I hate to admit it but this book took a while for me to write. There was so much going on in the world and in my head that I kept tripping over stumbling blocks. Well, that is behind me now and looking forward to the future. I can’t believe there is better timing for the release of this title. This book deliberately takes an apolitical approach, while fostering civic engagement and participatory citizenship. I’m looking forward to feedback from my fellow colleagues, so please share either here, on Amazon, or elsewhere.
Today, February 4 is the anniversary of Rosa Parks‘ birthday. Famous for her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa leaves us with an enduring legacy of resistance against racial discrimination and injustice.
People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.
Beyond the Bus Boycott: Rosa Parks’ Activism Before and After 1954 is a lesson to foster lifelong activism. Take a look here.
Typically, when I write about my travels it usually involves a visit to a local library or bookstore. I’m going to break tradition and discuss my trip to Munich, Germany this summer. More specifically my visit to Dachau, a former Nazi concentration camp and now memorial site honoring the lives lost, honoring the suffering endured by survivors, and continuing education so others may learn to prevent such tragedies.
I planned typical tourist attractions such as visiting castles (Neuschwanstein), churches (Frauenkirche), and historical sites such as the Beer Museum and Marienplatz. I even crossed off a bucket list item, visiting the surfers at the Eisbachwelle. I signed up for several tours, but not the Third Reich Walking Tour. I figured Munich is full of history and many stories and anecdotes would find their place on other walking tours – and they did.
As part of the Beer Tour, we visited the Hofbräuhaus. In February 1920, Hitler gave a speech outlining the manifesto or political philosophy of the Nazi Party. “The Hofbräuhaus is also where Hitler publicly denounced the Jewish people and gave the infamous “Why We are Antisemites” speech.” Another walking tour took us to Viscardigasse, an alley with bronze cobblestones that serves as a memorial to those who resisted Nazi tyranny. And most of the tours I took began just a block or two from the House of Justice where members of the White Rose movement were sentenced.
With so much ongoing vitriol and rhetoric experienced daily in the US, I felt it was imperative that I visit the Dachau memorial site.
Our tour group arrived at Dachau after a short, one stop train ride from Munich Hauptbahnhof. We then boarded a public bus that took us from the Dachau train station to the entrance of the memorial site; former inmates were required to walk this distance.
I knew I wasn’t jiving with our guide before we arrived. She appeared unconcerned with members of our group who had physical difficulties (boot, cane). ‘If I lose you, it’s only one stop, just get off the train.’ And the solo traveler, teacher, and mom in me didn’t appreciate the ‘Is everyone here? Tell me if someone from your group is missing.’ What??? I’m a solo traveler, no one is going to miss me. Seriously, just count heads. As with many tour companies in Munich, the guides now living in Germany hail from all over – ours was from Spain.
Well, when we entered the site and she began her spiel the hairs on my body rose immediately, a sense of dread enveloped me and not just because we were in a hallowed location steeped in death and degradation. Our guide accurately described Dachau as a work camp, not an extermination camp whose purpose was solely the extermination of human lives. So, this camp “wasn’t so bad.” Just in case we were confused or thought we might have heard her incorrectly she repeated this phrase numerous times. It ‘wasn’t so bad.”
Yes, perhaps it was ‘better’ than being murdered straight off the train. However, no human being should ever be forced to brutality experience life like this. It’s called war crimes for a reason.
We arrived at the crematorium – which was needed because of the numerous deaths due to hunger, exhaustion, and disease, the direct result of being tortured, or were brutally murdered in the Dachau concentration camp. Work did not set everyone free. According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Scholars believe that at least 40,000 prisoners died there.”
