Berlin

The first few days of our long study tour with DIS took us to Berlin.

We met on Sunday morning and drove to the ferry which took us from Denmark to Germany.
From there we drove through the beautiful German countryside to Sachsenhausen, a Nazi and then Soviet concentration camp. Although not the warmest of all welcomes to Germany it was a truly sobering and powerful experience. I have read countless holocaust novels, but visiting a camp brings the whole experience to life. Over 30,000 people died in the camp at the hands of the Nazis between 1936-1945 and thousands more were killed in the death march. Interestingly, the camp was kept in use by the Soviets who imprisoned 60,000 East Germans, leading to the death of additional 12,000 people. We were given audio headsets which were a really great way to learn about the atrocities and lives of the prisoners at the camp including roll call, the toils of daily schedules, extermination and experimentation techniques and the various other aspects of life in the camp and the town which lay literally right next to the camp.

On a lighter note, we continued on the Berlin where we would spend the first half of our week long trip. While in Berlin we visited Bayer Pharmaceuticals and Gillette. These two companies presented us with great information and we were also able to go on a tour of the Gillette factory to see how the razor blades were manufactured, a process much more complex than you might think! At the end of our visit we were also given free razors and shaving gel! So exiting!

While in Berlin, DIS took us to the Jewish Museum, a really interesting museum that thankfully focused more on Jewish life throughout history and less on the holocaust itself. Another day we were also treated to lunch in the German Reichstag or parliament building, which is one of the most spectacular buildings in the city. We ate lunch at a very ritzy café and enjoyed the beautiful view from the top.



We also took a bus tour of the city, an amazing trek that turned out to be a tease as it was impossible for us to even make a dent in all the things we wanted to see while in the HUGE city that is Berlin. We stopped by many areas some of which I tried to get back to during our free time including the Berliner Dome the East Berlin Tower, the Jewish Memorial, Charlottenburg Palace, Museum Island and the Pergamon Museum (home of many unique exhibits including the Gates of Ishtar from 605 BC,) . and the site of Hitler's bunker, just to mention a few things. We also visited the HUGE department store, called KaDeWe, very similar to Harrods, with its 7 floors of clothes, food, accessories etcI finally got to try the German pretzel I had been dying to buy, but practically choked on it as I read the prices for American goods including a small container of JIF peanut butter (roughly 8 Euros, or $12) and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for about $1.50 a piece! Needless to say, I was not that desperate.

After an amazing dinner at an East Berlin beer garden (bratwurst and potatoes…yum!), we stumbled upon the Berlin “Festival of Lights” where we, and thousands of others, watched fireworks, lasers and smoke illuminate the sky. It was a nice show and I can’t believe how lucky I am getting as I have seen fireworks in almost every city I have visited, but like the others the show could hardly compare to any Fourth celebration in the states.
We ended our trip to Berlin the next day with a stop at the Olympic Stadium, home of the 1938 Olympic Games and the World Cup this past year. The stadium was amazing and had undergone significant changes that literally erased Hitler’s presence including his name on the plaque and his speaking podium in the stadium. The one room that was really cool was the chapel, complete with gold walls and prayers carved out in many languages. The chapel was available for use before games, and even for weddings and some funerals!

In general, I loved the city of Berlin as it is a very modern city because it has been rebuilt so many times. It also had this great park called Tiergarten, which was an amazingly peaceful place to run each morning, that connected the once separate East and West Berlin which still differ in architecture and are divided by the cobblestone-marked wall and a short remaining stretch, that used to break them apart.
The two biggest things I noticed about Germany was that people drove fast, powerful cars that made crossing the street significantly more scary than in Denmark, where your biggest issue are the bikers and the colder German people. While they were curious and would make eye contact with you, they seemed rather annoyed and slightly unfriendly. Naturally, almost everyone is annoyed at tourists, but the Germans were a much harder people to ask for directions than are the Danes.

My biggest regret was not making in to Check Point Charlie. Although we crammed as much as we could in as it was, I would have loved to visit that museum.

With much left to see of Berlin, we loaded the busses and started our journey to Prague…