Hallo aus Berlin!

Sachsenhausen

Intense day today. Began by waking up late (thanks to Katherine who roused me shortly before we ran out the door), but good since I've been tired! Made the 40 minute trip by foot/bus to get to Potsdamer Platz at 9, where we met our classmates and two professors to go to Sachsenhausen, about 45 minutes by S-bahn in Northern Berlin. From there, another 1-2 mile walk. So about 3 hours later, we were there. Such commutes are not out of the ordinary, that now when we get anywhere in <45 minutes, it seems like a rather superhuman accomplishment.

Sachsenhausen in a Concentration Camp in Northern Berlin. Amazing that any such camp existed in the capital city- much unlike many other of the major camps that were actually removed from most towns. I don't wish to tell much about the experience here. But we spent about 1.5 hours on the grounds, and were able to walk around it at our pace with an info-phone thing and site map. Amazing to have been there and still having trouble wrapping my mind around the reality that was the Holocaust.

From northern berlin, I took the S-bahn to southern berlin to visit Rathaus Steglitz, a memorial to Jews transported from the neighborhood of Steglitz beginning in 1942. The memorial is a Mirror Wall in a main city Platz, in the middle of busy streets and the U-bahn. Using my german, I chatted with some locals to try to get their views of the memorial. Afterwards, I bought a way too expensive Iced coffee from Starbucks, but the air conditioning and ice cubes were incredibly wonderful.

posted by Jayne @ 12:35 PM