10/30/2023

Service Projects in Vienna

During our stay in Vienna, we were each assigned a service project to go to. This took place about every other week for a couple of hours at a time. I was assigned a position at an elementary school along with three of my peers. On each visit we were expected to prepare and carry out activities for fourth graders. As an elementary education major, this service project was a really exciting opportunity for me. Before each visit, I and the other three students would meet to prepare art projects, games, and music to do with the children, and send our plan to the supervising teacher to have it approved. On the day of our visits, we would do what we had planned with the classes which was always a super fun time! For one project we did with the class we had the students cut out their hand prints, decorate them, and put them up to create a tree.

Another time we made the tallest towers possible using just spaghetti and marshmallows. The class also loved playing games such as Hangman, Pictionary, and Simon Says. The students did not have much experience with English yet, so our time with them gave them practice. It was also more fun for them than their typical English lessons! This time also helped me learn a few more words in German and learn more about Viennese culture and their school system. Being able to spend some time in a classroom while studying abroad was a super beneficial experience for me. I was able to get some practice with teaching while also learning so much. I also was able to have a super fun time playing games, doing projects, and singing and dancing with an awesome class of fourth-grade students!

-Daphne Kropf

Terezín

During our stay in Prague, the group visited Terezín, which was a fortress turned extermination camp during the Nazi Regime. We started off by seeing the museums on the property that had things like artwork from the children, music and poetry that had been written, and other products of having the Jewish people be forced there. One thing that really surprised me was the propaganda that was put out to portray Terezín as a cute small town. After seeing the propaganda, we walked into the extermination camps to the reality of living there. It was heartbreaking. We spent several weeks in Austria learning about Jewish treatment, but being in the actual place where many of these terrible acts occurred was a much more touching experience. The beds they slept on, the bathrooms they used, seeing the small portions of food, and the places they were given to eat. As a group of 23, we were walking into rooms and complaining about being cramped, but then the tour guide explained that 3-4 times our amount of people would have been in this room at one time. One story that the tour guide shared was about the famine and diseases that would cause death. When a prisoner would die in their sleep, others would try to hide the body from the guards, so they could have the rations that person was supposed to have because they were so hungry. We also walked around the execution grounds where hundreds of people lost their lives to no fault of their own. It was an experience that I will keep with me for the rest of my life. Being in the actual places, hearing more personal stories, seeing the artwork of people who didn’t get to grow up and share their work, seeing the way the children and adults were expressing their feelings in music, art, writing, and any other way they could was very touching. It was hard to tell at times if they had any idea of the horrors that were happening all around them, or if they were choosing to not believe it as a way to cope.

This experience brought an entirely new understanding and emotion towards the holocaust. It made it seem more recent and showed the devastating facts on an entirely new level. I think it’s hard to understand the magnitude of what these people did and went through, but being there brought our group a little closer to understanding the horrible effects of the Nazi party.

-Gracie Conner

9/20/2023

Week one in Vienna felt like a whirlwind. From the three-hour drive from Salzburg to meeting host families, there were very few moments that weren’t filled with exciting things. Whether it be the first opera of the trip, Daphne, or seeing Leopoldstadt, or even just finding out which stand in the Naschmarkt has the best kebabs, there were plenty of very enjoyable moments within our first week. There’s even been some time to find some pretty amazing graffiti around town. Top all of that off with learning German and touring the city, and it’s already been quite an adventure for everyone.

-Alexis Lewis

The first week of the EMU Europe Intercultural was spent in Salzburg, Austria. The group spent the time getting adjusted, learning the culture, and exploring the new area. For me, it was full of emotions. Excitement and Sadness are the most present. I was super excited to have this new adventure, but leaving behind my family and the EMU community was a much more difficult task than I had expected. In such a short time, I have realized that the self-growth I will gain from this trip will be significant and I’m excited to continue learning about the new area and myself.