Monday, May 7, 2012

Das Wochenende


The highlight of Saturday was enjoying a concert at the Wartburg. I was delighted to enjoy a concert that took place in the Festsaal – a hall with remarkable acoustics. The music featured works from Haydn, Stravinsky and Beethoven. Concerts are a fantastic way to experience culture in a different country, without the language barrier!

On Sunday we started the day with worship, Gottesdienst, at the St. Georgen Kirche. The service was a Bach Kantate. St. George is the church where J.S. Bach was baptized. Bach was born in Eisenach and spent part of his childhood growing up there. This week a girl was baptized, so I got to see what the ritual of practicing this sacrament is like in a different culture.

Sunday was a rainy and dreary day, so we went along with the tone of the weather. We took a trip to Weimar in the afternoon to visit Buchenwald. Although it was a far cry from a joyful afternoon trip, it was a very meaningful experience. As someone who is interested in peace and justice issues, it was important for me to gain perspective on the history of the Holocaust.

Buchenwald was a concentration camp. It was technically a labor camp and not an extermination camp, but people still lost their lives there. Even if people survived physically, I could only imagine how the de-humanization of it all impacted their mental and emotional well-being. While it is hard to face, it is important to keep evidence of such atrocious history available so that people can look back and understand the lesson to be learned.

One of the first things we saw at Buchenwald was the gate in the entryway to the camp. On the door it reads, “Jedem das Seine,” which means, “To each his own.” At the end of our visit, Dr. Kleinhans pointed out a memorial that offers a glimmer of hope. The memorial had engraved all the different nationalities of victims at Buchenwald. This memorial is always kept at a constant 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, to represent the common humanity.



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