AHS Students Explore WWII History
October 18, 2007
Auburn High School was proud to host the TRACES WWII Bus Museum on Thursday, October 17th. Over 200 students and staff members were able to view the exhibit. The focus of the museum was on the Midwest POW's held primarily in the European Theater. Students were able to view artifacts from former POW's and read first hand accounts of their experiences.
The TRACES Bus-eum educational experience has been built upon
years of research and gathered support. The International Committee
of the Red Cross in Geneva and the Bildarchiv Preussischer
Kulturbesitz in Berlin have supplied hundreds of photos for the
exhibit that otherwise are unknown in the United States.
Indiana-born former POW and best-selling author Kurt Vonnegut has
given TRACES free and unrestricted use of Slaughterhouse Five his
account of having been present during the firebombing of Dresden.
Beyond Barbed Wire explores the human context of the POW
experiences. Implicitly, it addresses five primary questions:
1.) Why did some Midwest POWs survive certain conditions or
experiences, while others did not?
2.) What roles did art, free-time, and religion play in helping
those men who did survive imprisonment by the Nazi regime?
3.) Why did some Germans or Austrians assist U.S. POWs, while
others did not?
4.) How did the liberated POWs later come to terms with their own
experiences, and
5.) How do nations and the individuals who constitute a nation come
to reconciliation?
