AISV: Students' Tumblr.

Thomas Binder, Ellen Ellebo & Pamina Strobl

Krakow Journey Guides & Schindler’s List Film Organizers

On Friday the 16^th of December 2011 in the AIS school theatre from 3:30 to 7:00, the viewing of the historical movie “Schindlers List” took place. The film was shown in context of the larger “Krakow Journey”, the year-long process that includes a Journey to Krakow and the Nazi Concentration, Labor and Death Camps of Auschwitz & Birkenau.

The showing of Schindler’s List was attended by over 50 tenth graders and also all the organizers which contributed to project. Although the movie is to be taken serious, the organizers did a great job to create a comfortable and friendly environment. All across the theatre there were pillows and mats to make the three hour movie more comfortable.

The purpose of this event was to enlighten the students that will be attending the 2012 Krakow Journey, about the situation that the victims were in at that time. The movie does a great job depicting the harsh truth and circumstances of the victims in that era.

More importantly the participants of this event will have the privilege to visit the active site of the Movie, being the Schindler’s Factory. The students of AIS were impacted in a number of different ways. 10^th grader Alexandra Alon said “It gave me some background information, so I’m somewhat prepared for Krakow, I took it very seriously and it was very sad to see in what kind of state they were”.

According to Clari Herpel “We study racism, the segregation, ghettoization and deportations in MESCH and Schindler’s List seems to be a pretty fair portrayal of what actually happened.”

David Stehr, a MESCH sophomore reflected “It impacted me emotionally because you didn’t understand how they treated the Jews, and I found what Schindler did very heroic”.

Most students perceived this movie in different ways and got carried away by their diverse emotions, generally this viewing was tough to digest. To conclude, we asked the main coordinator of this event the 12^th grade AIS student Alicja Tunska: “Viewing Schindler’s List is one of the main projects and it is very helpful for the 10^th graders to understand some history behind our Krakow Journey. I was happy that so many 10^th graders showed interest and came after school on Friday to watch a very powerful movie.”

The 2011 Schindler’s List viewing was successful. Most impressive was the behavior of the students. They showed great respect towards the movie and the victims of the Holocaust. Let’s hope the Krakow Journey itself will have the same it impact it has been having on AIS students and our community.

A Museum Must Be More than a Car and Some Medals

By Natalie Mango (10^th Grade)

On Tuesday 11 October 2011, three of Mr. A’s MESCH classes went on a field trip to the Austrian Military History Museum. Having begun looking at World War One, it was related to the class studies and had many things that helped our understanding of the topic. At the museum, we were given a packet to complete with a number of assignments. The first of these was an individual task. We were asked to observe and reflect on a painting by Albin Egger-Lienz called ‘The Nameless 1914,’ which portrayed a group of soldiers walking across a field. He painted it in 1916, in the midst of World War One.

Then we were given time to look around the rest of the museum by ourselves and find another painting that we could compare or contrast to ‘The Nameless.’ This was very interesting because there was a large variety of paintings in the museum and there were many deep and thought provoking connections between them.

We met in our class groups after having done this assignment and discussed out ideas before moving on to the next part of the field trip, which included whole class activities. We were to find the answers to a number of questions throughout the museum as well as take some pictures of our class groups with some of the exhibits.

After this we had lunch before the final part of the trip, which was an activity to be done in small groups of four or five. This was a fact finding challenge, but there were a large number of facts to find, so we ended up working on the task as a class, and it was a lot of fun.

After the trip, each class was given the assignment of making a PowerPoint summarizing the information we found in the whole group challenge. We created a Google document and each added the information that we had collected, and with the many pieces of information that we found around the museum we created a broad view of World War One.

While the museum was very informative, we found that there were ways it could be improved. After a class discussion, we decided that while the museum contained a lot of information, it was largely one-sided and did not explain World War One from the perspectives of all of the countries involved; there was a very positive, pro-Austrian point of view.

The numerous causes were not mentioned, and it was presented in a way that visitors would assume that the assassination of Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the sole cause of the war. Also there was no mention of some of the things that showed Austria-Hungary’s responsibility in causing the war, such as the Blank Check, which would display Austria’s involvement in starting the war after obtaining German support. Also missing was the “Ultimatum” to Serbia, a list of ten demands from Austria – Hungary that Serbia almost completely complied with. Austria – Hungary rejected Serbia’s response and not only declared war but actually bombarded and laid siege to the Serbian capital Belgrade on 28 July 1914.

