Patrick Morgan

Project

Holocaust Education in the United States and Germany

Journal

The following is a selection from the journal I kept while I was in Berlin.  I attempted to take parts that represented the academic journey I experienced rather than a travelogue, although by the end of the selected entries it is evident that the physical fatigue of a busy trip intruded upon the intellectual experience.

3/9/08

Our first day here was eventful and tiring.  We saw the neighborhood we are staying in and some of the city between the airport and the hotel.  Not much can be said for the academic part of the trip yet.  We did see the counter-memorial at the U-bahn stop on the Ku’damm commemorating those who were deported to the death camps.  We also saw the small street sign memorials all over the Shönberg neighborhood.  Both these memorials show how much the Holocaust has become a “fact of life”; a constant presence in places people in Berlin go all the time.

3/10/08 

Today began with a surprise.  The pictures we have seen in class of all the different memorials in the city do not convey what the reality is.  Not only are Germans forced to reckon with the specter of Nazism with the memorials all around, but also with the remnants of the victors who took the city.  The Soviet memorial just west of the Brandenburg Gate is evidence of that.

After the Soviet memorial, the Reichstag was our next stop.  The focus on transparency in government is particularly interesting, especially in comparison with the American government, which, though it is representative of the “freedom” in America, is often performed behind closed doors.   After the Reichstag, the area around the Wall was fascinating to imagine how the city was divided only 15 years ago.   We then walked down Unter den Linden and saw the site of the book burning and the Neue Wache.  The memorial to the book burning really stood out because of its location amidst the center of Berlin’s cultural and philosophical center.  

The Museum of Jewish History was impressive to me more as a work of art than as a museum.  The material and narrative of the museum did not hold my attention but I thought the architecture did.  Unlike some in the group, I bought into our guide’s interpretation of the building and appreciated the guidance.  The presence of architectural “voids” struck me as very representative of the way we approach the holocaust in discourse.  These holes in Jewish life are not part of the exhibit space, in fact, they are out of the way and difficult to get to.  We have to try to get to them and feel them, experience them, and confront them.

On other thing that became clear today is the constant reminders of war.  Whereas the US often has allusions to war in the architecture of memorials, there is little that connects the events to reality and physicality of war.  All over Berlin, however, are the signs of warfare, not just in memorials but in the bullet holes riddled into buildings and the modern construction over the obliterated pre-war landscape.  Never have I felt so close to these reminders of war.

3/11/08 

Today we experienced the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  The memorial and its accompanying museum below powerfully display the theme in the Jewish museum of the continuity of the European Jewish community.

Intersecting lines travel and continue above and below the surface and the pillars move on a third axis, up and down.  Nowhere in the memorial can you avoid the matrix of pillars set up, which I think also, with continuity, conveys a sense of presence.

The tour of the Jewish quarter also gave me a taste of presence.  It was actually very impressive to see how much still remains of the Jewish presence in Berlin given the country’s Nazi past.  

Overall, I think these things represent the determination of Berlin’s Jews, past and present, to remain a part of the city.

3/12/08

Today we had our seminar with the students from Potsdam.  It was good to meet our partners and get a start on the projects.  Teaching the Holocaust is a topic that resonates with me and hopefully I can take something with me from what I learn from it.

3/13/08

Today we traveled to Halberstadt, a city a few hours away from Berlin.  With a fascinating background of cooperation between the city’s Jews and Christians, Halberstadt offered a very useful case study for our class (and a perfect place for an extension of the Moses Mendelssohn Center).  The relationship between the city's Jews and the different power structures in the town (the municipal and spiritual) accentuates the long (if not at times troubled) history of German Jews.   After a tour of the, Jewish quarter, we had an amazing lunch at a café run by the museum.  It has definitely been a highlight of the trip.    

3/14/08

Today we went to Ravensbrück concentration camp.  The area, so idyllic in natural beauty, seems disturbingly ironic for the location of a site of such terror and inhumanity.  The whole trip was exhausting, physically and mentally (I think I'm also getting sick...).  The trip is getting more tiring and, of course, the subject matter does not lighten the mental load either.  My journal entries are getting noticeably shorter as the reflection and writing process end up cutting into my sleep.  I guess this is what an incredible intellectual experience will do to you when it's done right!