Communication, Feeling, Action----

The aims of learning

Noam Chomsky of Harvard identifies the three essential parts of communication as language that is informative, language that is valuative, ie, that produces a feeling; and language that is incitive, ie, that results in some kind of action, or response. In thinking about my experiences as a member of the 120^th Evacuation Hospital, attached to the Third Army, General Patton, Commander, I am asked frequently to recall those experiences when my unit entered Buchenwald Concentration Camp in April, 1945. I have done so willingly, and gladly, for I think I have no alternative, and that has been the direction that my life has taken in the past 50 years, or more. Much of this recall has been in schools at the secondary level, when I have been asked to speak before classes, to tell them what it was like to be exposed to the Holocaust as a liberator, as one who saw first hand the inhuman conditions of life that lead to the extermination of over sixteen million human beings, many of whom were of the Jewish faith. My language, therefore, must be heavy in informative as well as valuative language, since I want my audience to understand the things I saw , my experiences as a soldier in WW II, and the unbelieveable conditions that existed in the concentration camps. I want them to feel the anguish I felt in working with the poor victims of Nazi tyranny. It is my hope that the organizer of the event in question will pick up the incitive aspect of the communication, and have some journal writing, or other activity that will reinforce some of the informative as well as valuative parts of the experience.

I approach these classes with an early background in German Literature, having studied the language in college, and in the Army Specialized Training Program in Fordham University, where I was immersed in a concentrated program of study to learn as much as I could of the language of Germany, the people and culture of Germany, and the recent history of Germany which lead to the establishment of the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler. I had brought to this learning experience a background in music, especially the vocal music of Schubert, of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, whose songs I learned in my studies as an aspiring singer of sorts. I loved the music of Germany, and the culture of Germany as revealed in the writing of Goethe , Schiller, Lessing, Heine. I loved the music and operas of Wagner.

The writings of Goethe through which he developed his philosophy became the dominant intellectual force in my life following my army experiences. His “Gefuehl is alles”, feeling is everything, became so dominant in my thinking that much of my active professional life was controlled by his philosophy; it became the prevailing influence in my interaction with children and adults in teaching, and in community relationships. In retirement, I have had the time to ponder this powerful influence, and have been startled at times at the decisions I have made, and the direct actions that have as a basis the philosophy of “Gefuehl ist alles”. I began the Center for Affective Learning in my retirement years, which has been the primary focus of all my professional and political activities in the past 17years.

The Life Beyond Buchenwald of Warren E. Priest

How does one approach the past events of one’s life objectively?

Perhaps, one should abandon objectivity, and accept the memories, attached to all the emotions and prejudices present at the time, without trying to censor, or censure, as the case may be. "History as it was writ"--- historians telling the story of the past have always been tormented by these decisions, and I suspect always will. And so, the passing of the years from my age of recall to the present will be from the perspective of the first person. I apologize for the frequency of the use of the first person pronoun, for I know how I disproved of such composition in my criticism of students' writing; the fact that I must use the first person pronoun in this account is embarrassing, so please understand.

This present subject is an attempt to explain how my experiences at Buchenwald Concentration Camp as a member of the 120th Evacuation Hospital affected my life in the years immediately following my discharge from the service, and in the succeeding years. As was true for much of the time I spent in the Camp---those five days which, even today, remain shrouded in mystery for the most part, so the years immediately following my army career were spent without any thoughtful reminiscing of the Buchenwald experience. I encased all the artifacts as well as memorabilia in a trunk in my attic when I returned home from the war, and did not open that trunk, or the memories of my experiences until 25 years later. However, the decisions I made in the direction that I wanted my life to take were somehow directly, if without thoughtful planning or design, directly effected by that experience in Buchenwald. For example,

My primary assignment at Buchenwald was to service, care for, and determine the

needs of the young people in the camp. It was an assignment that has changed my whole life. You see, some of the children were born of Jewish mothers, but of sometimes of

uncertain paternity, especially those born in the camp. They were by- products of Nazi lust, Nazi insensitivity, and Nazi cruelty. Incredibly, my unit was housed in Schloss Ettersburg, a school for children where Goethe and Schiller spent many summer months. I kept thinking of Goethe's words at the end of his great opus, Faust, when he observes that "feeling is everything"---Gefuhl ist alles. That I was witness to the antithesis of that principle, and that those leading the German nation were directly responsible, was the cruelist of ironies for me.

