Berlin part 1

Day 1

We arrived in Berlin last week Saturday.  We stayed in loft style apartments (4 of us per room). The rooms were nice and cozy and the best part was the mini fridge and hot plate so we could cook some meals! Our first day we headed on a six-hour walking tour from 4-10 pm with Greta (the best tour guide ever). We got a great overview of the city and saw a good chunk of historical sites. We of course had to stop for some late night doner after the tour. We headed back home so we could get some rest.

my "crib" that I slept in

Day 2

Sunday we started the day off with a Third Reich bike tour. The tour was so relaxing and informative. We saw a few of the same places we saw with Greta, but it was nice to get another person’s opinions and history on these sites. Some stops included a Jewish neighborhood and a Holocaust memorial. We stopped for some yummy Thai food on our bike ride also. After the tour we headed home to relax before heading out for dinner. A lot of us were not feeling well so we decided to go out for a second bowl of Vietnamese soup. We once again called it an early night.

Day 3

Monday we spend the better half of the day at Villa Wansee. This was the site where the implementation of Final Solution was discussed. We had a really great guide who took us through the Villa museum and then did a nice lecture and open discussion. We enjoyed lunch outside the villa and then headed back home. We decided to stop at the grocery store for some breakfast foods and dinner. We relaxed for a bit and then headed to bed.

Day 4

Tuesday was our second tour with Greta. We saw many more great sites and learned a lot about the Berlin wall as well as East and West Germany. We also got to see Tempelhof, the old airport. After the tour we stopped at a biergarten alongside the airport runway. As if we hadn’t walked enough, Ryan and I decided to back into the city and take a walk and get dinner. We walked for about an hour and then agreed on a nice Thai place (yes we love Asian food). We stuffed ourselves and then headed back home.

The runway

Day 5

Wednesday we visited the Anne Frank Center as well as the Museum Blindenwerkstatt on Otto Weidt and, and the Silent Heroes Museum.  In visiting these sites we learned about how traumatic moments shaped society during the Holocaust as well as how they affect our memory of the Holocaust and thus society today. Though Anne Frank was not from Berlin, nor did she ever live in Berlin, the center gave a nice overview of her life and her accomplishments. We had some discussions on her as well as the whole idea of being hidden during the Holocaust. At the next two museums we learned about the other side of hiding, those who helping to hide those who were being persecuted. Overall I really enjoyed these museums and learned a lot about the struggles people endured during the Holocaust.

After the museums we walked around the area for a few and had some lunch. After some relaxing back at our loft, we headed out to get some doner. By now we found our favorite place and even established a friendship with one of the guys working there.

Day 6

Thursday we had somewhat of a day off. We were broken up into small groups and explored various sites that we would later give presentations on. My group chose to go to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp just a half an hour away from our flats. I found this camp to be a lot different than Dachau. Even though the camp had been torn down, there were a few buildings that had been re-built using the original materials. We spent a good two hours there and walked through the whole site. They had some really great museums that we also explored. Sachsenhausen felt more like the concentration camps we read about in textbooks in comparison to Dachau, which felt very touristy. We collected all of our information for our presentation so we decided to head out. We stopped for a snack afterwards and then took the train back to meet the group at the Reichstag.

The Reichstag is essentially the capital building in Berlin. The building itself is beautiful. We were given a tour through the entire building and finished off by walking to the top of the dome to watch the sunset. It was absolutely beautiful! We finished up around 10 so we decided to head home.