Everything Has a Story

Nine days have passed since landing in Newark Liberty International on a clear Wednesday morning in May. I'm way behind on emails, forms, and most importantly, my blog. I've sadly left you readers in Berlin, at the beginning of deeply moving week in March. Don't worry, I intend to spend the summer continuing the story of this year. In any event, I want to share how I've begun my process of returning to this country of united states.

My loving mother drove me first to IHOP because I missed those pancakes so. As we passed through northeastern Philadelphia, I took note of the dress, the large vehicles, and the street signs. They reminded me of this odd emptiness I felt when I got off the airplane at Newark Liberty and crossed the threshold. A large sign above me welcomed all to the United States of America. But there was nothing to it. No pictures. No quotes. No Hebrew, Arabic, French, Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian, German, Hindi, Marathi. Just English. Just one language, that I speak fluently. 

How foreign.

GCU: Political and Cultural Germany in a Nutshell

While the date of this post reflects when the events described took place, in reality this entry was written long afterward. I apologize for any inaccurate details or incomplete ideas...


As with most days, we started off Wednesday morning with breakfast and the dispersion of brown-bag lunches with Bagels! (GCU loves their bagels). Today was dedicated to political Germany in a nutshell.
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GCU: Shoah Study Day

Today the Germany Close Up program directed its focus toward the face of memory in and around Berlin.

Our first visit of the morning was to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Built between 2003-2004, the area contains a memorial with a museum underneath in. Our plan was to begin the day in the museum and conclude the day at the memorial, but as we stood in line waiting to descend, we observed the Reichstag (the German Parliament building) and the American and other flags belonging to buildings located around the perimeter of the site, and discussed the details of the surface. Controversial in nature, there is no significance to the number or size of the stones that extend through this large city block. And why was there a museum underneath it all? was it suggesting the subterranean levels of a cemetery? Of rubble from a war zone?

We were unfortunately very rushed in our visit underground, but the exhibits had unique personalizing features to them. Whether walking through a dark room with glowing quotes on the walls and floor, following families from around Europe, or listening to testimonials, the museum emphasized the individual. I noted that the language reflected the conversations of yesterday (ie. November Pogrom). Still, I didn't find artifacts here, I found it very compact, and considering the size of the above memorial, I didn't understand why there was such little space. I was also struck by the general geography of the presentation. While in Budapest, the story of the Holocaust Museum there represented the Hungarian narrative. I found this narrative to be no different from that of Washington, L.A., or Jerusalem. Was this an international site of education and/or an expression of Germany's relationship to the whole of Europe during this time period and the consequences of what Germany initiated? I suppose the latter must carry some accuracy, because while the initial goal to eliminate the Jews of Germany, and not exterminate them, once the latter was adopted, and various vehicles of carrying out that operation were employed, they took place mostly outside of Germany but belong to the German narrative. Still, I expected to see something more unique, and not such a general recounting and capturing of history.

Pictures of Memorials in Berlin