As with many of my fellow veterans, I have lived for a lifetime with the memories of my war experiences---the war, in a sense, has never ended for me. Although, like others, I did not, and probably could not initially talk about what I had seen of my experiences in Buchenwald, there came a time when that psychic impediment became weaker, and my life, with new resolves, changed with new discoveries of myself, and my newly discovered understanding of the power of hope. I discovered that only by looking to the future, planning for the future, and becoming absorbed in future challenges, could I could live with the darkness of my memories of Buchenwald. What would be more natural for a "futurist" than to work in the field of education, with children in the communities and in the schools!

As a non-Jew, and a student of Germany, I chose to spend my life working to

mitigate that Nazi cruelty as much as I could. Thus, in 1947, I sought employment in a

new camp for Jewish children at Camp Manitou in Maine, where I immersed myself in the a language, religious practices, and as much of the culture as I could. I wrote the songs and the cheers for the camp, and I presented regular plays for Saturday nights, and campfires for Wednesdays. I took great pleasure in learning and then teaching some of the beautiful songs of worship for the Friday night services when Uncle Joe Nathanson taught me the pronunciation of "Eli, Eli" which I sang at nearly every parents' weekend; and when I learned the beauty of the Passover Services at friends' homes over the years. I found strong and permanent friendships there, and when I left, I accepted a teaching position in Newton, Massachusetts, where 85 percent of my students were of the Jewish faith. Can it be that I felt that some if not all of the memories of the Buchenwald and Dachau experiences were assuaged somewhat? In addition, I spent five years as a soloist in the Jewish Temple in Haverhill, Massachusetts, where I learned the words of the Hebrew service.

My work for 35 years as a social studies teacher at Meadowbrook Junior High

School furthered this new-found mission, for I was able to bring the course "Facing History and Ourselves" into the curriculum for children in Newton, most of whom were also of the Jewish religion. When I left Newton, when I retired from teaching, I was very comforted that the Holocaust unit was a basic part of the curriculum in Newton High School. While operating my summer camp in Woodstock, the double tragedies to Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in 1968, moved me to make my camp facilities available to the Urban League in Boston, and for five years, 180-200 inner city children, mostly Afro-American and Puerto Rican became familiar with the mountains, forests and lakes or lovely state. It was in this summer experience that the "Black Big Brothers " organization began, with the collaboration of the Schools of Education at Boston College and Boston University.

In the five years of the inner city camp, the campers, with the support of their “black big brothers” learned the skills to help them through classes in Roxbury and Dorchester during the winter. Sixty-five percent of them completed high school, and 20 percent went on to college!

I also had service men and women from the Veterans' Hospital in Boston spend some therapeutic time in my cabins, and I hosted the Explorer troop of the Newton Police, as well as the Youth group of the Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Newton in the spring and the fall under the sponsorship of Fr. Bob Connors.

In my retirement years, I have developed a workshop on the Holocaust, using many of the pictures I took, and telling the story of as much I can of the memories I have of my experience. I am not certain that I have been credible when I acknowledge my loss of so much memory of my experiences, but I have to tell the truth. I have relied on the pictures I took to tell the story for the most part. My workshops have been presented in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, Florida, and Vermont. I attach the letter written to me by a student in New Hampshire, telling of the impact of my workshop on her, a letter I found very gratifying, indeed.

In my 15 years of retirement, I have continued my "mission" efforts, for

I now see this life-long effort as a kind of mission. I had experienced a human

disaster of such magnitude, and was able through small efforts to bring some measure of

humanity through the teaching of Goethe---that "feeling is, indeed, EVERYTHING!" That no matter how much we create, how wealthy, or educated we become, or how many

beautiful buildings or cities we create, in the final analysis it is the relationship of man to man that determines life's true meaning.