Most Vivid Experience
Part of Prompt: Write a scene of the most vivid thing that happened during your stay. What sticks with you the most? Why do you think that stays with you?
Word Count: 1,296
Germany was a week filled with so many new experiences in which my understandings of things expanded. My most vivid experience was visiting the concentration camp in Dachau. When my mom, sister, and I decided that we were going to travel to Germany, I immediately told them I wanted to visit a concentration camp and they said that was definitely a place we were going to visit. I’ve had a fascination with learning about the Holocaust ever since I first started to learn about it in school. My grandma told me several times how she visited a concentration camp about thirty years ago. She expressed how unbelievably distressing the trip was, that she hysterically cried the whole time, but it changed her life and her overall understanding of the Holocaust. Hearing her story definitely unsettled me but it solidified that I needed to visit a concentration camp at least once in my life to fully comprehend one of the worst genocides in history. I later found out that we were going to visit the same camp she visited.
On Tuesday, August 13, 2017, I relearned the Holocaust at Germany’s first concentration camp through the direct perspectives of the prisoners. That morning, I mentally prepared myself to see and hear things that would crush my heart because I knew this experience would be more intense and completely different than just listening to a school lesson, viewing pictures, watching a movie, reading a book, or even visiting a museum, especially after hearing my grandma’s stories. Dachau Concentration Camp had three phases, first (1933-1939) it was a relatively humane labor camp for political prisoners, second (1939-1941) it was used as a tool of war policy and prisoners were treated inhumane and the murders increased, and third (1942-1945) it was the final years of the war and the Germans tried to exterminate as many Jews as possible.
My mom, sister, tour group, and I get off the 726 bus at the KZ-Gedenkstätte stop, my heart pounding in my chest as I look toward the long, dirt pathway lined with trees leading to the entrance of the camp. We walk down this path, which feels like forever since I just want to get the initial entry into the camp over with. We arrive at the end where we can either make a right and go into the camp, or a left toward a small chunk of remaining railroad track that the prisoners once arrived on and a view of the former SS Army headquarters and training buildings. We go right and approach the gate, which has the words “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” built into the metal door, translating to “work sets you free”. The significance is that the prisoner’s freedom was taken away upon entering the camp so they would never be free while in the camp, and it served to psychologically deceive them. We enter into a decent sized dirt area where roll-call was done every morning. The entire camp is surrounded by a tall barbed wire, once electric, fence, a ditch, and a prohibited grass area along the border, where the prisoners would be killed if they walked on it. There are several tall watchtowers on the grass area around the perimeter of the camp. To the right, there is a large u-shaped building called the maintenance building where new prisoners suffered through the humiliating and dehumanizing admission procedures, and to the left, there are two lines of barracks that extend back seventeen rectangular foundations which represent the barracks they lived in. Only two reconstructed barracks remain for the purpose of showing visitors what the living spaces looked like during each of the three phases of the camp. The living conditions got worse, smaller, and more inhumane as we got to the third phase. In between the two rows of barracks is a long dirt road lined with tall poplar trees that leads to the religious remembrance memorials built years after liberation. After touring the maintenance building, the barracks, and the religious memorials, we make our way toward the far back left corner of the camp, where we walk across a short wooden bridge built over a ditch and a small stream into the worst area. In my head, I’m thinking to myself that this area will be the most difficult and heart-wrenching. This is where the gas chambers and the crematoria were built to kill up to 150 prisoners at once and dispose of their bodies in the next room. Our group walks toward the left end of the building and I apprehensively follow because I’m in no rush to enter this building; I know what I’m about to see will devastate me. We walk through a cement doorway into a gray cement hallway that has three more hallways leading out to the side end of the building known as the fumigation cubicles, which disinfected the prisoners’ uniforms. We walk into the next room which is the changing room, and where the prisoners undressed since they thought they were about to shower. The doorway leading into the next room has “Brausebad” written above it, meaning shower/bath. I let the rest of the group walk through first as I mentally prepare myself for probably the millionth time that day. I slowly walk into the room and immediately feel sick to my stomach. This room is much smaller than the rooms we were just in; the ceiling is so low that I can raise my arms and almost touch the ceiling, it can’t be taller than 7 or 8 feet. The ceiling has about twelve fake shower heads