Sunday, December 28, 2014

Purchasing, Preparing, and Pondering

Well, it's been a busy break, and I've been busy with Christmas (I am Christian, so that's the holiday we celebrate), New Years (which also happens to be my birthday), and trip planning.   So, I thought I would share a little. . .

Purchasing is almost complete.

I have a COAT!!  Hallelujah!  I finally settled on my coat for the trip - a tri-climate.  I love it because it will be functional there, but I can separate it for the milder winters we have here in Alabama, so that seems practical.  I like practical.

BOOTS have been ordered.  Yesterday, I told a dear friend that I have a new context for "kill the fatted calf."   I have learned in the last week that #1, it's hard to find good looking winter boots in the deep south, and #2, I have a larger-than-average calf circumference.  I'd like to attribute that to my years of running, but that really wouldn't be accurate.   SO, I have ordered THREE pairs of winter boots.  I used Amazon Prime, got free shipping, and have free returns on all pairs.  Again, seems practical.  Hopefully I can make a decision this week!
 
The preparations continue.

I also continue to read and watch as I prepare myself academically.  I was invited by a friend to visit with her and her father at his home last week.  He has an extensive collection of World War II paraphernalia - including a large collection of books and documentaries related to the Holocaust.  While his collection was more-than-fascinating, listening to his personal remembrances - of the films and books, the people he had met through years of research and collecting,  the places he had visited - was the most intriguing of all.  He compelled me to dig deeply and think hard.  I left with a box full of books and movies.  I'm working through it.  I am thankful for it.

Throughout the holidays, it seems that I keep hearing cliches and other phrases that I catch myself thinking of in new ways.  So much of this season focuses on family and home.  The most vivid phrase, though, may be this one....and 

I've been pondering it....

Phone home.  

When the story broke about the Auschwitz: Past is Present committee, I had several conversations with friends about the celebrities who are a part of that group  - especially Steven Spielberg.  You see, E. T. was my very favorite childhood movie.  I remember watching it again as a teenager in Spanish during my high school Spanish class.  I cried.  I just loved it - even in another language - and Spielberg has always been a director I admired.  So, the conversations turned to, "I wonder if you'll meet Steven Spielberg."  I began to think, "What in the world would I say if I had a chance to meet him?"  Well, the lighthearted side of me thought about things people have probably been shouting to him from across yellow tape for years - "Don't go in the water!"  and "Phone home!"

Then it hit me:  "Phone home."  Wow.  That seems so easy, doesn't it?  In this day and age, when we have the ability to communicate with people around the world in an instant, think about those words. Phone home.   I can hear the voice of my mother saying, "Call me when you get there."  I can hear friends telling their children, "Let me know that you make it alright."  Phoning home is just something people do.  We call (or text or email) to let our loved ones know that we have made it somewhere safely.  We keep each other informed about the goings-on of our lives - sometimes to a fault.  Communication is so easy.

I remember when our county was devastated by a tornado in April of 2011.  Communication systems were down.  Power was out.   My husband, who is a first responder, spent hours of his time helping the injured and recovering the lost in the immediate aftermath of the storm.  I was home alone with two young children.  He was out there in the darkness.  He couldn't "phone home," and I was terrified.

So, in light of the trip and all the research I've been doing to prepare, the joke of hypothetically greeting Spielberg with "phone home" took on new meaning.

You see, for prisoners in concentration camps, there was no "phoning home."  There was no way to communicate with the outside world.  There was no knowing.  There was no real warning.  They were completely cut off, and that's just what the Nazis wanted.

From my research, I have determined that any communication from inside the camp was either a forced letter praising the conditions, or brief snippets of information, or speculation about what was going on.  I am continuing to investigate.  

The point is, though, that through the Nazi practice of isolation then concentration, communication was limited - if not totally absent.  No one "phoned home."  In reality, there was no "home" to "phone."

Parents waited for word from children.  Children waited for word from parents.  Siblings wanted to hear from each other. Where were they taken?  Were they alright?  When would they be reunited?

Even within camps, communicaton appears to have been difficult at best.  In a book I'm currently reading, Into That Darkness, one survivor tells of the separation from his family after exiting the train.  He notes that if you lost sight of them, you likely had lost sight forever.

Today, we watch the news about missing planes and wonder what really happened.  Where did the planes go?  Where are those people?

Over seventy years ago, people were "disappearing" - THOUSANDS at a time. 

 Oh yes, there were some who knew.  There were some who thought they knew.  There were some who likely did not know.  But millions of people were just GONE.  

It is now our responsibility to remember.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Trip-related articles (links)

Chattanooga Times-Free Press http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2014/dec/23/fort-payne-teacher-attend-program-poland/279430/

USC Shoah Foundation - committee

AL.com - Huntsville

Auschwitz Memorial - worldwide events

World Jewish Congress - survivors to attend

One month away....

Well, December has flown by.  Wrapping up the semester at school and preparing for Christmas have been quite busy, but my mind wanders so often to my upcoming trip.  I leave one month from today! (Well, now it's yesterday...my typing went past midnight.)

