Hi! My name is Naomi and I'm one of the lucky students going on the trip "On the Nazi Trail." I am so excited for this class! It is an amazing opportunity to learn so many new things as well as travel overseas, something I've never done before! Each week we have German lessons and along with that are told stories about the cultures in Germany, Austria, and Italy, as well as the interesting, weird, and amazing things to expect in each country. This just builds the excitement!
I am expecting to learn many new things in this May Term class. I never thought about what happened to the Nazi leaders after World War II. I never knew where they went or what they did after they were defeated. I also can't wait to see new parts of the world that I have never been to before. One thing in particular that will be interesting to see is the concentration camp that we will be visiting at the beginning of the trip. It will be an incredibly sad experience I am sure but hopefully it will enlighten us into the history of the Holocaust.
I hope that this trip doesn't fly by and we will be able to take it all in along the way. I love learning new things, especially about history, and I really love going to museums and seeing and exploring historic buildings. It is one thing to see pictures online but a whole other to actually be going to these places and experiencing them for myself!
--Naomi
Thanks, Naomi. We are indeed beginning with what will likely be a powerful and disturbing visit, to the first concentration camp that the Nazis established at Dachau, within months of their assumption of power in 1933.
ReplyDeleteOne thing we'll keep emphasizing is the layers of history all along this route - for example, once we cross the Alps we'll be in the Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige -- part of what used to be the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and what Austrians and German-speaking Italians often still call the South Tyrol; and centuries before was part of the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul, and in between . . . .