A Week in the German Capital

On the 25th of May our trio arrived in Berlin. Our hostel was the Pegasus, located in the former east bloc. It was a wonderful hostel. I would highly reccomend it to anyone trvelling in the area, and with student card came to a whopping 11.70 Euros/night. We began our trip in Berlin by being lazy and experiencing the cutured side of the German capitaol in the Charlottenburg, Friedricstrasse region. I'll leave it to that, and if you know the city, you'll know what I am talking about.

Our second day we went to the Sachsenhausen Concentration camp, just orth of the city near the town of Oranienburg. The remaining structures at this camp, the careput into its upkeep, and the wealth of knowledge to gain here and give one a perspective into the life of prisoners was of great importance to us. Joel and I began our excursion through the camp by going into the Camp museum located in the old SS motorpool. The museum was very comprehensive and touched on day-to-day life of prisoners, the camps liberation, and the memorials built to keep remebrance for this place and the people who perished here. Morgan went immediately into the camp and experienced it on his own terms.

After emerging from the museum with a greater feel for the pain and suffering experienced by the people, another very depressing read in our trip of the camps, we walked through the ominous gate which loomed infront of us almost beckoning "you will never leave this camp the way you are coming into it". It opened into a quick exhibit on the security measures taken to keep people in. It had 2 foot thick concrete walls, adorned with barbed-wire all along the top, and in front of that stretched 2 seperate rows of barbed wire fence, and even more coils of barbed wire connecting the two rows of fence. To top all his off, as if it wasn't enough, the SS of the camp had the fences all electrified. Nobody was leaving here. Joel and I began by heading towards the barrks, but our attention was drawn by a small semi-circle that opened towards he gate. This turned out to be the "shoe testing track". The Nazi's would force prisoners to march with 30kg sacks to test the durability of the shoes being made for German soldiers. The track contained about a dozen different surfaces all roughly 10 metres in length. Each surface was littered with jagged rocks, sharp slate, multen rock, lava rock (as it looked), smooth rounded stones, gravel, and extremely soft sand. The prisoners were commanded to walk this track to distances up to and exceeding 25 miles at a time. As they walked they had orders shouted at them to run double time, drop and do a push up, get up, march in sequence, turn aroud, jump, etc., all whilst keeping their packs on at all times. Joel and I decided to walk a course of the track, and the both of us, 2 young males in our early 20's in relatively good shape, on 2000+ calorie a day diets, were tired and given discomfort and pain i our feet afer walking one circuit of the track. Our modern walking shoes did not aleviate the discomfort from the forced terrain. I cannot imagine the pain and suffering by the prisoners forced to endure for 25+ miles on this track in all types of weather.

Afer the track we headd to the medical barracks. Here I found out that Sachsenhausen was very involved in the medical experimentation on prisoners. It was a very emotional building. Here we heard stories that were simply chilling. SS medical docters experimented on prisoners with such substances as Chlorine gas, Mustard gas, Jaundice, Tuberculosis, and poisoned tipped ammunition, as well as a wealth of other horrendously gastly experiments. To paraphrase one account: "the prisoner's were instructed to lie face-dwn on the jagged surfaces of the shoe-testing course. They were in shorts or rolled up pants. An SS officer would walk up and down the lines, every now and then drawing his pistl and shooting the elpless men in the fleshy part of their thighs. He was testing the affects of poisoned tipped bullets. The men writhed in pain as they were shot, but the immediate shock of the pain soon subsided as they lay in quiet agony. Their wounds immediately began to fester with the affects of the poison. These men were simply left their to die a slow and painful death". The stories of the medical experiments on children esecially got to us, not only based on the subject matter, but the video testimony of survivors. Joel and I watched one video of 2 gentlemen telling their stories of how they lived and survived in the Sachsenhausen camp. As they were telling their gruesome stories of Jaundice and experiments on their livers and kidneys, one of the men began describing the room in which he was confined to for most of the hours of each day. He described the row of bunks as soon as you came in, Joel and I noticed markings on the wals in our room. He described the broken down radiator sitting in the corner. We had one. He spoke of the cracked mirror and faucet in the corner. We saw nothing, until the light hit the corner of our room illuminating the outlines of what was once a sin and the paint above the sink was not as faded by the sun a the areas around it ... a mirror once hung here. There was pipes evident in the ground that once brought water into this room. Joel and I were sitting in the exact room that these boys lived in as the Nazi doctors experimented on them without a care in the world for what was to happen to them. They were all to be sent to Auschwitz to cover what had been done to them, ut a twisted turn of events prvented their transport and their lvies were spared. They were two of the lucky one's who were able to survive and tell their story. Thousands like them never lived to be able to tell theirs.

After leaving the medical building, we headed to the pathology building which was chilling in every way. The rooms were very sterile. The two tables were just sitting n the middle of the room echoing the purpose of their past. We went to the basement morgue of this building, and the temperature plummetted here. An eerie reminder that once on these walls hung the boies of the dead as well as merely being thrown in piles into the corner to be forgotten until it was their time t be carted off to the crematorium. Some of the sites we hae been to are utterly awful and it is hard to describe the feelings thatone feels when walking into such rooms. It is not only their look and feel, but a strange presence still haunts these rooms.