I had been planning to beef up my research and preparation once school was out, so this weekend, I got going.  I love Netflix, and I have found some very good Holocaust documentaries there.  This weekend, I finished the BBC series called Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State.     I think I will likely re-watch some segments again this month. I want to have clear mental images of the grounds of the camp from 70 years ago.  I want to remember important names and stories.

Then, I watched an intriguing documentary called Hitler's Children.  This film tracks the descendents of some powerful members of the Nazi Party.  They share their stories of dealing with the horrible crimes committed by their parents and grandparents.  One particularly interesting segment was when the grandson of the commandant of Auschwitz went to the camp to see where his now-estranged father had grown up.  He was somehow given the opportunity to speak with a group of Jewish students who were visiting that day.  Their exchange was powerful and moving.  This film explored an aspect of the Holocaust that I hadn't really considered.  I almost turned it off after a few minutes, but I'm glad I finished it.

Next up was a film called Forgiving Dr. Mengele.  It is the story of Holocaust survivor Eva Kor and her personal journey of forgiveness in an effort to find peace.  She and her twin sister, Miriam, were among the twins on whom Dr. Mengele experimented at Auschwitz.  Although many survivors strongly disagree with her approach, Mrs. Kors believes that forgiving helped her be free.

Finally, I watched Paper Clips.  This film is about the paper clip project at Whitwell Middle School in Whitwell, Tennessee.  This school is only about an hour from my home, and I have been interested in this project for many years.  I plan to contact the school during break, and I hope to be able to visit there prior to my trip.   Practically, I enjoyed seeing how teachers, students, school administrators, and an entire community - a rural area in the south - were determined to create a meaningful and lasting tribute to keep the memory of the victims of the Holocaust alive.  I hope to share this film with my students.

So, that was my weekend viewing.  There is much more to see and do in the next month.   

As far as trip planning is concerned, I've got to make some decisions about a boot purchase and a coat purchase.  I had an unsuccessful shopping trip to Chattanooga today, so I suppose I'll turn to online shopping.  I think I've looked at 400 pairs of snow boots online.  I was hoping to try on a few pairs today, but alas, none of the few I saw were very appealing.  

The to-do list is getting full, but that just means the trip is closer to reality! 




Monday, December 1, 2014

Preparations are Underway!

Well, I am getting more and more excited all the time.  In mid-November, I received my flight arrangements, and today, I completed all my travel and medical release forms.  This trip is becoming more and more real all the time!

When my trip gets underway in January, I will be flying from Huntsville, Alabama,  to Houston, Texas, on a commuter plane. I will then fly an overnight flight from Houston to Munich, Germany.  After a short stop in Munich, I'll head to Warsaw.  Hotel arrangements haven't been sent out yet.  I believe we will be spending the bulk of the trip in Warsaw before heading to Auschwitz and Krakow.  On the way home, I'll fly from Krakow to Frankfort to Dulles (Washington, D.C.) to Huntsville.

I have been able to connect with several other educators through Twitter.  Our hashtag is #pastispresent.  I resisted Twitter for a long time, but I am really enjoying it.  I primarily use it for professional reading - I follow lots of education folks - but I am so thankful to be able to "meet" my colleagues be for we begin our journey.  This weekend, we also got a link to the group Wiki.  All of the group biographies are posted there, so we can learn about each other prior to the trip.  That's been fun to read.  Staff bios are coming soon, and with those we will learn more about our companions from Discovery Education and the USC Shoah Foundation.  I look forward to meeting and working with this amazing group of educators!

Additional preparations are also underway from an academic perspective.  All participants have been asked to watch video testimonies from the iWitness website.   This website houses thousands of testimonies told by survivors themselves.  It is an unbelievable database of stories.  I am so thankful that their accounts will be available for generations to come.   I registered my classes for this website as I was completing the application process for the trip, and we used it some to complete research as we wrapped up our Holocaust study.  Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was able to watch an entire (2 hours) testimony of one survivor. 

I chose to watch the video of Erna Anolik, a Jewish survivor.  She was born in Czechoslovakia, and was taken to Auschwitz as the end of the war approached.  She spent time at that camp, where many of her family members were killed, before being moved with her sister to a work camp in Essen where they were used as slave-labor at the Krupp ammunition factory.  She, her sister, and four other young women later escaped that camp, hid out for a few days, and were then housed by a German sympathizer.  She was called to testify at the Nuremberg Trials.  I was so impressed with her story; she was so articulate, and she recounted her life story in a powerful way.  She wasn't particularly sad or upset.  She was matter-of-fact, and she made connections to things that I never considered.  Watching her was like watching a dear older-generation friend tell  her life story.  It was very present; it was very real; it was completely captivating.  

After watching her story, I am as eager as ever to watch more testimonies and learn more and more about the people who actually experienced this tragedy first-hand.   I look forward to watching the testimonies of people who were at Auschwitz at the time of the liberation.  I want to learn more about the liberators.  I want to learn more about survivors in the period immediately following the war.  Mrs. Anolik never returned to her home. . . that just seems unimaginable, but I feel sure that there were many survivors who knew that nothing would be there to make the place "home."

As each new travel plan, or connection to a colleague, or piece of learning comes my way, I am more and more excited and honored to have a chance to be part of this experience.  I know it has already made me more globally-focused.  I am sure that I will be forever changed.