able to talk in German.

We all arrived early at the airport in New York, and Dean Craig came to see us off as she filmed each of us talking about how we felt embarking on our big trip. There was lots of waiting in lines until we finally got here.

It took us two more hours than planned on the runway and we finally took off on a Lufthansa plane to Frankfurt, Germany, where our connecting flight was supposed to be waiting for us. We ended up arriving 40 minutes late which isn’t bad considering that we took off two hours after we were supposed to, but we still missed our plane. We had already been rebooked on the next flight, and after a trip to McDonald’s and some of us doing our assigned reading homework, it was off to Salzburg.

Since we were on the plane with two other schools, Bronx Community College and Kingsborough Community College, making up a large chunk of the group of 50, the higher ups had waited for us and we didn’t really miss much. We still had time for dinner when we arrived at the castle and then were off to the welcome speech during which each one of us stood up to introduce ourselves, as well as all the chaperones and some of the faculty.

Now I’m sitting in our room, not quite thinking straight and pretty sleep deprived, but I wanted to put something on paper, well, on the computer more like. This really is only the logistics of our trip, but leaves out much of the emotion and the things we talked and laughed about. Let me catch up on that some other time. For now, I’m going to sleep.

Addition: It's already the next morning and I'm posting this in the library since our room has a very weak internet connection. Fulda is up with me sitting next to me and I'm waiting on Sandra to get breakfast with me. I couldn't fall asleep last night and was up until past 2 AM. I decided to go down to the Bierstube, a homy bar in the basement, well, not really a bar but a basement space where we can hang out and sign out our drinks on an honor system, pretty cool. I ended up getting a beer so I could calm down, I was so wired, I may have stayed up all night. Ok, more tonight and later, I haven't even checked my e-mail yet. Off to another amazing meal!

Flight Dates, Numbers, and Alumni

There seems to be a new link on the Salzburg Seminar website, either that or I didn't see it the last times I visited. Check out a description of the International Studies Program for Undergraduate Students. They offer lots of information, including what CUNY schools have been going to the seminar: BMCC, Bronx Community College, Hostos Community College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Kingsborough Community College, LaGuardia Community College, and Queensborough Community College.

I also found out that initially around 70 people applied for the seminar at BMCC out of which 30 were chosen to interview. Then, over 2 and a half days of interviewing, the 15 finalists were picked. It's surprising to me that not more than 70 apply, but perhaps that has to do with the fact that it is only the third year that BMCC is going. Dean Craig went with a group of students in 2005 for the first time. In 2006, Vice President Haynes chaperoned the group, and this year Mr. Mars is going.

We had our last workshop on Friday, and we have one more next week when we will get our T-shirts, laptops, etc., and then it's off to Austria! We also received our flight dates: on April 1, Sunday, we will be leaving JFK on Lufthansa, flight 405, at 9:10 PM. We'll have to be at the airport two hours early, since it's an international flight. We connect to a flight on Austrian Airlines (264) in Frankfurt, Germany (not long enough to meet up with my friends) and finally arrive in Salzburg at 1:40 PM. We leave Austria on Monday, April 9, at 2:25 PM on Austrian Airlines, flight number 265. We connect to Lufthansa in Frankfurt on flight number 404 to arrive at JFK at 5 PM.

At our last workshop Dean Craig invited some former attendees to speak to us about their experience. Sabine, whom I recognized from my first semester Philosophy class, said that she had been at a crossroads before attending the seminar. She encouraged us to talk to the professors and make connections. Many of them said that it was an emotional, eye-opening time. BMCC stood out by how they presented themselves. Some alumni who weren't able to attend sent e-mails: Graham said that his experience was like a painting: you attempt to look at small beautiful parts but realize that in its entirety can it only be fully appreciated. Like a fish who lives in a bucket is transferred into the ocean. Ilva added that in order to change the world today one must understand how international organizations work. Just to see the magnitude of the change Salzburg had on her, she told us how she was now studying International Studies with a focus on Green Architecture. Everyone agreed on one thing: be open-minded.

Other ideas were to spend time in the beautiful and resourceful library, to take notes, they will be helpful later on. Talk to everyone, other students, professors, facilitators. And if you want to be extra prepared, read up on current events and research as much as you can with a focus on globalization.

In the end of the meeting we practiced German for a little while. I recommended Language Guide, as well as a great book titled "German in 10 Minutes a Day."

Itinerary and Other Details

This is our group! Including Mr. Mars, our chaperone, on the very left. Very exciting.

