Semana Santa Part 2: Berlin!

I've kind of been putting off writing about Berlin. (I know what you're thinking. She's writing it like two days after she got home from the trip, thats not putting it off! However it's raining cats and dogs in Sevilla so I don't have anything else to do except be on my computer). Why have I been putting it off you ask? Because one of the main things we did was go to a concentration camp. WWII and the Holocaust has always interested me and been my favorite subject in history. However, it's always been a detached fondness of the subject. I never really knew (and probably never will know) just how horrific the Holocaust was. Not until I visited the concentration camp did I realize how detached and lightly we touch on the subject at school. Last night while talking to my mom about it, I had to hold back tears about something that has never affected me and happened 50 years before I was even born. The realness and severity of the concentration camp really takes you aback. I'll try my best to go into as much detail about it as possible. That way, I hopefully will not have to talk about the concentration camp again for awhile.

Anyways, onto a brighter note, Berlin was one of the cities I had most been looking forward to and the city definitely didn't let me down. We were only in Berlin for 2 days but I think we did the city justice with the time we had. We stayed in a hostel on the east side of Germany, which was the communist side just 20 years ago and is now the new hip side buzzing with vitality and filled with restaurants and shops bursting with life. Our hostel was a far far contrast to the hostel I described that we stayed in in Prague. It is probably only a few years old and is clean, quiet and comfortable. We stayed in a room with the coolest Spanish boys (remember everyone in Spain is on vacation right now) who wouldn't come back in the morning until we were leaving for siteseeing that day (8:30-9am!!!). They were really nice and we talked in a mixture of Spanish. Usually them speaking English and us speaking Spanish. It's too bad they live north, they were pretty cute :)

Hostel Eastener. Nicest one I've been too!

The first word I think when I think of Berlin is liveliness. I loved the city for just this reason alone. After WWII and the division of the city, Berlin had been utterly destroyed. For the reason, it doesn't have the old buildings and skinny cobblestone streets like I had expected, but high tech, modern buildings and big boulevards, just like Chicago or New York. It was so refreshing seeing something "Americanized" let me tell you! (I'm finally on my last month stretch to headed home and I can now say that I'm ready to see my family and America again. I miss my family so much! )

Site Seeing:
Most of the day Monday was spent site seeing and walking around Berlin. Most of the sites from Berlin have to deal with either WWII or the division of east and west Germany, so that is what we focused on. I'll post some pictures with descriptions on everything that we saw!

The Reichstag. Kind of like the White House of Germany. It was located on the west side of Germany during the cold war and is now still in use today for the country.

This is the Brandenburg Gate. It was the division line between west and east along with the Berlin Wall.

 

Only 6 years old, this is the Holocaust Memorial that has more than 2,700  cement rectangular boxes in disorienting shapes, sizes, and positions.

This is the Sony Center located in Potsdamer Platz which was the "neutral zone" or "no mans land" during the division of the city. Just 20 years ago it was a destroyed piece of land filled with barbed wire, dirt and overgrown weeds. Now, only 10 years old it is one of the city's main hubbub areas with great shopping stores and restaurants. 

Attie at the Topography of Terror, which is a museum. Outside is a piece of the original Berlin Wall. The Topography of Terror took you through the years of Hitler and the Holocaust. Once again, it was interesting to me, but nothing moved me like the concentration camp.

These next photos are from the last remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall. People from all over the world come to paint their feelings on it. It's my favorite thing in Berlin for sure.

Espana!

Love the saying.

U.S.A.!

Concentration Camp
The next day on Tuesday, we joined a tour group and traveled 30 minutes outside of Berlin to the community of Oranienburg to visit Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Sachsenhausen was the main concentration camp in Germany. It was the headquarters for all of the concentration camps in Europe and also a very "important" research facility where they tested new murderous drugs on the prisoners and also "perfected" the killing gas that was used throughout all concentration camps.

On our walk from the train station to the camp, we were able to see the city. The city around the camp is deceptively adorable. The streets and houses reminded me of a lot of my hometown Greendale  and were lined with trees and cute houses. Not until we were told that these houses were built by the prisoners did I realize where we were and why there is even a tour to this city.

