Normandy, Theresienstadt and an Arkansas drive

(I wrote this in early March and posted it for a short period of time, but for personnel security reasons I deleted it. K was an exchange student my wife and I hosted for a time. Her father is an officer in a NATO army, so I thought it best not to mention K, the world being what it is today. She has returned home now and is no longer under my security.)

I drove south on Arkansas Highway 365 after taking K to a sports orthopedist. K injured a knee during soccer practice a few days before. She had not practiced or exercised during her six months in Arkansas, so going all-out at soccer practice was not the wisest decision.

I decided to take Highway 365 because of construction on I-530. Channeling late afternoon traffic onto one lane means slowdowns or even stopped cars for several miles. The state highway parallels 530. It is a longer drive, but we would at least be moving.

When we drew near the National Cemetery with its 31 acres of green grass and white grave markers, K asked, “Is that a cemetery?”

I said it was a national cemetery where soldiers are buried. “It’s depressing to stand there and see all the tombstones,” I said.

K said, “The American cemetery at Normandy goes on and on.”

Her statement surprised me. She is 17, yet she has seen a place where several thousand American soldiers are buried. In that, she is more educated than almost all Americans.

She said, “There are white crosses there, not like this one. You can stand in the middle and not see the end. The crosses go down the hill and into the woods, and you cannot see the end.”

When she was a child, all her family summer vacations were to World War II battlefields, she said. Her father and her grandfather were army officers.

“If there was a place where a battle was fought, we saw it,” she said, with a small laugh. She especially remembered Normandy and Sainte-Mère-Église.

“Auschwitz,” she said, and she shook her head.

“You’ve been there?” Then I remembered the mention of a great-grandmother. “She went into one of the camps and did not come out,” K had said in another conversation.

She nodded. “And Theresienstadt.”

“That was the show camp.”

She nodded again. “There is a shower there, it looks new. The guide said it has never been used. It was for showing the facilities.”

There is great irony there, of course. The Nazis built a shower in a camp filled with Jews, but because the shower was real, the prisoners were not allowed to use it.

While K and I talked, I missed the continuation turn for 365 and now was near the airport. Rather than turn around, I continued on and picked up I-440 and then I-530 South. Within two miles, traffic slowed and then stopped. After a time, cars crept forward. I figured it was the usual construction slowdown.

A flatbed car carrier passed us on the right, on the shoulder. K said, “What is he doing?” Close behind the carrier came a white van with blue lights flashing. About half a mile ahead I saw other blue flashing lights. I told K.

“Do you think there was an accident?” she asked.

“Looks like it.”

Another white van with blue lights passed on the shoulder, and a couple minutes later a third, this one marked “Pulaski County Coroner.”

I mentioned that one. K asked, “What is a coroner?” I said it is an official who pronounces people dead.

“Oh my goodness,” she said. “I hope no one has been hurt.”

Traffic slowly moved, and after another 10 minutes I saw the wreck. A small SUV was jammed beneath the rear of a bobtail truck, past the driver and passenger seats, windshield gone and the roof pushed to the rear seats.

“Wow,” I said.

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” K said. “That is bad.”

“Yes it is,” I said.

She said, “I don’t think anyone could survive that. Oh my goodness.”