By MaryAnn Suhl, BA A Thesis In History Submitted to ... - Repositories

Texas Tech University, MaryAnn Suhl, May 2013
the fences were not “real.” I could leave at any time to go to the bathroom or take
a sip of water, but still, the work was sobering. 32
As described by this teamer, the work associated with the IJB is much more than
participants and “teamers” sitting around and having intellectual discussions of the
meaning of the Holocaust. Here is an example of the way that their volunteer services
contributed to maintaining the Memorial site, but at the same time it reflects a personal
and emotional connection to the work by the “teamer.” As Wood suggested, there were
no real barriers that kept her from completing the clean-up of the barbed wire fence, but
at the same time there was a sense of psychological heaviness in order to perform the
work.
Tent Camp volunteerism was not simply confined to Dachau. In 1988, a group
from the IJB traveled to Munich in order to clean up a Jewish cemetery that had been
neglected for years. 33
This was a way for participants of the IJB to get involved in other
communities surrounding Dachau, but it was also a chance for them to participate in
“hands-on” memorialization by promoting the memory of the Holocaust by physically
performing deeds that worked to instill sites that were related to the events of the
Holocaust. These kinds of activities create a connection that is different that reading
testimonies or literature about the Holocaust, because they are active participation by
volunteering time and energy to preserve historic sites of memory.
32 Jennifer Wood. “Service,” Dachau is also a town, 2011, dachauisalsoatown.wordpress.com/aproject/service/
(accessed October 12, 2012).
33 Documentation for Internationale Jugendbegegnung Dachau from 1983 to 1988. Private collection of Dr.
Lynne Fallwell, 49.
102