I finally studied the booklet in more detail. It's a filled week, no doubt. Each morning we are scheduled for a talk of some sort from 9 until 10 AM. We then have coffee/tea (I love that) at 10, after which there is another discussion. Lunch is at 12:30 every day, and after another group activity we have coffee/tea again at 3:30 PM. More program until dinner at 6:30, and then we have the last event of the day which includes a fireside talk on Wednesday, sounds cozy.

On Wednesday, April 5, we will be visiting Dachau, a concentration camp. Ironically, this is something I always voted for when we were deciding where to go on our field trips back in Germany, but I was overruled each time. Now that I live across the ocean I get the chance to actually finally go there. My Mom lived through WWII, her father, my grandfather, died in a field in Russia. She used to tell me how Americans would give the children chewing gum, but then it wasn't well known in Germany and people thought that they were trying to poison the children, so they never ate it but threw it out instead.

Our Dachau visit will be an interesting starting point of conversation considering all the other genocides that have happened but have not received similar reactions. I can't wait. I can sense that this trip will be truly life-changing.

To give you a better idea of what this entire program is actually about, let me quote from the syllabus:

"In an age of new international challenges and tensions, the need for Americans to understand international affairs, to recognize cultural values other than their own, and to view world events from a variety of perspectives, has becomes increasingly
critical. The purpose of this program is to provide an intensive seven-day international experience for participants to explore pressing issues of global
concern and to view such issues from a perspective both literally and figuratively outside the borders of the United States.

Participants should leave with knowledge and skills to acquire a better understanding of the international political order, the global economy, and worldwide social developments. Because the Salzburg Seminar is located in the heart of Europe, the session will pay special attention to the political, economic and cultural history of the trans-Atlantic relationship, its future dimensions, and the impact such changes may have on the rest of the world. At the same time, mindful of increasing global interconnectedness, the session will consider issues of particular concern to regions of the developing world. In this way, students will be exposed to the relationship between the historical legacy of the latter part of the 20th century, global responsibility, humanitarian intervention, and social justice.

It is intended that this program will make students more aware of global issues and of what it means to be a 'good citizen', more discerning on the assessment of information pertaining to world affairs, and more understanding of America's place in the worlds as well as of non-Americans' perception of the U.S."

This was a bit lengthy but I it sums it all up so well it deserves the space. This is what this seminar will be all about.

We will do all this through pedagogical modules which include plenary lectures, small group work, and some cultural exchange which will include meeting local students, film screenings, and a classical concert.

There's a (still subject to change) list of faculty for the seminar, and finally lecture topics, also still subject to change: Mapping Ethnocentrism, The First Universal Nation: The American People in the 20th and 21st Century, The Third Sector: Creating Inclusive Societies, Emerging Diseases and Bio-Terrorism: Global Health and Economic Issues of Importance, The Legacy of the Holocaust in Europe: An Introduction to the Visit to the Former Concentration Camp in Dachau, Civil Society and Foreign Aid: The Eastern European Experience, The U.S. of America and the World: Views From a Distance, and finally The Role of the UN Today.

For our pre-reading we have Europe vs. America on our list as well as Inescapable Side by Side: An Interview with David Held, a text called Mass Migrations on Europe (published by the European Science Foundation), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Beyond Hegemony.

Our First Workshop

To your right you see Schloss Leopoldskron. I can almost smell the fresh Austrian air.

Finally, this past Friday our group met at school for our first workshop. Now I feel like there is too much information to blog about! We were immersed in filling out various agreement forms, our personal biographies for the seminar, etc.

We got thick booklets of information to seep through: our syllabus, reading assignments, tips for traveling abroad, weather forecasts, and more.

In the very beginning we played switch: we would talk to a new person and find out as much as we could about them until Dean Craig would say "switch." Turns out that two pairs of people have identical birth dates in our group! Whoever found out first would win an umbrella. I think Kimberly won. It was fun, and I was delighted to find out that our group is super diverse: a lot of us have similar stories of working another job, getting married, simply having a nontraditional path. Everyone is from all over the place, Morocco, Turkey, Israel, Haiti, Germany, Philippines, and the list goes on and on.

Dean Craig had saved quotes that we said when she told us that we had been picked for the trip. She'd show them to us and we'd have to guess if it was us. It was pretty neat, most everyone guessed right and many gave a recap of how they'd felt.

Dean Craig also told us that last year some students ended up having visa problems and couldn't go. Yikes. I hope that our group won't run into that. You'd think that they'd cut us some slack and provide a smoother way of getting visas for everyone without having to run back and forth and gathering insane amounts of paperwork.

We've developed a google group that we communicate through and are sharing information about insurance and carry-on restrictions and such. We'll be interlinking our blogs here until the school finds a way to give us a website that we can all post to.

Our next workshop is in two weeks. Stay tuned for more updates!