Next to the crematorium was a gas chamber shower area. Though, according to our guide, it was never used. The guide again thought this was a good thing. Yes, it’s here but it wasn’t used. Excuse me but the intention was there. Why build it otherwise? It’s not likely to get a spread in Architectural Digest magazine. No. It was installed for a purpose. It was designed for killing. This was the mindset of the people running the camp and the country. According to the Dachau Memorial website, “Killing people on a mass scale through poison gas never took place in the Dachau concentration camp. It remains unexplained as to why the SS never used the operational gas chamber for this purpose. According to one contemporary witness account, some prisoners were killed by poison gas in 1944.” but also says the following just a paragraph away on the same page, “In the spring of 1942, work began on building “barrack X”, which was then put into operation a year later. This was a crematorium with four furnaces, a disinfection chamber for clothing, dayrooms and sanitary facilities, as well as morgues and a gas chamber disguised as a “shower bath”. There can be no doubt that “barrack X” was designed for the mass extermination of prisoners.” This seems contradictory. Regardless, no one needs to build a gas chamber. Period.
This was our last stop together at the camp before we went off to explore on our own. I was grateful to get away from our tour leader and wondered why I didn’t ditch the group sooner. I guess I was too shocked and surprised by the experience. Do you ever feel that way? This experience has made me more self-aware that I need to do more when I encounter situations like this. Let’s just say, by the time we got back to Munich our guide didn’t like me much. I had numerous conversations with my fellow group participants relaying my concerns over choice of words used and the general depictions used. Many of us were listening in on the other tours going on rather than our own.
This less than concerned, lackadaisical approach to history left me feeling exhausted and scared for our global future. History repeats itself if we don’t take it seriously and if we fail to heed the warning signs. In the last fifteen minutes of my morning spent at Dachau, I left feeling a bit more hopeful. That’s because on the way out I passed a small group quietly praying and subsequently broke out in quiet song. Hatikvah (The Hope), was their song of choice. Hearing those words was the balm I needed to soothe my soul.
It started off a few months ago with an English teacher looking for research project ideas for 10th grade students having read Elie Wiesel’s Night and Harper Lee’sTo Kill a Mockingbird. Not sure which title to choose, we sat down to discuss many options during our collaborative sessions. After brainstorming multiple topics, we realized we wanted to focus on the positive, on hope, instead of the negative elements and characters within each title. So, we combined aspects of the two books and decided on the topic of being an upstander in the face of prejudice, even when facing bodily harm or death. This fit the character of Atticus Finch and elements of the holocaust. Both books espouse themes of Good vs Evil, particularly the coexistence of good and evil within a community. Both novels look at racism and prejudice and while it would have been equally relevant to focus on those themes, we decided to use Atticus as an example of upstander while finding about more about upstanders during the holocaust. To examine, perhaps, the inherent goodness or evil in people and standing up even in the face of harm or death. With this theme we could discuss and analyze both books.
Students had a pre-conceived notion of upstanders during the holocaust. Many were subsequently shocked to hear Oskar Schindler described thusly, “A hedonist and gambler by nature, Schindler soon adopted a profligate lifestyle, carousing into the small hours of the night, hobnobbing with high ranking SS-officers, and philandering with beautiful Polish women” while researching on the Yad Vashem website. We had great conversations. Most of us agreed he was an upstander, but we probably wouldn’t want to be married to him! There’s often a dichotomy to people’s behavior. You don’t have to be perfect or a model citizen. You don’t have to be Mother Teresa to be an upstander. It isn’t all or nothing. You don’t have to help hundreds, for “He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” Many of our researched upstanders helped one family or one child and that was enough of a difference. I shared a story to our students regarding my father-in-law’s service during the WWII. He was a fighter pilot shot down over occupied France. It was through the efforts of the French Underground who helped him survive and reach allied forces. Their efforts increased his ability to return home to the states where subsequently my husband was born. From their our marriage and four children. This is My world entire and upstanders who risked their lives made it happen.
“Scholars have attempted to trace the characteristics that these Righteous share and to identify who was more likely to extend help to the Jews or to a persecuted person.” “By comparing and contrasting rescuers and bystanders during the Holocaust, they pointed out that those who intervened were distinguished by characteristics such as empathy and a sense of connection to others.”
I feel strongly that our students’ coursework and daily school-life need infusions of both empathy and connectedness.
I have been moved by this project, learning alongside students as we discover the hundreds of men and women who risked all to stand up to injustice. I encourage you to examine and explore these websites https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories.html or https://jfr.org/rescuer-stories/ and learn more about righteous upstanders.
