What do you mean "last field studies?"

After weeks upon weeks of lectures with lawyers, explorations of police agencies, and solemn visits to synagogues, we met for the last field studies this morning. I cannot believe how fast this semester has gone. I distinctly remember getting dressed the morning of our first field studies. I remember filing into that little room in the embassy building. I remember Alex mentioning that he's Greek right in the middle of my question to Jay Truesdale. How can it already be the end? Especially when I don't want it to be...

For our very last trip, we visited the Holocaust Memorial Center. Unlike most other memorials, this center is funded by the Hungarian government. It is also purposely located outside of the Jewish quarter. The basic idea of these two aspects is that the Holocaust is not only a dark spot in Jewish history, but also in the entire nation's collective history. The idea is such a simple, seemingly-obvious one, but I have not seen it applied anywhere else except for in this Memorial Center. The building is beautifully understated from the outside. The inside, though, gives off the much darker side of things. The exhibit is not laid out as most Holocaust exhibits are, in chronological order. Instead, visitors walk through the "spiral of deprivation." It begins in 1938 with the initial deprivation of civil rights. The deprivation of property soon follows, then freedom, then dignity, and finally, existence. We have all visited a few Holocaust memorials and read various texts from that era for this semester's classes, but the topic has never been presented this way. It sheds new light on the subject, bringing the horror back into stark focus.

Visitors to the exhibit walk to an ominous soundtrack - the echo of moving vehicles in one room, the stomping of soldier's boots in another. At one point, I was so focused on reading a picture's paragraph-long caption that I didn't notice at first. Before my mind could even comprehend that it wasn't real, my heart sped up in fear. (I should probably also explain that Nell and I watched Children of Glory for Agnes' class last night - a movie documenting both the bloodiest water polo match and the 1956 Revolution. Courtney knocked on our door at one point, and I hesitated for about five minutes before she yelled "Let me in, it's cold out!") For a split second, there was just terror, no rationale, no reasoning. I knew it wasn't the Arrow Cross or the AVO stomping their way down the hall. I knew I was safe, I knew I was in no danger. This

knowledge doesn't simultaneously coincide with that gut-reaction, though. It's human instinct - there's fear first, and your voice kicks in later. I cannot imagine having that brief flood of fear last more than a few seconds. It did, though, for an entire nation. First with the Arrow Cross Party, then with the AVO and AVH. It's a feeling that I would never want to relive, not even for a few more seconds...

A series of white horizontal lines run along the museum's stark black walls. As the exhibit

progresses, one line in the collection will suddenly end while the rest continue. A few feet later, another ends abruptly. By the end, the walls only bear about five white lines. I had thought that this represented the gradual deprivation of rights. Little by little, the Jews, Roma, and other persecuted peoples had a bit more taken away from them. After looking over the website, though, I find it has a different meaning. Each line is meant to represent an individual life that was presented in the first room. By the end, most of them are gone - their lives taken by the atrocities.

I was incredibly moved and intrigued by the Memorial Center. I thought my visit to Auschwitz had taught me most everything, but I was wrong again. There were stories, photographs, memories there that I had never come across. The synagogue at the end was the most perfect finale. The exhibit is closed in with black marble walls and dim lighting, opening up into the gorgeously light synagogue. The domed ceiling lets you breathe for the first time in nearly an hour - a deep, heavy breathe that exhales all the darkness you just trudged through. Rows of glass benches reflect the light - benches marked with the names of victims who could have been sitting right there, had the Holocaust not stolen them away.

I'm not sure if it was just the bittersweet finality of this field study, or the incredible weight of the things we saw, but this was one of my favorite field studies. I held back on most of the tour, with the feeling that the words and photographs deserved much more attention than our guide was allowing them. By the end, I was pretty much on a tour of my own, constantly trying to catch up with the rest. But I didn't mind - sometimes, I just have to teach myself.