Last day in Berlin

Unfortunately, today was our last full day in Berlin. We have an early flight to Krakow tomorrow and we have to leave the hotel at 5:50 AM. A little early!

After our typical breakfast, our tour guide for the day, Carlos, met us outside the hotel. Our destination was Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp used during the Holocaust. This was more of a labor camp and not a camp specifically designed for mass killing, like Auschwitz was. Still, between the years of 1936-1945, Sachsenhausen housed around 200,000 prisoners and tens of thousands of those prisoners perished. Carlos had done his masters thesis on this camp, so ideally he was the best guide we could have received.

At times, it was surreal to be in the camp. After the camp was liberated in 1945, it was still used as a Soviet detention camp until 1950. Then it sat vacant until East Berlin decided to turn it into a national memorial, with the "thesis," so to speak, being about the victory of anti-Fascism over Fascism. Finally, in 1993, the camp was changed into the memorial museum it is today. While most of the barracks were torn down over the years, several were rebuilt to house exhibits and then every torn down barrack is symbolized by a box of pebbles where the barrack once stood. I know myself and other members of the group spent a lot of time trying to visually what this camp looked like when all the buildings were up.

It was also a good thing we were use to walking because this museum uses a decentralized museum concept. The exhibits were scattered around the huge camp. Carlos took us around and I usually strayed because I was taking photos or reading the various plaques. I found the camp fascinating and enjoyed how the information was laid out. It was a tough camp to view and there were times I just couldn't breathe. The museum wasn't afraid to show gruesome photos and Carlos was willing to share lots of stories and facts he had learned while writing his thesis. This visit confirmed my thoughts on the importance of visiting places like that. A camp such as Sachsenhausen forces me to really look the Holocaust in the eye and try to really wrap my brain around the numbers and the victims. It forces me to ask questions and challenge my thinking.

Because on of my finals projects is a scrapbook, I've been taking more photos than usual. Most of them are on my camera, but I did manage to nab a few panoramas (remember the Lake District?!?). Here they are:

It was a long day and we left the museum around 2:30 PM. It was back on a train to the center of the city. We stopped at the New Synagogue, which was bombed and destroyed during the November Pogrom of 1938. Luckily, a local police officer was able to minimize damage, but nevertheless the synagogue was in tough shape after that night. Our visit was short and sweet.

At 5 PM, we had a tour scheduled. Our spot was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It's right smack dab in the middle of Berlin and surrounded by a lot of important German history. It's an abstract art piece, composed of 2,711 stelae, the Greek word for grave marker. Every stelae is different height and along with an uneven ground, it makes for a pretty spectacular memorial. Our guide explained the history behind this art and then allowed us time to explore. Once our exploring time was up, we had a brief group discussion before checking out the museum underneath the stelae.

The museum blew me out of the water. The narrative was focused on the escalation of the Holocaust and also tried to focus on the individuals who perished. Fourteen families were highlighted, along with countless video and brief oral histories, letters, poems, diary entries, and information on the Holocaust as a whole and the main extermination camps. What many of us forget that Auschwitz wasn't the only place where systematic killings occurred. There were seven other extermination camps throughout Poland that murdered Jews 1940-1945.

By this point, our group was very emotionally drained. We went to a gift shop nearby and lightened our moods by checking our cheesy "I love Berlin" items and then heading to a restaurant for doner kebabs (aka chicken and garlic sauce and lettuce in a pita). Delicious.

Well, better finish up my journal entries and packing so I'm ready to go bright and early tomorrow!