Grace Allen was featured in a German documentary to discuss her work at the Mittelbau Dora museum. Click photo to watch. Photo courtesy of Arte.tv.
Last summer, two University of Tennessee at Chattanooga students—Grace Allen and Stephen Scott— traveled abroad for the first time.
It wasn’t a vacation, though. The pair spent two weeks in Thuringia, Germany, participating in a workshop with students from around the world at Mittelbau-Dora—a concentration camp that saw tens of thousands of enslaved inmates during World War II.
Unlike the Auschwitz or Dachau camps, Mittelbau-Dora is less recognized. Still, it holds significance as a forced labor camp where prisoners built rockets and bombs in underground tunnels for the Nazi regime.
“It’s a huge concentration camp, but it’s not one that people usually think of,” said Dr. John Swanson, Guerry professor in the UTC Department of History and organizer of the trip. “It means that the camp wasn’t turned into a museum long ago.”
Scott and Allen contributed to the now-existing museum through research and restoration work.
“Our group was tasked with outlining the infirmary,” said Scott, a senior history and political science double major from Ringgold, Georgia. With stones, they traced the foundation of the long-gone structure, helping visitors visualize the original layout.
On the research side, Allen said they examined historical records, piecing together who had passed through or worked in the camp’s infirmary.
“We were all given court transcripts from different trials,” said Allen, a senior history major from Nashville. “We collected information about these people’s lives, their jobs and who they worked for. We compiled them all into a brief summary for the museum.”
The inside of a Mittelbau-Dora tunnel where groups of prisoners were made to live and where partial assembly of the rockets was completed. Photo courtesy of Grace Allen.
Scott said that there was a uniqueness to the camp that made it different from what the student researchers had previously studied.
“The difference with this camp was that it was a work camp, so they would work people to death,” he said. “There were a lot of deaths that mostly came from disease and exhaustion.
“Mittelbau-Dora is also a little different because it was in a mountain. Going into the mountain and into the tunnels they created was amazing to see it for yourself.”
Though their work was compelling, they shared it was somewhat difficult to process the atrocities that occurred in the exact place they spent most of their days during the trip.
“It was a very solemn moment sitting there thinking about all that occurred there,” Scott said. “I would listen to the tragedies that occurred in the same spot that I was standing at. It was sad and made me contemplate, but at the same time it was unimaginable.”
Allen said the research allowed her to think more in-depth about the individual lives impacted by the Holocaust.
“Studying these topics in school,” she said, “it’s very easy to generalize certain populations and names into a category of history. Researching doctors, prisoners or anybody in the city, you put names to those ideas that you had and you really get to learn a lot about one person or one city.
“It makes it very physically real.”
Not only did the students get a chance to learn a critical part of history, but they also got to experience a new culture.
Scott, who had never been on an airplane prior to the trip, said they visited multiple German cities and landmarks—such as Martin Luther’s house in Wittenberg and the Erfurt Cathedral.
“I never understood what culture shock was,” Scott said. “I always thought I’d just get over it, but culture shock is a real thing.”
Allen recalled the hostel where she and the others stayed.
“It was owned by a church and there were nine of us,” she said. “We had shared rooms, but we had a common area that was very beautiful—and it was surrounded by this lovely garden in this very, very tiny city.
“It was beautiful.”
Swanson accompanied Allen and Scott for four days, but he is confident the trip was transformational for them.
“They learned a lot,” Swanson said. “They got to see places and things they study, but I guarantee there are probably 25 more things they just learned about themselves and other people by having to live and work with people from all parts of the world about very important subjects.”
The trip was made possible by Swanson and the Office for Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavor (URaCE), who helped fund the trip. Swanson, with support from URaCE, has chosen two more students to attend a similar workshop this July.
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Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavor (URaCE)
Stephen Scott (second from left) and Grace Allen (black shirt) with other members of their group at the Mittelbau-Dora museum. Photo courtesy of Grace Allen.