The tour was really good. Our guide told us a lot of stories from first hand accounts of things that happened in the concentration camp and what life was like every day. I'll go ahead and post some pictures from Sachsenhausen and tell you some facts/stories about the pictures. 

A picture of a man, not a boy, they found in Sachsenhausen after the war

The only 2 barracks left standing today. The others were destroyed after the war. Each barrack would have 400 men sleeping in there at once. 3 men to one bed, stacked 3 high. In the winters, the windows were open. In the summers, the windows were closed.

A track made of rocks and tar. Men had to "wear in" the soldiers boots by running around the track for 12-16 hours straight. If you were assigned this job, you were only expected to live a week because if you stopped, you'd get shot.

The bunk beds. Remember 3 men to each bed.

The toilets. The prisoners were only allowed to use the bathroom twice a day, which was horrible when many were sick with the flu or diarrhea because of the malnutrition they  received for meals. 

A grave site of thousands of prisoners unceremoniously thrown in  to the ditch when there were too many bodies being cremated and the SS guards didn't want the Allie's to see the smoke and locate them. 

This bunker is where they killed the prisoners. The prisoners were told it was a doctors visit. One of the common ways they were killed was by putting them in front of an eye chart to read off letters. Behind the eye chart was a hole where a gun was placed. The guards would then fire and move on to the next one. We also saw the ropes used for hangings and the "showers" that were gas chambers.

Most of this building was destroyed after the war, but these are what remains of the crematory where as soon as the prisoners were murdered they would throw them in there. 

The "hospital" where the sick went. Instead of getting better, the doctors used them as guinea  pigs and tried new drugs on them and would record how long the drug took to kill the patients. 

Ok so that was my detached facts about Sachsenhausen. Now I'll tell you how I feel about it. So where to begin. I'm not really sure! I just can't stop thinking about how the SS guards had absolutely no respect for human life. I guess I never really thought that any human being could be so cruel to another human being and torture them physically and mentally until they just decide to kill them. And it's even worse that it wasn't just like one person. In Sachsenhausen, it was more than 70,000 human beings who died from the cold, heat, starvation, abuse, or in the hands of the Nazis. The saddest part about it is that only 20,000 deaths were recorded, so that means more than 50,000 families will never have closure with knowing how their loved one died or where they are buried. Its just so sad. All of the stories that our guide told us was like listening to a horror movie that I'd never want to watch. I think thats good for now for my feelings on that. I wish I could just transfer my feelings and what I heard and saw onto paper. It'd be so much easier to get across what the camp was like. 

Some Fabulous Food!
The amazing weekend of eating and drinking did not end in Prague. Our first lunch that we had was at a Donor Kebab place right near our hostel. We were starving and saw some guy eating some yummy looking thing filled with all kinds of food. He heard us speaking English and told us to try this place out (he's from Ireland). He also told us donors were started in Berlin by the heavy Turkish population, so its definitely a Berlin cuisine. We ended up going in. I can't even describe to you how good it was and how filling for only 3 euro! Yummmm

You could choose what you wanted on it. I got just about everything. 

After the concentration camp, we were all mentally and physically exhausted (its a 7hour tour!). Attie's friend from Purdue, Evan, is studying abroad in southern Germany and took a train to meet us for the day. He was clutch for us the rest of the day. We went to this gorgeous area and sat and ate different German plates and drank different German beers for around 2 hours (we're finally becoming Spaniards! yayay!) I had two German beers and can't remember what either of them are called because Evan ordered for us. However, I wasn't a fan of the first one, but the 2nd one was a darker beer and I loved it! I didn't think I'd like dark beer, but I really really liked it :). I'll post some pictures of the food we ate. It was soo good!

The 4 of us relaxing and eating some brats after a long day of siteseeing.

Best apple strudel of my LIFE

I wish i remembered what these were called. Seriously best food ever.

Well gang! After a lot of postponing, I have finally finished my Berlin post! For those of you who read my posts I just want to say thanks so much! I know they can be long sometimes but I just always have so many observations and thoughts! One more month and I'll be home! I miss everyone :)

Os quiero,

Lauren