WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO UNC WON! (now that we’ve gotten that out of way, we can begin with the stories of our adventurous day)
We awoke with our German wake-up calls, “Gutenmorgan”, and made our tired way to breakfast. The food was delicious, consisting of fresh chocolate croissants, lox, cheese, melt-in-your-mouth bread, sausage, eggs, juice, coffee, yogurt, granola, fruit, hard-boiled eggs, baked tomato, and so much food that you just wanted to eat as much as possible in one sitting. Good thing we have three days of that breakfast! We had quick devotions about having “God-chills” and then boarded the bus for Weimar, a town 23 km away from Erfurt.
The town is cute, clean, and friendly, just like Erfurt and is the home of Bach, Goethe, Cranach the Elder, and Hotel Elephant, where Hitler held a speech and rally. He spoke from the balcony of the hotel, which now has a mannequin in his place. After a few hours and lunch in Weimar, we re-boarded the bus for Buchenwald Concentration Camp. The long stretch of road into the camp was really eerie as the trees and forests were barren and somber. It was weird imaging if we were being driven into the camp in cattle cars with hundreds of other prisoners, instead of on a nice roomy modern bus. We each got iPod audio tour guides and a map so that we could explore and understand the camp at our own pace. The front gate said “Jedem Das Seine” or “to each his own”. Connected to the gate were bunkers where prisoners stayed. It was just a long hallway, with doors every few feet opening to small rooms with just a wooden bed inside. The doors were closed, with just a square opening to see into. It was eerie and somewhat scary to look inside each room, scared of what to expect on the other side of the door. A sign in the entrance explained that in room number 1, which was closest to the entrance, was where many of them spent the night before they were executed; in essence, that room was the last place they slept in their lives, that was their last experience of life, all taking place in that room. To see into this room, there was only a peephole, like one you would find on a hotel door. Looking with one eye into that room was the most eerie, and you really did not know what would be waiting on the other side of the door. It felt as if there was something else other than Kelsey and I inside that building, like other people were still inhabiting the place.
The camp was pretty barren, with most of the buildings burned down, either because of bombs, the removal of evidence, or just the destruction of it to erase the horrors that occurred. The camp is now, essentially, a field, filled with emotions. The weather and landscape added to the mood, even though it was sunny, it was not a happy sunny, it was cold, and there was no plant-life, green-ness, or blooming trees. The dorms that were once there were now outlined rectangular areas made of burnt rocks, bricks, and the structure’s remains. Most of the dorms were divided based on the people within, such as the children’s dorm and the Roma/Gypsy dorm. There was not enough time in our 2 hours to see everything, to experience everything, or to understand everything. And there are not enough words or time here to explain and relay it all back. We were able to see a replica of a crematorium with the ovens that dead bodies would be sent into it, the zoo that the SS created for families of the officers, and the train depot where the prisoners would arrive, amongst other scaring things. We reunited with the whole group at a memorial near the gate, a metal sheet on the ground constantly held at 98.6 degrees, the temperature of life. Pastor Mark prayed about love and hatred while we linked arms and hands as a sign of brotherhood and care.
After the moving experience at the camp, we returned to our hotel before going out to dinner. We all split in different directions getting a variety of food from pizza to bratwurst to snitzel to Turkish pitas. We returned to the hotel for devotions and then went out again as a way to kill time until the 2am game start.
The game: What a crazy, hysterical, wild, and once-in-a-life-time experience…with such an incredible outcome. A genius idea was to skype the game in. Upon winning, we got to “rush” our version of Franklin street, “Franklinstrasse”.
Well after a 20 hour non-stop, fun, crazy, exciting, thought-provoking, and happy day, it was good to finally get in bed and have a nice three hour sleep before our next adventures began…
-Hannah Peterson
-Hannah Peterson
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