A lesson from across the pond
At the beginning of my junior year, I had believed I was too far in my major to participate in a study abroad trip. Luckily, I was wrong. In the summer of 2016, I flew to Vienna, Austria to take part of a 3 week study abroad trip to evaluate the different levels of governing within Europe in regards to many topics, such as immigration, climate change, security, and human rights. Within those 3 weeks, we visited five different cities: Vienna, Munich, Luxembourg city, Strasbourg, and Brussels. All these cities provided us with an insight of the way the government and institutions functioned at different levels. From visiting the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, where we learned securing peace and promoting collaboration among states, to the European Union and its supranational system of interconnectedness to promote unity and fair trade. All of these left me with a deeper understanding of the different roles that organizations and governments have, not just for the people, but for each other, which enables them to work better for the communities they serve.
In Munich, while we were able to visit the Bavarian Parliament, the experience that stayed with me was visiting Dachau, the first concentration camp during the Holocaust, and later a refugee camp. Growing up, I was introduced to the Holocaust through movies like, ‘The Boy in the Stripe Pajamas’, and documentaries narrating Anne Frank’s story. But it felt unreal to be walking through Dachau while knowing that this was the place where the Nazi regime took place less than a hundred years ago. Reading the exhibitions and hearing the narrations from an audio guide put the history of the Holocaust in a new perspective. There was no need to imagine anything because we were present where part of it happened. Hearing and seeing about the human rights violations that occurred highlighted to me the importance of the establishment and protection of human rights
today to prevent this type of discrimination from occurring again. While human rights violations have occurred after the Holocaust, the establishment and agreement among most states has allowed for collaboration and mutual agreement in ceasing these abuses. While countries have been accused for the lack of assistance that they gave to Holocaust victims and refugees back then, today the story seems to repeat with the mistreatment and judgment of political leaders and governments given towards other refugees who are denied help in fear that they are terrorist or criminals. Additionally, having been able to visit the refugee camp in Germany allowed me to see the humane side to the story of refugees and showed me how similar our desires are: to be safe and to have a place to call home. While I understand the fear and doubts that arise from the refugee crisis, allowing fear to be the dictator of political decision can more easily lead the world into another war instead of helping solve the current humanitarian crises that we are currently under. After these visits, I deeply realized how important the establishment and effectiveness of organizations such as the United Nations is, and their role at preventing crimes against humanity.