We went to the crematorium after this, a building that the Nazi's tried to cover up, but failed in doing so. We walked around the ruined foundations f what was once a massive building with the sole designed purpose to dispose of the bodies. The Sachsenhausen camp at ne point would send the bodies of their dead to the local Berlin cremtorium, but once an accident spilled the remains and evidence of their crimes. This prompted the SS to construct a crematorium on site. Never again would a slip-up of sch nature happen, and the killings would continue at rapid rates.

We next walked into a guard house which held a very interesting exhibit. It had digitally interactive video set up describing locations. All the windows were blacked out except for little slits. The sits commanded your attention to chosen direction and highlighted things: "the small smkestack in the distance that you are looking at is the remains of the brickworks that the SS occupied and forced prisners to work at while they were building the camp. The prisoners of Sachsenhausen were forced to construct the walls many would never again see the free side of.

We then made our way to the barracks of the Jewish prisoners. In 1993, an attempted Nazi arsonist tried to burn these buildings down, but they were thankfuly saved and preserved for their tory to be continuously told to the thousands of visitors that enter those gates each year. The barracks were stifling in the 30 degree day. We in our shorts and T-shirts were sweating immensely. The Nazi's would put prisoners into cramped rooms in winter clothing and fur lined coats at upwards of 30 at a time and instructed the people to stand for several hours on end, sometimes all day without water, food, or the chance to move. Many people succumed to exhaustion and perished in these atrocious conditions.

We left Sachsenhausen with a greater understanding of the Nazi experiments on prisoners and their horrible 'alternate' methods of torture.

That night we went on a pub crawl of Berlin, meeting dozens of Canadians. Joel even met 4 other people from Winnipeg ... shocking. It was a wonderful night I won't soon forget.

The next day we went o an excursion around Brandenburg Gate. It was a national holiday in Germay on the 27th of May, and a massive street festival and concert was in full swin when we arrived in the midafternoon. We had much of the party culture and beer gardens surrounding us in our wake. Joel ate a massive Pretzel, and gorged on a 3-foot long sausage ... it was simply wonderful. As we watched many people plummet in fear from the 65-metre bungee jump, the rain began to exceed its original small drizzle. Joe and I walked to the Reichstag, which is simply a wonder in architecture ... this building is absolutely stunning. We next moved on to a museum that highlighted the life and relation of Joh Fitzgerald Kennedy and his entire family. It showed insight into the US-German relations immediately following the construction of the Berln Wall. It was a really interesting experience ... the girl working the frnt was also a graduate of WLU which was interesting in itself ... small world.

We next moved onto the Babelplatz, the location of the Nazi book burning. Joel and I gave a breif historical account of the incident to a group of German toursists who were unaware of the significance of the location. On our way back from the Babelplatz, which is located on the promenade in front of Humboldt University, we ventured into an Audi dealership which housed an R8, absolutely amazing, and yours for only 120, 000 Euros. After that we went into a Bentley dealership and saw an Arnage and Continental before the piece de resistance emerged in the form of a Bugatti priced at only 1.1 million ... 1 of only 100 of the cars ever produced. An absolutely gorgeous piece of craftsmanship and machinery.

Joel and I found our way to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which lay just 600m from Brandenburg Gate. The Germans are so ashamed of their past and wanting to accept what they are connected to, that they are building monuments to the Hlocaust and murdered groups in the heart of their cultural world. It really is a testament to the people and how the country has changed.

The Holocaust Memorial was possibly the most powerful place I have been. As you enter the stones rise many metres and dwarf all who walk among them, the uneasy ground causing the slightest dicomfort to those who walk within. It was a very powerful structure with the 2700 polished stones. As one enters the museum uner the memorial, a sense not felt before emerges. It highlights the actions of the Holocaust, but is focused more on the specific people and the lineages lost to this horrible tragedy to humanity. Their are letters from people writing to their loved ones after realizing the fate of Jews in the East. Few dry eyes are left in a room when you read of mere children writing to their parents of how they are awre of their soon imminent death. Many people were highly emotional here. The next room portrayed the lost lineages and history of many families. One picture highlighted a family. Of the photo of 2 dozen people, only one survived - he was a young male of possibly 9, when he looked at the photo, he was only able to recall 75% of the faces ... due to the Hlocaust, these people are forever nameless faces whose history has been lost forever. The power that that thought demands is overwhelming. The next room was a remembrance for individuals. It was completely dark and a projector would flash a name onto the wall. It would tell this persons story, and where they were interned. It would then tell you the date f their death. It really amplified ow suddenly lives were hanged at the hands of the Nazi's. The remaining two rooms described the caps in greater deail, and Judais today as well as an area dedicated to Yad Vashem. It also asked all who knew survivors to write their names into a database in order for them to be contacted to get their history and stories down. A very, very effective, powerful, and emotional place. I am truly priviledged to have been here.

We drank in the hostel this evening as the rain began pouring for the third night in as many days n Berlin. The immense heat and humidity through the day, caused a downpour each ngiht we were there. I thouroughly enjoyed Berlin.

The final two days in Berlin will be covered when I get a chance ...