In other words, Austria – Hungary fired the first shots of the war. And this was nowhere to be seen in the museum.

In addition, we thought that the information was impersonal and the lives of the soldiers were not described, only military medals and uniforms were showcased, so visitors would not get the whole picture of what the war was really like.

We think that a person going to the museum without prior knowledge about the war would not get an accurate idea of the complete war, but rather an Austrian perspective without details that would make it a more memorable and realistic experience.

However, there were many positive parts of the museums, like the car that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was in when he was shot and the uniform he was wearing, and we really enjoyed learning more about the war.

by Liron Ben-Horin

 I had always read and heard about trips made by Israeli schools to the concentration camp “Auschwitz-Birkenau”. These trips are mandatory for all Israeli children and young adults. I always thought that these trips were exclusive to Israelis, Israeli schools and maybe Jews living in other countries. When I return to Israel, I too expected to be taking one of these trips.

Today, I’m proud to be able to write about such an experience made possible not by an Israeli school but by the American International School in Vienna.

Even more important, because of my assumptions, I felt like it wasn’t obvious that students from “all over the world” would go to such a difficult trip, and I was glad to see that so many students, faculty and parents from AIS taking part.

After a long overnight train ride, search for our hotel and warm breakfast, our journey began in the Old Town of Krakow where we learned a little about the long and proud history of Poland, the region of Galicia and Krakow itself. Our tour guide Jacek seemed to know stories about each building, tree and street that we passed.

Jacek took us to Kazimierz, the Jewish quarter of Krakow. In the 14^th Century, when persecution of Jews was common throughout Europe, the Polish King Kasmir III invited Jews to Galicia, the southern part of Poland, to help invigorate the economy. They did and over the following centuries, many more Jews moved to Galicia and the towns and villages around Krakow. Jacek also told us that Poland (back then it was much larger than today, including parts of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine) as one of the first countries to pass a law of religious tolerance in 1573, granting religious freedom to not only Jews but to Orthodox, Protestants and Muslims living in Poland. He said that this was one of the earliest laws of religious tolerance in the world and although Poles did not always follow this ideal, that they were nonetheless proud of being one of the first nations to place such high respect for beliefs and religion.

Jacek took us to a number of different Synagogues, Temples and the Galician Jewish Museum. I was surprised that Krakow had so many Synagogues and also of the diversity of the Jewish community that lived there for almost 800 years. This all came to an end because of the Holocaust.

That process began in 1939 when Hitler and Stalin secretly agreed to partition Poland (the fourth time that has happened in history). The Nazis occupied Galicia and Krakow, setting up a new government there. They began the process of the “Final Solution”, removing the entire population of Kazimierz and sending them across the river to a new “ghetto”, which was completely walled in. This was the beginning of the end of the Jewish experience in Krakow.

Jacek took us to through the Nazi designed Ghetto and we saw a segment of the old Ghetto Wall. You could feel how oppressive this wall was. It was a symbol of separation. In the Ghetto area, we saw the “Umschlagplatz”, the place where Jews were told to line up in order to be sorted for work duties, medical experiments or deportation to one of the death camps. They have now built an impressive memorial on this site consisting of many empty chairs, each representing the tens of thousands of Jews who lined on this square each day to discover their fate until the Ghetto was liquidated on 14 March 1943 and everyone was sent to the death camps.

The movie “Schindler’s List” was filmed and took place in Krakow. It is a true story and we had the chance to visit the recently opened Schindler Factory Memorial where over 1,200 Jews worked under Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist and Nazi Party member who went through a radical change of heart and helped to save all of his workers from the fate of the death camps. The movie is remarkably accurate and worth seeing. Oskar Schindler was honored by Israel as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” for his courageous acts when so few people did anything to stop the Holocaust. 

After such a long day we went back to the hotel and reflected about what we saw in our journals.

The following morning was clearly the hardest. When we arrived to Auschwitz it was cold and snowy. It was hard to imagine those who walked in the same place half naked. We walked for hours between buildings and heard from our guide about the horrors that happened in each place. We got to see glasses, hair, bowls, suit cases, Tallit (worn during Jewish prayers), children cloth and shoes.

For me personally, the shoes were the hardest part. Thousands of shoes were just lying there, and each one of them represented a person that died in Auschwitz. It was hard to think that maybe some of this property belonged to someone from my family years ago. Later when we went throughout the crematoriums it was almost impossible to understand how many people took their last breath on the same ground that we stood on.

