On a cold and rainy day, our group walked the grounds of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, north of Berlin. Student Michael Berger reports on the experience.

When we arrived at Ravensbrück, I didn’t know where we were. It didn’t look like a camp at all, there were nice houses and a cobblestone road next to a beautiful lake. After a while we met our tour guide and began our tour with a video inside one of the houses. The video detailed some of the survivors of the camp’s stories, and showed them returning to the camp. After the video our tour guide brought us outside and began telling us about the camp. The house we were in was that of one of the SS officers. There were more of them too, even a daycare for their children. She also told us about how the Soviets used this camp as a military base for some time after WWII. We moved on closer to the gate of the camp and came to the cobblestone road. The road had been constructed by prisoners of the camp. I suddenly felt dizzy standing on it. As we progressed toward the gate, I glimpsed a part of the main compound. The ground was covered in black gravel, which gave a very eerie effect. The weather that day was quite cold and drizzly, and a layer of mist had formed over the camp. It seemed as if the clouds themselves were trying to hide the tainted grounds. Looking through that gate felt like looking through the jaws of oblivion. Moving on through the camp, our guide showed us the many memorials erected for the victims of the camp. The most powerful one for me was in front of the brick wall that was blocking the compound from the rest of the world. There were the names of all of the countries from which people had arrived at the camp. There was also a beautiful rose bed in front of it. Our guide told us that there was a mass grave beneath it.
My visit to Ravensbrück was a very humbling experience. I’ve never been at such a somber place.

Photos: Dorothy Munson Klemetson

While in Amsterdam, Museum Without Walls was privileged to meet with Holocaust survivor Jack Elhon, who was a Hidden Child.

Jack, who is 74, began telling his story five years ago. We met with him at the Hollandsche Schouwburg To hear Jack’s story in his own words, visit Hidden Like Anne Frank.

Photos: Dorothy Munson Klemetson

Museum Without Walls Executive Director Suzzanne Lacey and Leaders Dorothy Munson Kelmetson and Elaine G. Flores discuss the trip.

Check out this slideshow from our student photographer, Jacob Charlson. Also take a look at Jacob’s blog here.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin

During a walking tour of Berlin, our group stopped at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Teacher Debbie Carlson shares her thoughts on the visit.

I walked around a corner or across a street or something and there it was, I recognized it immediately. We were a group of 15, but were given seven minutes to wander alone. So I dove in. The memorial was made as a maze of rectangular cement blocks all the same width and length, but different heights. I think I learned later that there were 2,711 different blocks. I walked through them as you would walk through a maze. No identification. No words. No labels. Just acres of these concrete blocks. In some ways they reminded me of coffins.

I wanted to just sit lost among the blocks, but there was no time. I had to process my feelings quickly and rejoin the group. It was very difficult to consider the murder of 6,000,000 Jews being represented by acres of concrete tomb-like blocks in such a short time. I kept noticing how the ground was uneven, there were places where it was so slanted one felt off balance, the passage ways were dark and narrow —— only enough room for one person at a time, and the surfaces of the blocks created an undulating effect as I looked across the sea of concrete blocks. Suddenly I imagined what it must have felt like for the Jews to have their own lives thrown into such chaos. They had no solid ground anymore. They were constantly being squeezed into smaller, tighter, scarier spaces. They had no straight path to follow; they never knew what was around the next corner. The memorial began to make perfect sense.

As I rejoined our group, I asked the guide if there was an official entrance or a sign or something to tell the public what the place was all about. No such sign and no such designated entrance. No wonder there were people climbing all over the blocks, sunning themselves, jumping from box to box enjoying a summer afternoon. I was horrified. But didn’t the world do that while 6,000,000 Jews were being murdered?

Photo: Dorothy Munson Klemetson

Otto Frank was responsible for finding a hiding place and getting his daughter's diary published

While the tale of Anne Frank is familiar, our visit to the Secret Annex also revealed much about her father. Teacher Julie Blaugher shares her thoughts on Otto Frank.

