A Trip That Won't Be Forgotten

At the age of just 13, I was given a trip to tour Europe for my birthday. It was a trip that at the time, I didn't take for granted. I was able to travel through countries I may never visit again but it was full of history that I would soon learn about in the next few years of high school and college.

One of the stops on the tour was a concentration camp in Austria, Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp. At the time I didn't understand where we were and what made this place so important. In high school, we learned all about what happened at these camps and it all set in. There were two things that I will never forget though. I remember being led down a set of stairs that led to a dark room. It looked like it was a cellar, with concrete on all the walls and the ceiling. There was a sign over the door that read, "Exekutions-Statte." At one point we were told that where we stood, over 80,000 people took their last breath. This included children, mothers, and fathers. It's still crazy to think I stood in that room and unlike the 80,000 people who died in there, I got to walk out and continue to eat, breathe, and live a life.  The second thing I will never forget was we were lead over to a field. There were beautiful rolling hills covered in grass that was greener than any grass I had ever seen. As we were admiring how beautiful this field was, we were told that those hills were bodies. Hill after hill was made of bodies that were just tossed into piles. These people were never given a proper burial and will never be able to be identified. It still makes me sick just thinking about that picture in my head of those amazingly beautiful fields. At the end of the tour there was an area in the middle of the camp that you could place a rock in a large cement structure. I left a rock just like everyone else did, but almost 10 years later, that rock means more than just knowing what went on. I will never understand what those families were put through or understand why what happened did, but I promise you I will never forget what happened in those gas chamber, or why those hills were as beautiful as they are. I will never forget.

The other stop I will never forget was when we got to tour the Sound of Music garden. A year before we went on this tour, I was given the privilege to play Gretl Von Trapp in the Sound of Music and I had seen the movie many, many times. We were able to see the outside of the house, the gazebo where "Sixteen going on Seventeen" was filmed, but my favorite was the garden where "Do-Re-Mi" took place. We were able to play around the fountain where they sang, as well as run down the tunnel they biked down while singing. The garden was filled with breath taking flowers along with multiple fountains and gorgeous statues. When I look at the pictures of the day we visited, I can't help but think of the song Edelweiss. The Captain sings, "Bless my homeland forever" and there is no doubt that the land is blessed with beauty.

I will never forget this trip. I highly encourage you to visit Germany, Austria, Hungry, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. You will see things that will take your breath away, eat unforgettable food, and experience a culture that is so different than ours.