The Monuments Men
Rich Cali
This summer, I watched a movie that made me reflect on Geneva’s recent Senior Trip to Europe. The movie was called The Monuments Men, and there were several aspects of the film that made me recall and contemplate our travel experience.
We began by flying to Athens, Greece. After riding a train from the airport into the city, we walked up out of the subway. The smell of garbage wafted into our nostrils. Athens is a dilapidated, dirty city, and it saddened me to see it with graffiti on every building. We saw firsthand the ruined economy that is so much in the news right now. Thankfully, in the midst of this crumbling city, they have preserved and are preserving the Parthenon, the Ancient Agora, the Temple to Hephaestus, and the artifacts found in the museums. When we climbed the Acropolis, I sat looking at two cranes lifting stones to refurbish the Parthenon, I thought about how amazing it was that ancients built this huge structure without engines or power tools. I also could smell and see the Aegean Sea from there, and I imagined the Apostle Paul landing in a boat, winding his way through the town, and climbing to the top of Mars Hill where he gave his famous sermon recorded in Acts 17. We took a boat ride to the Island of Hydras,
and it embodies the Greece of the imagination with its port, fishing, whitewashed buildings, and swimming in the Aegean Sea. Gyros were my favorite food there, but the olives and feta cheese were the best I’ve ever had.
From Greece we flew to Rome, where we were privileged to see the Coliseum, the Ancient Forum, the Arch of Titus, the Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel, and the Spanish Steps. We saw where Julius Caesar was killed and burned, where Caesar Augustus became the first Emperor of the Roman Empire, and the cross marking the deaths of countless Christians to gladiators and wild animals. Thankfully, we left alive.
After a couple of days in Rome, we traveled to Florence, Italy. There we climbed the stairs of the cathedral’s
Duomo and saw Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Da Vinci’s Baptism of Jesus, and Michelangelo’s statue of David. While visiting these extraordinary accomplishments of Western culture in Italy, we enjoyed pizza, caprese salad, and pasta carbonara. These two countries with their preserved history represented over 2,500 years of development of Western Civilization, from our birth in Ancient Greece, through the Roman Empire, to the Renaissance.
But we moved on through time and space to Paris, the most “civilized” city we visited. Everyone there is trim from all the walking and biking that they do to get around and from the fresh food that they eat. Morning breakfast is usually an espresso and a croissant. The people are very stylish, dressing casually only on Sundays when they head to the parks and open areas for sun and recreation. Every morning, street sweepers and cleaners head out to beautify the city. In Paris we saw the Eiffel Tower, of course, Arc de Triumph, Versailles, Notre Dame, and the Louver.
While in France, our seniors insisted on visiting Normandy on the anniversary of D-Day,
June 6. We stopped in Bayeux to see the medieval tapestry on the way, but it surprised us all that the war memorial, official ceremonies, small French villages, re-enactors, and war museums of Normandy would actually turn out to be our group’s favorite part of the trip.
I think that the answer as to why it was our favorite is revealed in the movie: the WWII soldiers fought to preserve freedom but also culture. George Clooney’s character when speaking about soldiers giving their lives to save a painting or a statue says, “People ask, ‘with this many people dying, who cares about art?’ But they’re wrong because that is exactly what we’re fighting for: our culture and our way of life. If you destroy a people’s achievements and their history, it’s as if they never existed. That’s what Hitler wants, and it’s the one thing we can’t allow.”
A Geneva education likewise strives to preserve art, history, and culture as influenced by the Gospel. We are Monuments Men.
