A Bridge to the Past

Prior to his death at age 93 in 2018, Frank would meet with students upon their return to hear how the experience has made a difference to their education and their lives. Testimonials from recent participants show that Frank’s legacy continues to make a difference.

Alayna Parlevliet
Plan II Honors and International Relations & Global Studies, Class of 2026
My grandfather, his siblings and his mother were internees in the Japanese internment camp system in the Dutch East Indies during World War II. I never understood the weight and depth of this story until the Normandy Scholar Program. The NSP pushed me to research my family history, which previously existed only in vague snippets of conversation from my childhood.
I worked with family artifacts and primary source materials to bring awareness to this hidden history for my family and the program. The NSP made me more aware of people’s individual histories, cultural memory and the power of words to amass support. The lessons I learned from the NSP will apply to every aspect of my life, especially with my career aspirations in government.
The professors presented World War II as a highly personal history, alive with persisting questions about war ethics and individual choices. Lessons about the concentration camp system were paired with memoirs and diaries from inmates detailing assigned jobs, systematic cruelties and specific survival methods. It’s a common mistake to make conclusions about history’s lessons and generalize groups without considering the people enduring the conflict. I am forever grateful for this experience, which taught me about individual people and the collective capabilities of humanity.

Finance, Class of 2025

Finance, Class of 2025

History, Class of 2026
The Normandy Scholar Program fosters a unique sense of community and belonging, making it a space where you’ll find not just academic growth but also personal development. As you navigate the program’s challenges, you evolve into a more empathetic, critically minded student, peer, writer and historian. It influences how you engage with the world. The Normandy Scholar Program offers an unparalleled experience, one you won’t find in any other study abroad or academic cohort.

History and Latin American Studies, Class of 2024

History and Latin American Studies, Class of 2024
The Normandy Scholar Program fosters a unique sense of community and belonging, making it a space where you’ll find not just academic growth but also personal development. As you navigate the program’s challenges, you evolve into a more empathetic, critically minded student, peer, writer and historian. It influences how you engage with the world. The Normandy Scholar Program offers an unparalleled experience, one you won’t find in any other study abroad or academic cohort.
The Lasting Scars of World War II
“There are places in the world where the history lingers, and the energy is changed forever by the events that happened there,” says Jordan. “At Gleis 17, you could just feel the heaviness. I remember having to take a step back mentally to get through that day because it was so heavy with history, you could feel it pressing down on you.”

“Seeing the physical scars of World War II in Europe was part of what made the Normandy Scholar Program one of the most impactful things I did as an undergraduate,” she says.
Jordan captured her memories of Grunewald Station in this remarkable poem, written as part of her creative thesis.
Gleis 17
On our fifth day in Berlin,
we take the train west.
We take the S7 line to the Grunewald S-Bahn station,
twenty-three of us,
together on the train with real Berliners
going about their everyday lives.
The station is different now than in 1944:
the old tracks are long abandoned,
a short tunnel walk away from trains that run
like clockwork, every half hour,
and delicate green trees now grow up
through the wooden beams and metal rails
that once carried more than fifty-
thousand Berliners in cattle cars
to places with names like
Łódź
Theresienstadt
Minsk
Kaunas
Riga
and eventually
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The names are engraved
in the rusted metal grates
lining the sides of the tree-grown tracks —
the names of the places, of course —
no one knows the names of the people.
I stand slightly back and a bit to the left
of my body
because this is a place that
screams
across the decades
and into the soft skin
above the inside of my left elbow
where I dig them out with bloodied fingernails.
Numbers keep it clinical,
neat —
a series of dates
alongside the names
with their helpful numbers of Juden,
and the three-hundred fifty-three Juden
who left Berlin for Theresienstadt
on January 10, 1944
could be considered
luckier than the twenty-nine Juden
shipped to Auschwitz
six months later
on June 15 —
but were they?
Did you know they charged the victims?
Four pfennigs per kilometer for adults,
but only two for children under four.
Berlin was their city, too
more theirs than mine —
but on our fifth day in Berlin
the train that takes me east
stops at home.
B.A. ’17




Gleis 17
On our fifth day in Berlin,
we take the train west.
We take the S7 line to the Grunewald S-Bahn station,
twenty-three of us,
together on the train with real Berliners
going about their everyday lives.
The station is different now than in 1944:
the old tracks are long abandoned,
a short tunnel walk away from trains that run
like clockwork, every half hour,
and delicate green trees now grow up
through the wooden beams and metal rails
that once carried more than fifty-
thousand Berliners in cattle cars
to places with names like
Łódź
Theresienstadt
Minsk
Kaunas
Riga
and eventually
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The names are engraved
in the rusted metal grates
lining the sides of the tree-grown tracks —
the names of the places, of course —
no one knows the names of the people.
I stand slightly back and a bit to the left
of my body
because this is a place that
screams
across the decades
and into the soft skin
above the inside of my left elbow
where I dig them out with bloodied fingernails.
Numbers keep it clinical,
neat —
a series of dates
alongside the names
with their helpful numbers of Juden,
and the three-hundred fifty-three Juden
who left Berlin for Theresienstadt
on January 10, 1944
could be considered
luckier than the twenty-nine Juden
shipped to Auschwitz
six months later
on June 15 —
but were they?
Did you know they charged the victims?
Four pfennigs per kilometer for adults,
but only two for children under four.
Berlin was their city, too
more theirs than mine —
but on our fifth day in Berlin
the train that takes me east
stops at home.
B.A. ’17

Texas Leader Magazine
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