Teaching History Matters

Bergen Belsen on July 5, 2013.

I am in Europe on a study tour of the Holocaust with 25 fellow educators of the United States. I am typing this as the morning breaks in the heart of Berlin, Germany. I had hoped to be able to get on-line and write more frequently but that is just not possible. There is too much to do while we are here visiting these authentic sites. But it is time to stop and reflect on some of the things that I have seen and experienced.

Our itinerary includes stops in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland. The power of visiting these sites after studying them so long can not be overstated.

Bergen-Belsen. For me, visiting this place after studying it in depth in relation to the exchange camps that were here was a powerful experience. Readers of the blog know of the stories of many of the survivors of Bergen Belsen who were in the exchange camp and their liberation on April 13, 1945 at Farsleben. Two days ago I got the back story of the exhibition panels you see here, that feature the photographs and the work that our project has uncovered.

In brief context: 120,000 prisoners passed through Bergen Belsen, and not all of them Jewish. 52,000 died here, perhaps 30,000 of them were Jewish. Belsen actually began as a POW camp- 20,000 Russians died here in the winter of 1941-42. In 1943, Himmler (the head of the SS) ordered that an exchange camp be set up for Jews who might possess foreign certificates or visas to emigrate, perhaps to use to bargain for German families interned abroad. 14,000 people went through the exchange camp. In November, 1944, thousands of women, and some children, arrived from Auschwitz, to be “housed” near the exchange camp. What they received, in their miserable condition, were 18 oversized old tents which promptly blew down during a winter storm shortly after their arrival. With the arrival also of brutal SS administrators and guards, conditions deteriorated rapidly as the winter of 1944-45 turned into spring. The camp system began collapsing with the advance of the Red Army in the east and the British and Americans in the West. By the time the British arrived on April 15th at the camp gates, over 50,000 prisoners were suffering from extreme malnutrition, typhus, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Nearly ten thousand corpses lay about as the crematorium had long since broken down. Hundreds died on the day of liberation.

I’m here. Finally. Jerrilyn Miller photo.

So here I am. The bus guides swiftly through the beautiful German countryside. A night in the picturesque town of Celle the evening before has us well rested. The fields and forests bid us peaceful feelings as we move with our rendezvous with the past. It feels as if as we move we are stepping back in time.

Memorial site, Bergen Belsen.

We see the road signs for the memorial and I think many of us on the bus draw a collective breath as it turns into the parking lot of Gedenkstatte (Memorial) Bergen Belsen. It is surrounded by trees. We are the only persons, besides staff, who are here. As we disembark off the bus, Tif ties an Israeli flag around her neck so it drapes like a cape. It is quiet. But the birds are singing.

Now I remember that in 2007 I was beginning my first communications with Christian and Bernd, then staff members at the Memorial. They were excited about the opening of their new exhibition hall and education center. Two years later they would fly over, with the historian Thomas, to take part in our 2009 reunion. So now I am here for the first time to see them again.

We meet the staff, who are still preparing for us. I’m listed on the program at lunchtime for a talk about the exchange camps and how the project is incorporated into the exhibition. Bernd enters the room and greets me warmly.

After an introduction to the history of the site, we  watch the silent movies shot by the British beginning the second day after the liberation. Perhaps you’ve seen the photos or the films. Belsen, in 1945, was the last stop, the terminus of the Holocaust, as one historian has described it. It was a scene of horror. If you see a photo of a soldier wearing a mask, maneuvering a bulldozer to push corpses into an open pit, that was Bergen Belsen. Just over a month later, the British commander ordered the lice infested, typhus ridden barracks put to the torch.
So now we are on the grounds of the former camp. As we exit the exhibition memorial hall, we are confronted with a long narrow corridor of concrete that we must pass through, reinforcing the fact that we are moving from present to past. And now we are here.
To some visitors, there is nothing here, just inviting walkways with interpretive signage and some markers. Woods, and open fields. But on closer inspection, we see the outlines of the past in the ruins. We walk to barracks ten of the exchange camp. You can see the outline at the woodline. Some of the foundation stones are marked with the names of those who passed through them. We retrace the steps from the barracks to the latrine, now many meters away off a footpath in the enveloping woods. Nature reclaims. Out of the corner of my eye, down the long narrow strip mowed to infinity where a fenceline once ran, I see a large deer guide out of the woods, pause and look my way, and vanish just as soon as it appeared. Is it obscene to find in this place now a feeling of inner peace, to find beauty in the stillness of a grey afternoon? Maybe so. But I feel it.
Back inside, Bernd is talking to our group at the Exhibit where the evacuation transports from the exchange camps are outlined with the photographs of Major Benjamin and Dr. Gross. He explains that between April 6 and 9th, 6700 men, women and children were evacuated on three transports. The “lucky” train was liberated by the Americans on April 13. Friday. One train did make it to the destination of Theresienstadt, where the occupants were liberated the last day of the war. On April 23rd, the third train was liberated by the Red Army at Trobitz, across the Elbe.

Bernd Horstmann, Custodian of the Book of Names, Matthew Rozell, History Teacher, July 5, 2013. Bergen Belsen, Evacuation transports exhibit.

Bernd explains that as the exhibition was being planned, his colleague Christian discovered the photographs that I had been given by the Dr. Gross to place on my website. It altered their vision of the exhibition and he described their excitement as the corroborated the testimony of the soldiers with the photographs. Yes, this is the Farsleben transport. Yes, this is the transport that the Americans called “The Train Near Magdeburg”. My fellow teachers ask questions, and learn more about the exchange camp. They are putting faces to the victims when they see the pictures. I am happy to share this experience with them. I am here, and I am seeing it for the first time with them. They are part of this experience, at our first major stop on the trip. Later, on the bus, some are excited to see the Benjamin photo in the official Bergen Belsen guidebook. In my being caught up in the presence of the moment, I neglected to purchase one for myself, but there it is. I was not even aware of it.
Back out to the camp. The solemn monuments marking the mass graves. 1000 Tote. One thousand dead. 2500 Tote. Two thousand five hundred dead. And on and on, elevated mass graves. On to the commemoration room. Candles are lit, stones are placed, the prayers are recited in Hebrew and English, led by Pauline, the only other New Yorker on the trip with me. We are all moved. I think of Carrol Walsh, the tank commander who led me to this story, the liberator who did not want to be called a hero, or even a liberator. His own memorial service is today, half a world away, but I am here in this place to remember him as well. It is altogether fitting and proper. And perhaps it is also something destined to be.

This evening we depart from Hannover to Berlin. It is pretty crazy and unsettling at the Friday evening platform. 27 people have to run for the train, as the track has changed, with hundreds of others. Our original seats are taken, so we have to find other due to a mixup. But we do not lose anyone, and as I settle in next to a kind stranger, made welcome, I notice our station stops along the way- Brunswick. Magdeburg. We are roughly following the route of the train, and the 30th Infantry Division in 1945. What take us 35 minutes to cover, takes 6 nights and 7 days in April 1945.
Today was also something destined to be, the culmination of something incredible I am still trying to figure it all out- but this trip is helping me to place in proper context the elements of the greatest crime in the history of the world. As we leave this place of obscene beauty and peace, I think of  the I think of  the survivor’s words:

Remember Me.

Remember. Bergen Belsen, July 5, 2013.