WJU Students, Berlin, & its History: An Appraisal, Part VI

Gardens in Potsdam

The outgoing President of the History Club, Kayla Mason, class of '14, offers these observations on Germany and its engagement with its history.


Traveling offers visitors the opportunity to learn about the history and culture of other regions. For me, one of the most interesting aspects of this experience is examining how these countries choose to remember their past – including the good and the bad. German history is unique and through the exploration of the city of Berlin, visitors are directly confronted with every aspect of this nation’s past.

WJU Students, Berlin, & its History: An Appraisal, Part V

Our series on WJU students in Berlin  picks back up . . .

Jake Zirkle, class of '14, wrote the following assessment of Berlin and its engagement with German history.

Around every corner, one can find something of historical significance in Berlin. From the Imperial period to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Berlin’s history is just waiting to be explored. Germany has all of its history on display for everyone to see, some of which instills a great sense of pride for the German people, while other events bring shame. 

WJU Students' Photography on Display

Photographs taken by participants on the Classrooms without Borders' trip to Poland this past summer will be displayed in the Stifel Fine Arts Gallery from November 3 through November 6. The gallery is open from 9am to 5pm daily. Included in this exhibition are photos taken by two history majors from Wheeling Jesuit University: Jake Zirkle, class of '14, and Marque Marry, class of '15. The exhibition documents the group's travels throughout Poland, from Warsaw to Lublin and Krakow. Included in the group's itinerary were stops at the Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz extermination camps. All are welcome to visit this chronicle of Wheeling-area students and educators grappling with the history and memory of the Holocaust.

The White Rose Movement: an Exhibition at WJU

In conjunction with Classrooms without Borders, WJU is hosting an exhibition dedicated to the student resistance movement, the White Rose, which challenged the Nazi regime and called upon other Germans to resist National Socialism.

The exhibition is displayed in the Art Gallery (attached to Kirby Hall) and will remain there until November 14. It is open from 12-4 and by appointment. A special invitation is extended to all Wheeling-area middle and high school teachers who would like to visit it with their students.

Through the use of text and images, the exhibition details the growth of the White Rose movement, a group of students from the University of Munich, who struggled against the Nazi state and its demands that German society fight a genocidal war of aggression. While the movement ultimately failed and its main protagonists were either executed or arrested by the German state, it nonetheless demonstrated that even during a period of real violence and brutality, individuals possessing traditional notions of morality, ethics, and true heroism could emerge and challenge a criminal state.

The exhibition opened on November 2. Approximately 55 people attended the opening reception and listened to Associate Professor of History Jeff Rutherford give a talk on the White Rose movement and its place in the history of the German resistance to Nazism. For more information on the White Rose movement and the White Rose Foundation, please visit its website.

WJU Students and Classrooms without Borders: Starachowice

Following our visit to Lublin, we again boarded buses and began our drive to Krakow, the last stop on our trip. Before we reached the city, however, we visited Starachowice, a small Polish city that was once home to a thriving Jewish community. The fate of the region's Jews has been detailed in Christopher Browning's outstanding study of the camps established by the Germans, Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave Labor Camp. The book is based on the stories of survivors of the camps and, fortunately for those on the trip, we were accompanied by one of those survivors, the previously mentioned Howard Chandler.

WJU Students and Classrooms without Borders: Majdanek

 The following post was written by Marque Marry, class of '15.

The Monument at Majdanek

   The acts implemented by the Nazi SS in the creation of both concentration and death camps caused the degradation, humiliation, and deaths of millions of innocent people. Throughout the years of the Holocaust, the Germans attempted to turn individuals into numbers, shipping them off to camps never to be seen or heard from again, except for their ashes rising to the heavens or their screams heard bellowing from the gas chambers. One camp in particular saw the needless deaths of 18,400 in one day: Majdanek.
This first concentration and later extermination camp located in Lublin was a site for the intended destruction of a population by the Nazis. Unlike Treblinka, this camp was not hidden away from

Majdanek

the eyes of bystanders; rather it was present for everyone to witness the true evil of mankind. While at this camp, however, I witnessed several events that proved  the Nazis were in fact unsuccessful in their aims at the complete and total destruction of a peoples' mind, body, and spirit and erasing them from history completely.

WJU Students and Classrooms without Borders: Lublin

Our third installment was written by Jason Totty, class of '14.

Old Town Lublin

  On the second leg of the Classrooms without Border’s Holocaust study seminar, the group visited Lublin, Poland's ninth largest city. Lublin possessed the city center of a traditional medieval city, as evidenced by the two city gates that surrounded the square. The age of this city was evidenced in its Baroque architecture. Unlike most cities, which suffered heavily at the hands of Blitzkrieg and the subsequent Nazi occupation, the old town of Lublin remained relatively unscathed. The medieval flare and its unique Holocaust history made for a worthwhile experience and attraction.