Over spring break, eight students in Dr. Alice- Catherine Carls’ History 343 class participated in a travel study to Washington D.C. The class, “Europe 1945 to Present,” covered the Holocaust and its aftermath in-depth to prepare students for the trip.
The group left Martin on Monday morning, March 4, and headed towards Nashville to visit with a Holocaust survivor at the Gordon Jewish Community Center. After visiting, the group went to see the Nashville Holocaust Memorial. The next day on March 5, they flew to Washington D.C. and that afternoon, the group attended a lecture by Dr. Deiter Kuntz and Dr. Patricia Herberer. The two Holocaust scholars gave the lecture at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). On March 7, under the guidance of Kuntz, the group spent the whole day at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Kuntz was the group mentor for the duration of the travel study.
On Thursday, the group went through a tour of the USHMM guided by a child survivor of the Holocaust. Following the tour, a lunch was held at the museum where students were provided the opportunity to meet World War II and Holocaust historian Dr. Gerhard Weinberg. The group then listened to survivor Martin Weiss who was 11 years old when his family was deported to Auschwitz and then Mauthausen.
Later, the group had the chance to see how research was performed for the Holocaust Museum. Here, the students were the first to see a diary donated to the Museum. The diary belonged to a Czech woman and was written in perfect English. She chronicled the wartime events and their relation to the Holocaust. The group of students ended their day at Georgetown where they visited the statue of Jan Karski, a longtime Georgetown government professor. Karski risked his life to reveal the truth about the Holocaust. The group left Georgetown by taking a staircase featured in the film, “The Exorcist” where Georgetown faculties were actually used as movie extras.
On Friday the group visited various venues before taking a flight back to Nashville and returning to Martin that night.
Carls finds participating in a travel study to be an important part of the educational experience.
“I [think] of travel study as a fully academic experience. It starts in the classroom, culminates with the trip, and is followed by a conclusion, usually a get-together,” Carls said.
To continue the idea of learning about the Holocaust, on April 9 at 9:30 a.m., Sonja Dubois, a child Holocaust survivor, will visit Carls’ History 343 class in recognition of Holocaust Remembrance Week.
Any student interested in attending a travel study can visit the Travel Studies office in Gooch 144, and check with their college to see about scholarship opportunities.