For me the most exciting moment of the trip was when we arrived at the Dutch exhibition. There, surprisingly, we found on the wall the name of my great grandfather, Ernst Waldner, and we learned for the first time the date of his death. I kept thinking that he was my mom and dad’s age when he was murdered, and I couldn’t imagine the life of my 6 year old grandmother so early living in an era of war without her father or mother.

Later, we got into “Birkenau”, which was the part of Auschwitz in which most people have died. There, we stood next to the memorial site in Hebrew that said “For eternity a sound of warning and cry will rise from this place for humanity. In this place the Nazis have murdered a million and half men, women and children, who came from different parts of Europe, mostly Jewish”. There, my mom and I have conducted a memorial ceremony in which we got to read the names of my family members who were murdered at Auschwitz.  

My mom and I both agreed that by standing on this ground we can feel some sort of a small victory for our family. I was proud to feel that me standing there is a living proof for the Nazi’s loss. I think that the most important conclusion we all took from this trip is that this message should be given and to be understood. We have to remember what happened there and we can never forget.

Microwaves in the Cafeteria

The Argument For Microwaves is provided by Ben Dietderich, AIS Middle School Student.

The Argument Against is provided by Mr. Peter Brandt, EUREST Manager at AIS

The argument for includes the chance for students to bring food from home and not always have to buy from the cafeteria.

The argument for includes the opportunity for students to be responsible for cleaning and caring for the microwave.

The argument against includes the location of the microwave – where would it go? If the microwave were located inside the dining room it might interrupt the “flow” of students passing through + it would increase the congestions already existing and slow down the speed of service. We need to think about the Middle School and Elementary School lunch breaks as well as the High School.  

The argument against includes health, food safety and cleanliness issues. Either students will need to be responsible for cleaning them or you will add an additional task to the current cleaning team. Right now, even with cleaning schedules for the Middle School, tables are often left a mess and floors too.

The argument against includes a potential increase in the amount of junk food, such as popcorn and tacos, being made in the microwaves.

The argument against includes the current EUREST menu offerings which are healthy and affordable.

The argument against includes the actual number of students who will use it regularly. This is an investment in terms of money, space and time. Is it really worth it for a few students?

Ultimately, the against argument is one of responsibility + location. Who will clean and maintain the microwaves or will it fall back on the cleaning, EUREST or AIS staff to do it.  

We want your opinion! Please comment on whether or not you think it would be a good idea to have microwaves. Which side of the discussion convinces you the most? Let your voice be heard.

If you have another topic for Point & Counter Point, please send it to The Student Forum editorial staff.

From left to right: Lina Shokry (12th), Chris Lemay (11th), Anna Dietderich (12th)

Congratulations to the Junior Class of 2013 on an awesome Cabaret! A special shout-out goes to the fabulous Chris Lemay (above) for working with Mr. Marinucci to make it all happen. Not only did he help organize, but his band (along with Conner Kessler, Chris Babrowski, Keiran Snow-Dawson, and Cullen Scheland), The Major Awards, put on quite a show, too. 

We had Shirin bring down the house quite a few times; once with a fabulous rendition of ‘Shiver’, then the incredible ‘Shout’ with Anna Miller. She also accompanied Katie O’Connell’s awesome singing.

Shirin Porkar (left) singing. Chris Lemay (right) playing guitar and singing.

Frau Starlinger’s art of movement class, as well as her after school dance group, each put on awesome numbers at the Cabaret. Mr. Westfall’s extremely adorable son made an appearance as James Bond. No big deal.

Anna Dietderich and Philip Schulenberg drew laughs as they put on ‘The War of 1812’, a short tragicomedy skit written by Mr. A. Later on, Anna went on stage again to perform a ridiculous and raunchy (was it raunchy? they never really explained what they were talking about…) piece with Lina Shokry.

Quinta Fernandes singing, with Erina Shan (11th) on the piano.

Kudos to Quinta and Erina for their lovely song at Cabaret. Awesome job guys! Another, very different, duet followed Erina and Quinta, also singing for the audience. That duet was, of course, Gunnar Colleen and Max Halbach, with the fabulous and misunderstood ‘Super Happy Ice Cream Club.’ Nice one, guys. Max and Gunnar added to their performance by actually providing ice cream for the audience. 

