Ebensee

I have found that I concentrate better on my PhD readings when I am on a train. Fortunately, I have a yearly ticket that includes about 95% of travel in Austria, so I decided that once a month I would hop on train, read and travel for a few hours with a destination in mind, tour the destination a bit, then board a train for home and read a bit more. This gets me out of hibernating in my hobbit hole, I see more of Austria, get some exercise, and am productive with my studies. Win-win-win. 

This month's stop was Ebensee. I tend to choose a location not just based on how far away it is from my city, but also for what it offers culturally and the natural beauty around it. Ebensee did not disappoint. It is a small town on the southern edge of a lake, ringed with mountains at the beginning of the Alps. Yet, it has a dark past. Ebensee was a concentration camp site with the purpose of building tunnels in the surrounding mountains for armament storage. It is estimated that over 8,000 people died at this camp. Not much of the camp remains today. While the barracks and various buildings have been torn down, the main gate still stands. The town has built up around the gate, and houses now stand where the buildings once did. Another area that remains is the site of the mass graves. Efforts have been made to identify as man people as possible and rebury them with dignity. Countries who had citizens die at Ebensee have erected memorials. It is a somber area, and one that propelled my thoughts today.

As I was walking around this cemetery, I looked up and saw the mountains. Immediately, this verse came to mind -- "I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come from?" Ps 121:1. I wondered how many Jewish people stood in that exact same spot, looked up to those exact same mountains, quoted the same verse, and asked the same question. How many people dying from hunger and sickness, beaten and demeaned, and in chains begged for help and hoped for an answer? Waited for an answer? Begged for an answer? How many people had to look through the smoke and ashes coming from the crematorium in order to see the mountaintop? How many people had to block out the cries of their fellow prisoners even just to have the strength to look up? Where does my help come from? I know the psalmist answers in verse 2, but I wonder what answer they heard, if they heard one at all. 

For the past couple of weeks, I have been wrestling with theology. What does the word "theology" even mean? I know it literally means "the study of God," but I have been struggling with how to apply it to my studies. I have been trained in systematic, biblical, and historical theology, but now I am working through trauma and childhood theologies and not seeing how they correspond. While reading Serene Jones's Trauma and Grace, I began to understand. A particular theology is the language and lens through which I understand and tell the story of God. And it really hit home today with this experience at the cemetery. Beforehand, I had read Psalm 121 in a comforting manner. God is the source of my help. He is my protector and will care for me. He will not let any evil thing befall me. And yet, some of the people who died at the concentration camp remembered that verse too and had very different outcomes. Did they find any comfort at all from this psalm? How did they reconcile their current experiences with what the psalmist proclaims? To be honest, I do not have any answers, and trauma theology has given me the humility not to push for any either as it will possibly oversimplify their faith and invalidate their experiences. What I do know is that I will not read Psalm 121 the same way again. 


Psalm 121: a psalm of ascents

I lift up my eyes to the hills.

From where does my help come from?

My help comes from the LORD,

who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;

he who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD is your keeper;

the LORD is your shade on your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

Comments

Mary Katherine Hellings said…
Thanks for your significant insights and impressions. I’m so thankful God is leading you as you think through these things.
12:35 PM
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