After our discussion and tour of the Anne Frank House, I really was aware of the life and courage of Otto Frank the father of Anne and Margot. I really grew to admire Otto and all he did for his family and friends. As the Nazis became more powerful in Germany, Frank moved his family to Holland. He wrote roughly 80 letters to family, friends and officials in a desperate quest to be granted a visa to the U.S. or Cuba. As anti-Jewish legislation increased in The Netherlands and Jews were forbidden to own their own business, Frank signed his company over to gentiles, while still  remaining in charge behind the scenes. He planned ahead by collecting supplies and furnishing the hiding place where he, his family and four others would stay. I found Otto to be very courageous. After the war, he learned that he had no family left. He must have been so hopeful as he headed home and then so totally devastated to find he was the only survivor. After all he had been through and all he had done to save his family, he was the only one who survived this horribly tragic time. Then he was handed Anne’s diary and read his daughter’s words after she was gone. I empathized with him and his great pain and suffering. And still he had the courage to make something good and powerful out of his awful loss. And he made Anne’s dream of being a writer come true by sharing her diary and her words with the world.

Students Corey Parker, Samantha Burchard, Jacob Charlson and teacher Cindy Evans share their thoughts on experiences in Amsterdam.

The Corrie Ten Boom Museum in Haarlem

Our students and teachers took a train ride from bustling Amsterdam to quaint Haarlem for a tour of the house where Corrie ten Boom hid Jews from Nazis. Student Michael Berger was particularly impressed with the ten Boom story. Read on to hear what he has to say. :

The Corrie ten Boom House was one of the activities that I was most excited about doing on this trip. My mom got me “The Hiding Place” (Corrie ten Boom’s book) before the trip. The book was so powerful and interesting to me that I finished it in about four nights. The background I gained from the book was definitely useful, for the tour guide was very vague about the house’s story. Instead, she spoke more about the religious aspects of Ten Boom’s story. This was powerful for me. I am a practicing Catholic, and hearing our guide talk about Ten Boom’s faith with such confidence embodied the story in the house for me, and brought it alive like it was when Corrie lived there. Also, having read the story I understood many of the events that she was referencing. It was enriching for me to experience this historical site the way I did with my background knowledge.

On any given day, 3,000 to 4,000 visitors pass through the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Student Carlene Blaugher was one of them. Read on to find out what she had to say about the experience.

Q. How did it feel to be in the Anne Frank house?
Being in the Anne Frank house definitely brought up a lot of different thoughts and emotions for me. It was very interesting to be in a place that millions of people have read about and that thousands visit daily. At the same time, it was incredibly sad to be in the same place that the Franks had to hide in because they were persecuted for their religion.

A. Did the visit bring up any questions or issues for you? If so, what?
Visiting the house did bring up some issues for me only because I really have a problem with intolerance. The Anne Frank house is a symbol of tolerance at a time when there was very little. I suppose that being there made me inspired to do the right thing even in the darkest of times the same way the people who helped the Franks did.

Photo: Jacob Carlson

Our group poses with guide Eva (far l.) at the Anne Frank House

Student Samantha Burchard (second from l.) has been studying the story of Anne Frank, but reading about the diarist’s life is not the same as actually visiting the home where she lived for more than two years. Read on to see what Samantha has to say.

. How did it feel to be on the very location where Anne Frank lived in hiding?
“I felt more of a connection to Anne Frank in the house than I did reading all of the information about her and her family. I can’t say that I was able to really feel what she felt, but I could understand what she might have felt or what it would feel like.”

A. Were you surprised by anything you learned at the Anne Frank House?
“I was really surprised at how small Anne’s room was and the layout of the house, in terms of how it kind of all flowed together. In all of the pictures I have seen of the house, it seemed very broken up, things weren’t connected, and it was also very confusing. [I was surprised by] how there were two different houses and somehow they were connected by this door that later became the swinging bookcase.”

Photo: Dorothy Munson Klemetson