Later on, Mor Ben-Horin graced the stage with some AWESOME tap-dancing. She got a well deserved ‘We want Mor’ cheer from the crowd. As if that weren’t enough talent, Gun Hee had to bring the house down with a piece on the piano, ‘Thor’, which he actually composed himself. Take it from someone who was there, this guy is INCREDIBLE. We’ll have to get a video of his piece.

Then, of course, there was the hilarious stand-up comedian Max Kessler, who went beyond the capabilities of mere mortals, and actually mastered the art of playing the ukele whilst on a pogo stick. ‘Nuff said. 

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a Cabaret without awesome MCs. Thanks to Chantalle Berkhout and Kruxi Hilverth for their awesome hosting. And Chantalle - you ARE a good tap dancer, don’t let Kruxi tell you otherwise!

Those are just some of the acts that performed at the Cabaret! Yes, it was super fun, and yes, if you didn’t come, you missed out. Come next year!

Jeannie Kwon, founder of the AIS Japan Relief Team, shares news about the effects of the terrible earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. Last March, Japan’s devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis shocked the whole world. Almost 20,000 people were killed, and survivors were left without food, water, electricity, or shelter. In response, the AIS community, in a collective effort, raised over 4500 Euros and donated it to the Japanese Red Cross in June to aid the victims. Although the effort is commendable, Japan is still in need of our help. To fully understand Japan’s continuing need, here is an update of Japan’s condition. The current state of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant illustrates how difficult recovery efforts have been. Since the catastrophe, hundreds of workers have been continually participating in the cleanup and recovery of the three severely damaged plants despite the dangerous conditions, including a radiation level thirteen times higher than the recommended dosage for civilians per year. Despite their efforts, a 12-mile radius evacuation zone around the Fukushima plant is still in effect, keeping tens of thousands of people away from their homes. Fortunately, no worker or civilian death caused by radiation has been reported. So far, a superstructure has been built over reactor No.1 to trap radioactive materials, and a similar structure is planned for reactor No. 3. The radiation cleanup will require much more time and cost at least $13 billion, of which the Japanese government has raised $2.9 billion. Politically, Yoshihiko Noda, Japan’s former finance minister, was elected as the country’s new prime minister after his predecessor Naoto Kan resigned due to both his failure to cope with the emergency and his unpopular foreign and economic policies before the disaster. Hundreds of aftershocks hit Japan after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake. The places the tsunami completely destroyed are now ghost towns, overgrown with weeds and bushes; the debris of the buildings and cars are piled up along the shore. These cities are waiting for reconstruction funds from the government, which does not have enough money to support all the recovery efforts. As in the case of many other disasters, time has made many people forget that survivors are still suffering from the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, such as loss of family and homes and a fatal level of radiation. Japan is still in urgent need of the international community’s financial support in order to successfully carry out its recovery efforts. As an international school, we should continue to organize fundraisers and awareness activities such as those of last year, which included collecting money donations from both in- and outside the AIS community, creating bulletin boards to inform everyone, folding paper cranes for Japan, and organizing bake and juice sales. Please do not hesitate to approach me or anyone from the AIS Japan Relief Team to share your ideas or to take part in these events. Thank you. From: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/pictures/110315-nuclear-reactor-japan-tsunami-earthquake-world-photos-meltdown/#/japan-earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-unforgettable-pictures-bicycle_33273_600x450.jpg

The 9th grade info manager let’s us know what to expect for 2011/2012 at AIS.

by ELLE HEEDLES (in collab with Mozn Al-Hinai, Yeonsoo Koo, and Anna Kullnigg).

Q: So, what’s to expect for the 9th Grade?

A: 

• Involving the community (grade 9 and school) in our activities
• Reach out to grade 9
• Make sure that no one is ‘out of the loop’
• Take the 9^th grade’s input for as many things as possible 
• Have fun! 
• Create a new lounge are (We’re considering making a sponsorship deal with Ikea for about 2 years, then after the two years the couches could be donated to charity)
• Make sure to provide a bulletin board for the student council in the 9^th grade hallway
• Hold a 9^th grade dance
• Start a recycling system at boosters events

So, 9th graders: this is what your SC plans to do. It’s YOUR job to make sure that they have enough help to get these things done. So ask your SC representatives how you can help. Or suggest your own project - as long as you’re contributing to your grade.

A Movie Review by ERIKA ENGE

“Midnight in Paris” (Woody Allen, 2011, starring Owen Wilson) is a movie about life, love, and the choices we make.