to mislead prisoners into thinking they were really about to shower. On the one wall, there are a couple vents where the Nazi soldiers would dump the poisonous gas. I stand in this room for a couple minutes trying to imagine what the prisoners must have felt. I’m looking around and before I realize it, a few tears start rolling down my cheek, yet I can’t leave; I’m so utterly disgusted yet so absorbed by this tiny room. I wait about a minute longer, then I leave with a slight feeling of relief… until I notice what room I just walked in to. This room is the crematoria that has four large brick ovens where the bodies were burned. My tour guide then says, “Look up and you’ll see a bunch of thick wooden bars; they used to tie prisoners' arms up backwards around the bars to force them to watch the bodies while they burned so they could see what would happen to them after they die” (Keith the Irish tour guide). I’m staring in shock as I really can’t wrap my mind around something like that. I decide to leave and go in the last room, which doesn’t look bad. It’s just a dirty cream-colored room with nothing in it and a set of wooden double doors that lead outside. I walk over to a sign on the wall that tells what the room is, “Death Chamber 2. This room was used to store the corpses that were brought from the prisoner camp to be cremated” and there’s a vivid picture from liberation day of a pile of bodies on the floor of this exact room. I take that as my cue to leave and finally exit the building. I feel like I can finally start to breathe again because I think I accidentally held my breath for majority of that building from my nerves. I do feel disgusted and shocked at what I just saw, but I know it doesn’t even compare to what the prisoners here felt. This experience made me acknowledge just how evil humans can be to one another and it shows in every aspect here.
Word Count: 1,296
Germany was a week filled with so many new experiences in which my understandings of things expanded. My most vivid experience was visiting the concentration camp in Dachau. When my mom, sister, and I decided that we were going to travel to Germany, I immediately told them I wanted to visit a concentration camp and they said that was definitely a place we were going to visit. I’ve had a fascination with learning about the Holocaust ever since I first started to learn about it in school. My grandma told me several times how she visited a concentration camp about thirty years ago. She expressed how unbelievably distressing the trip was, that she hysterically cried the whole time, but it changed her life and her overall understanding of the Holocaust. Hearing her story definitely unsettled me but it solidified that I needed to visit a concentration camp at least once in my life to fully comprehend one of the worst genocides in history. I later found out that we were going to visit the same camp she visited.
On Tuesday, August 13, 2017, I relearned the Holocaust at Germany’s first concentration camp through the direct perspectives of the prisoners. That morning, I mentally prepared myself to see and hear things that would crush my heart because I knew this experience would be more intense and completely different than just listening to a school lesson, viewing pictures, watching a movie, reading a book, or even visiting a museum, especially after hearing my grandma’s stories. Dachau Concentration Camp had three phases, first (1933-1939) it was a relatively humane labor camp for political prisoners, second (1939-1941) it was used as a tool of war policy and prisoners were treated inhumane and the murders increased, and third (1942-1945) it was the final years of the war and the Germans tried to exterminate as many Jews as possible.
My mom, sister, tour group, and I get off the 726 bus at the KZ-Gedenkstätte stop, my heart pounding in my chest as I look toward the long, dirt pathway lined with trees leading to the entrance of the camp. We walk down this path, which feels like forever since I just want to get the initial entry into the camp over with. We arrive at the end where we can either make a right and go into the camp, or a left toward a small chunk of remaining railroad track that the prisoners once arrived on and a view of the former SS Army headquarters and training buildings. We go right and approach the gate, which has the words “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” built into the metal door, translating to “work sets you free”. The significance is that the prisoner’s freedom was taken away upon entering the camp so they would never be free while in the camp, and it served to psychologically deceive them. We enter into a decent sized dirt area where roll-call was done every morning. The entire camp is surrounded by a tall barbed wire, once electric, fence, a ditch, and a prohibited grass area along the border, where the prisoners would be killed if they walked on it. There are several tall watchtowers on the grass area around the perimeter of the camp. To the right, there is a large u-shaped building called the maintenance building where new prisoners suffered through the humiliating and dehumanizing admission procedures, and to the left, there are two lines of barracks that extend back seventeen rectangular foundations which represent the barracks they lived in. Only two reconstructed barracks remain for the purpose of showing visitors what the living spaces looked like during each of the three phases of the camp. The living conditions got worse, smaller, and more