Tuesday was a tough day. We visited the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It is hard to describe the feeling you get from being in a place where tens of thousands of people were tortured and killed. About the only photos I took were of the entrance gates with the infamous phrase "Arbeit macht frei". I think experiencing something like a concentration camp really puts everything in perspective. It is very unsettling to be there and I always have the feeling that the ground is moving underneath me. I did not see everything at the camp last year so I got to see a few different areas, such as the museum of the Soviet use of the camp and the mortuary...could have gone my whole life without seeing the mortuary.
To lift our spirits a bit we went to Olympic Stadium after Sachsenhausen. It is quite a nice contrast actually to see that Hitler's theories about the "Superior Race" were crushed by the 1936 Olympics after seeing the kinds of horrors were inflicted upon "inferior" people at Sachsenhausen. I was excited to finally get to see inside the stadium since I was unable to last year. I think it's amazing that they still use a stadium from such a historical time period for their soccer team. I would love to be surrounded by that kind of history everytime I go to a Bobcats or Panthers game, but the Cable Box and B of A stadium just don't cut it.
Walking distance with group: 7.83 miles
Total walking distance: 9.64
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Today we went to the postdamer prison. A man came to speak his story to us. thsi story was the most gut renching story i have heard. it put so many emotions through my body. but for him to have the courage to come out and tell these story shoudl enspire more to do the same. I think that if more will do this then there should be no chance that that could or would ever happen again....hopefully!
ReplyDeleteToday (Thursday) has probably been the best day in Berlin so far. Besides seeing the Einstein museum, the highlight of my day was Herr Ruemler (?)who was a Stasi prisoner during the late 80´s. After discovering that Herr Ruemler was dating a man who was politically involved with western Berlin politics, the German Stasi followed and recorded his every move and recorded over 2000 pages of his daily activities and doings over the course of a few months. Herr Ruemler tried to escape to Hungary, but was captured by a Hungarian farmer. He was taken to a prison and was not given a phone, and was not allowed to have any contact with any of his family. He was purposely awoken every five minutes through the night for weeks and was beaten to the point that he lost over 20lbs in his first week in prison. Im pretty sure he endured far worse then being kept awake for a few days, but he didnt provide any other details. Actually sitting and listening to someone give their account of their life before and after the fall of the wall and what he went through really exposes me to more German culture and also helps me to further understand where a lot of Germans are coming from...especially in their mannerisms. His account of the story was very touching and inspiring and I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to have heard him give his account of his time leading up to and after his imprisonment.
ReplyDeleteThe prison in Postdam was probably the best place we have visited yet. It's one thing to study history from hundreds of years ago, but its another to listen to someone speak of events that have happened in our lifetime. This places a whole new perspective on the things that happened to this man within this prison. These things did not happen to some unknown person in another country, many generations ago, rather they happened just a few years ago. Its thursday and I may have been a bit homesick, but not anymore. For dinner, I went to the respectable local establishment, Hooters. On the TVs, American college basketball was playing, and at one point all the hostess were dancing to Cotton Eye Joe. Epic.
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ReplyDeleteOk for some reason this did not work the first time and I wasted a half an hour for nothing so here it goes again. Sachsenhausen was certainly interesteing but I did not have that much of an emotional experiance, probably because I was in pain from what was almost like a rub-burn developing on both of my legs. I was very distracted the whole day and spent most of my time in the museam where I could stand still and relax, yet still read some interesting information and not feel like I was completly missing out. I did not go to olympia stadion because I am going to the game on the 13th so I get to see the stadium and explore a bit then. This will be my second bundesliga game and I am very excited despite the fact that both teams are at the bottom of the table this season. I wish I could have been more alert at sachsenhausen, the second world war and the holocaust have always been major areas of interest for me so I feel like I missed out, but I was feeling miserable and could not make myself walk more than I had too especially after I was seperated from the group and could not find anyone.
ReplyDeleteMost of our class as already commented on what we have done today on March 11. I just want to add my thoughts to what we saw today. It amazes me the conditions that the East Germans had to live under during the cold war. The fact that the secret police had so much authroity and was sping on everybody is very frightening. They would have files on just regular people what were longer than the biographies of many famous men. it make me greatful that I live in the U.S. and in the time that I live now.
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Going to the sachenhausen concentration camp was an absolutely moving experience. The first time I saw the phrase "Arbeit Macht Frei" walking through the front gates was very chilling. Touring the camp was a sobering experience. I kept finding myself asking how could no one stop this. You can see that many people lived beside the camp and that is just so strange to me. You would think that not everyone would have been so niave, perhaps they just felt powerless and afraid. Even today I would never live next to something that had such horrific things happen there. Later in the day I was uplifted by the olympic stadium. The stadium itself was great to see, but the most amazing part was seeing the metal board that showed who one during that olympics. Seeing owen's names at the top was great. The day really ended on a high note despite the depressing experience at sachenhausen
ReplyDeleteTouring the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was obviously a difficult thing for most of us to do. The fact that anywhere from fifty to a hundred thousand people were murdered there lended the place an unnatural and unnerving feeling. Seeing the crematoria almost made me sick. It is one of those things that you hear about so often but can't really get a good idea of until you actually visit. I could not believe that in that very place I stood, hundreds of thousands of human beings were killed and brought to be turned to ashes. I think one of the most disturbing facts about this was what Dr. Youngman brought up: that the rise of the Nazis was not because of the coincidental appearance of numerous mass murders in Germany. It was the result of a population jumping on the bandwagon, and can easily happen again. This is a hard concept to grasp because many people wonder what they would have done if they were put in the situation of German citizens during the rise of Hitler. Perhaps some would have been brave and stood up to evil. Others may have caved in. Others still may have embraced the horrors with pleasure, allowing the deaths of over twelve million people to be carried out without even blinking an eye.
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