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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; The best food was the pretzels, &#8220;brats&#8220; were available everywhere cheap, the World War II concentration camp is far beyond anything you heard or read, and holding a human rights conference in a former secret police prison was fittingly somber.</p><p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter what your major is,&#8221; Ethan Szczecinski said as he sat last Tuesday with six fellow King&#8217;s College students freshly returned from a Model UN conference in Germany. &#8220;This helps everything. It will 100% improve your public speaking, writing, interactions with others.&#8221;</p><p>For the record, Ethan is majoring in political science, but others in his group studying economics and environmental studies vigorously agreed.</p><p>The septet spent seven days in-country, four of them immersed in the international Model UN Conference, an exercise in working in committee, caucus and general assembly mode writing papers, speeches and resolutions. Most of them worked as the Slovakia representatives, because &#8220;there&#8217;s a rich Slovak heritage in this area&#8221; economics professor and team moderator Margarita Rose said.</p><p>Some of that heritage apparently paid off as two of the students &#8212; seniors Jordan Connor and Alison Moyer &#8212; won an award for a paper on women in development in Slovakia (a second topic was the fast track to eradicate HIV/AIDS).</p><p>Women in Slovakia have made impressive gains in politics, Alison said, with their representation in government up 60 percent since last year.</p><p>Senior Damian Farrell and Sophomore Issa Dahdal served on the Human Rights Council, which met in the foyer of a former East German Secret Police prison. &#8220;It was cool to have it in such a symbolic place,&#8221; Damian said.</p><p>There was more to the trip than long hours &#8212; sometimes as late as 10 p.m &#8212; in the Model UN. Asked their favorite German food, Jordan immediately cited the boundless brats on every block, but the consensus among the rest went to that quintessential Deutsch edible icon, the pretzel.</p><p>There were trips to the Point Alpha memorial of a U.S. observation post between West and East Germany, Wartburg Castle where Martin Luther translated the Bible to German, and Buchenwald, one of Nazi Germany&#8217;s largest concentration camps.</p><p>&#8220;You need to see it,&#8221; Issa said, &#8220;You can&#8217;t really understand it just from what you were taught in class.&#8221;</p><p>The U.S. embassy tried to arrange a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, though the local food bore scant resemblance to good old turkey, stuffing and yams.</p><p>None of them spoke German, though several took Jordan to task for making them think he did. &#8220;You claimed you did, until we landed,&#8221; Damian quipped. So there was an occasional language barrier. Fortunately, Jordan noted, most Germans spoke fluent English.</p><p>And they did get a quick lesson in basics before departing.</p><p>&#8220;Who knew WC would mean a restroom in Germany?&#8221; Ethan mused.</p><p>Well, old-timers familiar with that textbook example of British polite aphorisms, &#8220;Water Closet,&#8221; might have sussed it out, but that kind of brag just merits an &#8220;OK, Boomer.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Katie Van Orden, Issa Dahdal, Ayrton Omoigui, Ethan Szczecinski, Damian Farrell, Jordan Conner, Dr. Margarita Rose and Alison Moyer talk about the trip the students took to Germany. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_TTL120419UN1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Katie Van Orden, Issa Dahdal, Ayrton Omoigui, Ethan Szczecinski, Damian Farrell, Jordan Conner, Dr. Margarita Rose and Alison Moyer talk about the trip the students took to Germany. </caption0><photoCredit0>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@civitasmedia.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Concentration camps, secret police and ‘Das WC’: King’s students in Germany