CLARKSVILLE, TN – When Andrew Daniels traveled to Poland and Germany this summer, he learned the full scope of what his family lived through in World War II: his great-grandfather, a pastor who opposed the Nazi Party, was marked for a concentration camp but spared because he worked as a mechanic, and his family was later forced to flee their home to escape the advancing Soviet army.
Daniels heard plenty of stories growing up about what the war cost his family. For years, he hoped to visit Europe and learn about those experiences firsthand. He never had the means, but that changed when Austin Peay State University’s Global Education Office helped him earn a scholarship to study abroad through the Gilman Program.
“This trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and without the Gilman Scholarship it wouldn’t have been possible,” said Daniels, a senior 6-8 middle school math education major and Navy veteran. “I didn’t realize how much of a connection my family had to what was going on, and how easily they could have been sent to the camps. It was very intense, but it’s something I’ll forever remember and be grateful for.”
Daniels visited Poland from May 9-25 as part of a trip led by Dr. John Steinberg, a professor in the Department of History & Philosophy. The students explored Nazi Germany’s conquest of Poland and the Holocaust’s impact at historic sites like Auschwitz.
“We were able to walk through the actual gas chamber at Auschwitz, which was very eerie,” Daniels said. “I ended up crying because we saw children’s uniforms, luggage, and shoes. Most children who were 14 or younger were led off the train and walked straight to the gas chamber, and that realization hit me harder than a lot of people because for the last three years of my life I’ve only worked with children 14 or younger [as a teacher and youth soccer coach].”
For Daniels, none of the history stayed abstract. Poland showed him the scale of what his family escaped, and in Germany his relatives filled the gaps in the stories he grew up hearing.
After the class trip, he traveled to Germany to meet his two great-uncles, their wives, and a cousin he now talks to weekly. He also visited his grandmother’s childhood home and met her lifelong best friend, even calling her so the two could catch up.
“It was surreal to see my family history and where we came from, and to meet these people my grandmother has told me about for years,” Daniels said. “My great-uncles are in their 80s, and there’s no way they’re doing eight- or 10-hour flights to America. To be able to see them and talk with them meant everything.”