Columbine

20 April 2009 297 views One Comment

When I perused the online newspapers this morning, one topic stood out among all others: the ten year anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School.

Strangely enough, I only associated this year with the ten year anniversary of my own US High School graduation. Reading the name ‘Columbine’ today brought back many memories and emotions.

In 1999, my year as an exchange student in Michigan was coming to a close. I was fortunate to attend a fantastic school, with great teachers and students and I treasure the year I spent there. It is easily the best year of my life to date.

I remember the day I came to school, only 24 hours had passed since the shooting at Columbine. It was a Wednesday and, truth be told, I had not followed the news closely. I had heard about a school shooting in the west, but the details had escaped me. Throughout the day, details began filtering through and we were all shocked by the violence and the death toll.

But the thing that freaked us out most were information that only became known gradually: that, approximately the same time (despite the time difference) the shooting took place in Columbine, there was a threat called in for our school. During the week, rumors began to manifest that there was a ‘death-list’ circulating, with the names of students and teachers and the announcement that they would be killed exactly one week after the Columbine attack. Needless to say, authorities took that threat extremely serious.

The following Monday, I didn’t trust my eyes when I came to school: black-clad police officers with helmets, bullet-proof vests and semi-automatic guns were patrolling the corridors, some even with trained dogs. When I saw the first one, I stopped dead in my tracks and wondered if I was still dreaming. The atmosphere was tense and subdued.

Not surprising, about half the school was ’sick’ the next day. Nothing happened – fortunately, but I will not forget these days. It seemed so unreal, but at the same time it was scary as hell.

When I returned to Germany later that year, everyone was offering their ‘educated’ opinion on the events. Mostly everyone blamed the shootings on the US gun laws and on the ‘inferior’ US school system, claiming loudly that something like that would never happen in Germany. I told them back then not to be that arrogant and just stuff this attitude of superiority that was completely out of place.

Erfurt proved me right. The recent violence also does. It doesn’t happen very often, but I wish I would have been wrong about this.

I cannot offer explanations, I cannot offer insight, I only know how the events affected me and my perception of school, personal security, and life in general. In addition, both my parents are teachers, my host mom and my host aunt in the US are teachers as well. My best friend is a teacher.

When I heard about Erfurt (a shooting in a German school that left 16 people, most of them teachers, and the assassin dead), one image stood clear before my eyes: for some reason, I remembered my mom – how she had skipped expectantly and joyfully down the corridor in our apartment the day I came home from my very last final exam at German High School. I kept my parents hanging in thin air for a couple of seconds before I screamed: “I passed!” I’ll never forget the happiness on my parents faces.

And imagining the number of parents, spouses, and family members waiting for their loved ones that day that the shooting in Columbine and Erfurt (which was just having final exams for all 12th grade students) happened … how their happy expectations turned to horror … it’s just unimaginable and sad.

So, whenever I hear of violence in schools, I hope that the people I care about won’t get hurt and at the same time, it makes me realize just how helpless we are all are. That’s probably the saddest thing of all.

“I never forget the feeling of helplessness. I never thought there could be anything worse than being all alone in the night.”
“But there is. Being all alone in a crowd.”
- Capt. Sheridan and Ambassador Delenn, Babylon 5, »There All the Honor Lies«