We gathered at 9 in the morning with our sack lunches. I was a bit worried about our class since they are a very social class and like to laugh and kid around. We advised them to get it out of their system before we get to the museum since it is a memorial and reverent behavior will be expected from them.
On the bus it was pretty lopsided - the kids ran for the back and the adults claimed the front seats. The Fields, one of my co-sponsor couples, were brave and sat in the back so they could get to know the kids a bit better.
Struthof was a labor camp rather than an extermination camp. High up in the Vosges mountains near the border between Germany and France, the camp used the labor from the camp to quarry stones. Many prisoners in this camp were members of the French resistance called the Nacht and Nebel (Night and Fog) by the Germans. These prisoners were given uniforms with a large X and NN painted on the back. They were treated the worst because of their attempts to overthrow the Nazi regime in France. They were saboteurs, radio operators, guides to get downed airmen to safety, etc. Struthof was also used for medical experiments.
The hard choice for me when we got there: to take pictures or not? It is a pretty somber place and most elements of the tour are gruesome. I decided to take a couple shots for memory and then put my camera away. This kind of trip isn't one you sit around a table talking about with friends back home!
Marilyn, the teacher who organized the field trip, gave each chaperon team a packet of information and activities to do at certain spots around the camp. Here we are doing roll call - the instructions? Coats off, straight line, no talking. It was chilly up on the mountain but the idea was to give the kids a small taste of what it would be like to stand at roll call. The kids were impressive on this trip. My partner, Chris, and I read off the required readings which sparked all kinds of questions. We had a chance to talk about ethical and spiritual issues as the kids asked things like: "Why didn't the people in the village below us stop this?"; "Do we use the vaccines that were discovered here?"; "Why did they burn the bodies? Why not just bury them?"; "what do you think will happen to the guards of camps like this in eternity?"; and there were many more. We were soon off the script and talking heart-to-heart with the kids. I was glad I had done my homework and read up on the camp before we came. And my history minor from college paid off on this trip! Chris had been in the Air Force before he became a missionary; he was able to answer a lot of the kids' questions about how the military requires blind allegiance to work correctly. I never once had to get after the kids for misbehavior or rowdiness. They were visibly shaken by what they were learning. Marilyn said this was the most profound year for this field trip because of how the kids reacted to it. The anti-climactic finish for the trip was a stop at McDonald's on the way home. Marilyn had promised them a french fry stop to help cut the tension from the trip. The German bus driver didn't quite understand why we would want to go to McDonald's but we won the discussion and got our stop.
I wouldn't say a concentration camp was a fun day out. What was fun was the bonding time with the kids, walking around and talking with them. As far as what we saw - it was a good reminder to bear witness and remember the things of the past so we don't let them happen again.