inhumane as we got to the third phase. In between the two rows of barracks is a long dirt road lined with tall poplar trees that leads to the religious remembrance memorials built years after liberation. After touring the maintenance building, the barracks, and the religious memorials, we make our way toward the far back left corner of the camp, where we walk across a short wooden bridge built over a ditch and a small stream into the worst area. In my head, I’m thinking to myself that this area will be the most difficult and heart-wrenching. This is where the gas chambers and the crematoria were built to kill up to 150 prisoners at once and dispose of their bodies in the next room. Our group walks toward the left end of the building and I apprehensively follow because I’m in no rush to enter this building; I know what I’m about to see will devastate me. We walk through a cement doorway into a gray cement hallway that has three more hallways leading out to the side end of the building known as the fumigation cubicles, which disinfected the prisoners’ uniforms. We walk into the next room which is the changing room, and where the prisoners undressed since they thought they were about to shower. The doorway leading into the next room has “Brausebad” written above it, meaning shower/bath. I let the rest of the group walk through first as I mentally prepare myself for probably the millionth time that day. I slowly walk into the room and immediately feel sick to my stomach. This room is much smaller than the rooms we were just in; the ceiling is so low that I can raise my arms and almost touch the ceiling, it can’t be taller than 7 or 8 feet. The ceiling has about twelve fake shower heads to mislead prisoners into thinking they were really about to shower. On the one wall, there are a couple vents where the Nazi soldiers would dump the poisonous gas. I stand in this room for a couple minutes trying to imagine what the prisoners must have felt. I’m looking around and before I realize it, a few tears start rolling down my cheek, yet I can’t leave; I’m so utterly disgusted yet so absorbed by this tiny room. I wait about a minute longer, then I leave with a slight feeling of relief… until I notice what room I just walked in to. This room is the crematoria that has four large brick ovens where the bodies were burned. My tour guide then says, “Look up and you’ll see a bunch of thick wooden bars; they used to tie prisoners' arms up backwards around the bars to force them to watch the bodies while they burned so they could see what would happen to them after they die” (Keith the Irish tour guide). I’m staring in shock as I really can’t wrap my mind around something like that. I decide to leave and go in the last room, which doesn’t look bad. It’s just a dirty cream-colored room with nothing in it and a set of wooden double doors that lead outside. I walk over to a sign on the wall that tells what the room is, “Death Chamber 2. This room was used to store the corpses that were brought from the prisoner camp to be cremated” and there’s a vivid picture from liberation day of a pile of bodies on the floor of this exact room. I take that as my cue to leave and finally exit the building. I feel like I can finally start to breathe again because I think I accidentally held my breath for majority of that building from my nerves. I do feel disgusted and shocked at what I just saw, but I know it doesn’t even compare to what the prisoners here felt. This experience made me acknowledge just how evil humans can be to one another and it shows in every aspect here.
SIDE NOTE: I left sooo much out of this story because this piece would've been 10x longer had I wrote about everything I saw and learned; I spent about 3 hours at the camp. I wanted to talk about the most vivid part that stuck with me to follow the prompt and keep it semi-short. I am planning to explain more about the camp in my video, though, along with pictures.
Dear Savannah,
ReplyDeleteThis is very well-done. You stay in the moment for most of the scene at the concentration camp and you have written it in present tense ("we walk to..." instead of "we walked...") which creates a sense of immediacy for the reader. Pace is good here--you have slowed down and let the reader experience the walk through as you were experiencing it. Be aware that if you are going to include this section in your video, you will have to (1). prepare the viewer for it. In other words, don't have the first section be light and fluffy and then go into this darker place. (2). Figure out what it means in the bigger picture. If you're going to say that Germany is an amazing place to visit, the death camps can't be a touristy aside, but should be part of your narrative that part of learning about another place is acknowledging historical problems, and also recognizing that Germany has made a decision to keep these camps open for others to see for a reason. Make sure your scenes match tonally so that you're not see-sawing between bratwurst dinners and death camps. Get what I mean? You will have to decide how much time or weight to give to this part of your experience and possibly make it a culminating moment in understanding another culture. Good luck! If anyone in our class could pull this off well, it is you!
Very deep and heartfelt recount of your experience in Germany. I had trouble visualizing the architecture to an accurate echelon, but I feel that your video will make this aspect lucid. Well done!
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