A trip into dark times of history

Our class made an excursion to a place called Niederbronn les Bains / Alsace. The reason for this trip was to bring us closer to the extent of the war and that something like this should definitely not happen again. We should understand how important it is to maintain the friendship between Germany and France and understand the suffering the relatives and families of the fallen had to experience. The trip was an offer of the school pastoral care.

After a 3 hour bus ride we finally arrived in Niederbronn at the youth guest house, which bordered on a war grave cemetery. At the beginning the directors of the "Albert-Schweizer-Haus" welcomed us and let us meet in the dining room. After we got some information about the house in general, we started with the guided tour of the war grave cemetery. Bernd Klein, head of our guided tour, was always informative and had the respective story ready for each grave. Very touching, however, were the individual fates of some people, who touched us very much.

The most exciting visit was the one that followed the next day. We visited the memorial place KZ (concentration camp) Struthof. This was a mass extermination camp and still shows many original objects and facilities of the camp. Also the premises there have hardly been changed at all and the whole camp complex is very large. We were guided through the memorial by our class teacher, who gave a true report at every monument or barrack. These reports were very interesting for me. Especially when you consider that the prisoners in Struthof were very intimidated with humiliating work and violence. Many of the prisoners were freedom fighters and opponents of National Socialism. Furthermore, it was not exactly easy to flee when one sees the measures taken at that time against flight and the consequences thereof. The background knowledge of the teacher, who accompanied our group through the concentration camp on this day, has considerably increased my imagination, as it came up in the concentration camp.

All in all, it was a successful change from everyday school life and I must say that I was very enthusiastic about the visit because it exceeded my expectations.

The trip is supported by the Protestant Church and the Foundation for Remembrance and Peace of the German War Graves Commission.

What we have learned from this is that each one of us can contribute something to peace in this world.