Gil Pender is on holiday with his fiancée and her parents in Paris, his favorite city of all times. On one of the first days of their trip, she encounters an old crush of hers, and, whilst they go and hang out together, Gil gets lost in Paris at night. The only thing that would make it better is if it would rain. In the small allee, he sits down on the steps to hear the clock chime midnight. Then an old car drives by, and the people inside it see him sitting there, open the door and invite him to come to their party, where he promptly meets F. Scott Fitzgerald, and his wife, Zelda. Along the way he meets Cole Porter, a famous musician of the time, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and Picasso’s lover, Adriana. But when he leaves them to go and get his manuscript to show Ms. Stein, he finds he can’t come back. And so he spends his nights in the Paris of his dreams, with his idols, and a woman he falls in love with, Adriana. The days are spent with the expert Paul – expert on everything – his girlfriend, Carol, and Gil’s fiancé, Inez. And as time goes on, he slowly wishes to stay there, in the past, until the final night, where he and Adriana travel back to the Paris of Adriana’s dreams – and she decides to stay, but he realizes that the grass is always greener, and that he needs to go back to the present – which he does. On his way back, he realizes that Inez is not the right one for him, and they break up, she and her family go back to the States, and he will be moving to Paris. He then is walking down the Seine at night, when he meets Gabrielle, a vender he had encountered on a previous outing with Inez & Co. They talk, and it begins to rain. She doesn’t mind though, and they walk through the streets of Paris in the night, in the rain.

This was my first Woody Allen film, and I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I felt I knew Gil Pender – or Gil Pender reminded me of someone I know, and the plot was intriguing, the romance was not run-of-the-mill, and the historical characters were all well done and fascinating. Hemingway was true, Picasso was stubborn, Zelda was fun-loving and quirky, Gertrude Stein seemed like a friend, and the idea behind the story I found to be better than true, for it was also graceful, and that made it brave. The film made me think about what people will be thinking of this age in Vienna eighty years from now. Who will be the people that one would wish to meet? Which names will have become so-called “household names”? I went with my family to go see the movie in the Artis Kino, near Schottentor. The movie ended a little before 20:00, and when we came out the cobblestone streets were dark, and it felt like walking in a haze. As we reached the Freyung, the bells of the Church began to chime, not stopping after eight. For a minute, it seemed as if time had stopped, as if no one else was there; it was as if we were all alone in the square. …and then a Fiaker drove by…

a critique by CAITLIN UDAS

The American International School of Vienna states to be three things: American, international and an organization concerned with the education of its attendants. In order for AIS to be able to truthfully state these things, certain requirements must be met in regard to these titles. Declaring whether or not AIS meets these requirements is not the purpose of this article, but I will be examining the current state of AIS in regard to the classes offered and its apparent priorities.

            It is written in the AIS mission statement that AIS strives to ‘inspire [students] to realize their potential’. This involves offering a wide range of opportunities to students, both academic and non-academic. While AIS does offer such unconventional courses as IB Psychology or IB Literature and Performance, these courses do not make up a particularly large percent of the courses offered at AIS. This is not stating that AIS does not have a variety of courses. I would, however, like to point out that such courses are being cancelled in favour of other investments. Creative Writing is one such class. It has been cancelled for both semesters next year due to budget cuts. AIS is, however, able to fund the maintenance of equipment for over 15 sports teams. It is apparent that in trying to offer a wide range of opportunities, AIS prioritizes sports over certain academic fields. If it was a sports team, instead of a Creative Writing class, that was being cut, would there be more opposition to the school giving priority to this academic class than there currently is to the school giving priority to sports? Would it even be possible to cut a sports team? It must also be noted that next year the 1:1 Laptop Program will ensure that every student from grades 5 to 12 have personal laptops. Does this mean that the school has determined that each student having their own laptop will better enable students to realize their potential than specialized courses would? Are laptops so vital to learning that they benefit the student more than having a wider range of classes?

            These are neither compliments nor criticisms of the way AIS is run. They are simply considerations that surround the decisions made in regard to the priorities that AIS has put forward. I bring these issues to light in hope that these priorities are considered not only by the organization of AIS, but also by the people they most affect: the students.  As such decisions have such a large effect on the student body, I feel that the school could only benefit from an increase in communication between students, parents and faculty in regard to courses. Establishing a process by which classes can be suggested would aid in ensuring not only that a wide range of opportunities are offered to students, but also that these opportunities are equally represented.