Berlin — Past and Present in Harmony by Emily Slomovits
Time. That’s the word that keeps sticking out to me since I arrived in Germany on Monday. Tsipy Gur said during our orientation meeting, “This trip will feel like 6 weeks and 48 hours all at the same time.” She’s right — there are moments when I forget that we haven’t been here for months, […]
Remembrance & Beyond By Laura Schwartzwald
Thursday, July 20th- Remembrance & Beyond Today we toured the Memorial and Museum at the former concentration Camp Sachsenhausen. Going into the day I felt uneasy, and unsure of what to expect. This was the first time that I had visited a concentration camp. Our tour guide explained to us that the Nazi’s needed a […]
Confronting the past to change the future by Amy Cotton
“My family has a history of bystanders and perpetrators.” It was our first day of programming for Germany Close Up (GCU). Our guides, young historians who would lead us through 9 days in Germany, shared this part of their background as we were finishing introductions. It was a detail that turned over in my mind […]
Track 17 by Maddie Herrup
Below should be my words from todays journey, specifically our visit to Track 17: “Today was the start of a heavier part of our journey in Germany. One of the spaces we visited was Track 17, one of the main train tracks in Berlin used to deport Jews to concentration and death camps during the […]
Germany Close Up Blog By Amanda Buchalter
This trip to Germany didn’t feel real to me until I arrived at the airport on Sunday evening. It didn’t feel real until I saw my friends, Sara and Emily, surrounded by their luggage trying to get organized. When my friends, absolutely beaming, yelled, “We’re going to Germany!!” Every single step of the way to […]
Upon My Return by Nancy Aloi
Garrette and I are safely home from our Vienna Prague Seminar and want to express our gratitude to Classrooms Without Borders and the amazing group of educators with whom we shared the experience. We also want to thank those of you who took the time to read our posts on Facebook and view the photos. […]
The Missing Pieces by Clare McVey
Every educator, no matter their subject, comes into their profession with the crude outline of a puzzle. There are pieces missing along the border and some sporadic pieces in the middle, but most of it is empty space. As we grow in our profession and lives some of the empty spaces are replaced with a […]
July 12th by Bradley Sorge
Part 1 ‘Teaching History with Human Connections’Teaching history, we often get caught up in the facts (events, places, etc.). We can make the biggest impact with the memorable stories of ordinary people in extraordinary situations. These personal struggles are often what our students remember the most.Today we visited the Kindertransport Memorials at the train station […]
Final Thoughts by Julia Mastro
Today’s most impactful visit was the train station memorials. Seeing the imprints of the hands of adults and children along with the statue of a man with 2 children hit me hard. I cannot imagine the desperation the parents and children must have felt. One of the best parts of this seminar has been the […]