Weimar

I wrote the last post about Karneval from my room in the youth hostel in Weimar, in East Germany. Now I can tell you what I was doing there.
The trip to Weimar lasted from Last Wednesday (one day after Karneval ended) until last Sunday, and was required for everyone affiliated with ASSE. This means that I was briefly reunited with everyone I met in Washington DC.
On Wednesday we took trains from our separate locations and met up at the youth hostel where we spent most of our time. We were introduced to a few program leaders who spoke entirely in German with us, which was both a blessing and a curse.
That afternoon we were given an exercise; to walk into downtown Weimar and find the answer to two questions. My small group was given questions that led us to the Market square, where we found a plaque dedicated to a famous painter (Lucas Cranach) as well as one dedicated to Bach. The exercise was meant to introduce us to the city, which turned out to be quite smaller than I had imagined. Weimar is actually quite beautiful, so I enjoyed running around and snapping pictures, while constantly making sure I did not trip on the loose cobblestone roads.

See? Pretty.

The next morning we walked into downtown to catch a bus that took our group to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Before going in we were given a basic history of the place, as well as warned multiple times to keep a reverential attitude while inside. The weather was cold, with gusts of biting wind that bit at our faces while tried to explore what remained of the camp. Our first view was of the entrance gate, with the camp's motto "Jedem Das Seine" (To each his own.) The motto was built into the gate in such a way that it was the right way around for the prisoners inside of the camp, and not for visitors or newcomers. 

We toured a group of cells and torture rooms together, then were sent on our own to look around. I and a small group of girls made a beeline for the nearest building, where we could stop shivering long enough to get a good luck around. We found ourselves in a small art gallery that was built in one of the old storage and cleaning facilities. The art was, for the most part, made by the inmates and was hauntingly beautiful overall. Some of the artists had already been professional, while some had learned their art during their lives in the concentration camp. The pieces ranged from still lives to portraits of other inmates to sketches of corpses, as well as abstract renditions of pain and sadness. (A small description can be found here.)

We stayed in the gallery for quite a while, then made our way for the crematorium, and then on to other buildings and memorials. I could speak for much longer about Buchenwald, but there are certain things I'd much rather convey directly, rather than through my blog. I can say that, overall, the visit to the concentration camp was interesting, eye-opening and  heartrendingly sad. 

The buildings in Buchenwald are all but gone, now memorials line the paths.

This is the Jewish memorial

We returned to the youth hostel and spent the rest of the day in meetings; talking about our lives as exchange students up to this point. The next day was the greatest test of boredom, however, as we were put in a "seminar" program that lasted from 9 in the morning until 7 at night. We discussed values for the entire day (I'm still not entirely sure why.) To this end we ranked our own morals and values, interviewed strangers, and held a mock debate. The entire day was in German and it was mind-numbing. We were told the next day that this sort of thing would never be attempted with our program again. 

The final full day was spent visiting the homes of Schiller and Goethe, which was interesting but relatively unremarkable (at least for the purpose of my blog.) We were given an extra hour before curfew that night (which allowed us to hang out together in Weimar until midnight,) then we hopped on trains the next morning and went our separate ways again.
All in all it was an interesting trip, and very fun for something that was required for participation in the program. We had to go to meetings, but it was all balanced by a good deal of interesting excursions and fun breaks. As I'm writing this I'm recovering from sickness and sleeplessness as a result of the Weimar trip, but that too will pass (although it might live on in my writing... I hope I did okay!)