Something Tangible

The excursion this past Friday in Wagner's class was one of the toughest moments that I have dealt with during my trip. We went to view a couple memorial sights and one of them was the Grunewald Deportation site. I have been to the Washington D.C. holocaust museum and have even been to Yad Vashem in Israel. Many visitors cry over the shocking pictures and descriptions of the holocaust, yet I never have. At the Grunewald Deportation site, there wasn't a picture or description of the Jews that were deported from there. Instead there were empty rail road tracks, one plaque that mentioned the 50,000 plus deported and rocks that lined the plaque. The class quickly glanced at the memorial and then headed back for the bus, but I couldn't move. There was something so tangible about this monument that made me sink into this spot. This was the actual site where people went to their death, this was not a picture, this was not the re-creation. The rocks that lay silently across the plaque are symbols in Judaism that are usually only found in graveyards. These rocks are placed by individuals to signify they remember and have traveled to see you. I stared at the rocks and realized that this memorial was a cemetery. I started to wonder about how many of my own relatives walked up to the train tracks and into their own graveyards without even realizing it. I then left the memorial and boarded the laughing bus to continue our field trip of Jewish plight.