Languages open doors on the I-Witness Field School

July 08, 2026

by Scarlet Bowness (Germanic Studies, 3rd year)

My academic journey has been guided by the belief that to learn a language is to understand the culture that speaks it. Learning German was never simply about mastering the grammar (although there is nothing simple about German grammar), but about understanding the German people’s cosmovision. The only way to understand that is by learning about their history.

And so, I found myself in the I-Witness Field School. I applied for scholarships and received the Budvitch Award in Holocaust Studies and the Silberberg Family Memorial Award. After a week of reading and discussion, my classmates and I embarked on a trip to Germany, Poland and Austria to explore Holocaust memorialization in Europe.

Through our visits to synagogues, museums, and former concentration camps, I learned how victims and perpetrators have their own ways to remember and how politics shape remembrance. What fascinated me the most is how that is reflected in the language used in memorialization. Not every memorial included English, since German (as well as Russian and Polish) were the languages spoken in those territories and remembrance to their future generations was the goal. What an incredible experience it was for me to understand what was written because languages open doors. In this case, it opened a door for understanding history.

I am a third-year Germanic studies student, with no connections to Germany or any German speaking country. I am the first in my family to speak English as a second language and first to speak German (B2 level) for academic purposes. I have never felt a sense of belonging like I felt when I was in Europe connecting history to today’s geopolitics. I was able to communicate in German every day, and I felt right at home talking to students from the University of Vienna (we had the chance to join University students in their classes in every country). I am considering studying a post degree in Austria and I dream of working as a guide in Mauthausen.

One memorable day, we went to the Bebelplatz in Berlin, historically known as the site of Nazi student “book burnings.” The memorial consists of a space underground full of empty bookshelves visible to visitors through a glass on the ground. That sunny day, the glass was dirty. We were a bit disappointed that we couldn’t see it. I spoke with some tourists and they voiced their disappointment as well. Determined to find a solution, I asked for collaboration. In English, German and Spanish, people were asked to hand in paper napkins or tissues and to share some alcohol-based hand sanitizer. After cleaning the glass up, people clapped and many photos were snapped.

We wandered about in every city we visited. In Berlin, for example, it was fascinating to hear about our Program Director’s experiences visiting Berlin as a student back when the city was divided into east and west. I wondered if I would find myself telling stories about my times as a student visiting Berlin with the I-Witness Field School to my own students or colleagues one day.