November 30th, 2012

Libby, Logan and I in Stockholm

It seems so surreal that today is the last day of November! I have just over a week left in Berlin.  I have really enjoyed the past 10 weeks getting to know a new city with so much history, but I am very excited to see my family and friends soon.   I have had a very busy week! Last Thursday was Thanksgiving and people in my program and I decided to have a potluck with traditional Thanksgiving food (or the best we could come up with in Berlin).  It was my first major holiday away from my family so it was nice to have a meal that resembled home.  Last Friday, I went to visit one of my friends that attends UW but is currently studying abroad in Stockholm, Sweden.  I spent three days touring the city with her and getting to know Stockholm. My friend is fluent in Swedish which was very helpful and made it easy to get around.  It was a really beautiful city and one of my favorites that I have visited in Europe so far.

My friend Libby (who I was visiting) and I in Stockholm

As it is week 10, things in the quarter are winding down and deadlines are approaching rapidly. I spent most of this week working on final papers so I didn't get the chance to explore the city.  It was a good week to be productive as it is getting very cold in Berlin.   A lot of people in my program have been getting sick, but thankfully I have been able to avoid that so far.


However, I had two really interesting site visits as a part of my course this week. On Thursday, we visited the EU parliament and spoke with a press agent for the current president of the EU, who is German.  I have heard and read a lot about the EU crisis that is currently going on, but I have never really understood it until hearing his presentation.  He was very in favor of Germany staying on the Euro and stressed its importance in relation to the European economy.  The second site visit was with Thorsten, we visited the Wannsee Villa where the Wannsee Conference took place.  Through my whole time in Berlin we have been reading about historical places and then actually getting to visit them, which is one of my favorite parts of studying abroad. It really makes the events come to life and, in my opinion, provides a better understanding of history. One of my favorite parts of the Wannsee exhibition was a room where they had quotes from relatives of Holocaust survivors as well as relatives of Nazi's. One of the quotes was from the great nice of Heinrich Himmler talking about how a classmate asked her if she was related to him, and she said yes. I think it really speaks to how Germans have a difficult time being proud of their heritage because it has been so troubled over time.  


My program is going to see an Opera on Sunday and I am very excited as I have never been to one before.  I am going to try to make the most out of my last week in Berlin.


I also found some street art from one of my favorite movies on a street in Kreuzberg that was about a 10-15 minute walk away from my apartment.

Street art in Kreuzberg, Jack Torrence of the Shining

Ciao!
Becca

Field trip to Prague

Me with Prague in the background

I am currently on the train back to Berlin from Prague. The train arrives in about 45 minutes so I thought it was enough time to jot down some of my experiences from this weekend.  Before arriving in Prague, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know anything about the city ahead of time, so I was in for a surprise when we finally arrived.  Prague is a very beautiful city.  It has a lot of old buildings that date back hundreds of year, which gives the city a very old European feel. It was really interesting to go to the Prague Castle (which isn’t a castle, but rather a complex of palaces along with a large cathedral) because it was very authentic. It felt like you went back in time hundreds of years upon entering the buildings due to the authentic renaissance architecture.  One of my favorite parts of the Prague Castle was the torture chamber/dungeon area. It was really cool to see and really interesting to actually go into the place where people were tortured hundreds of years prior.  It felt like it was straight out of a movie.  Another part of our tour that day was going to a beautiful viewpoint that over looked the city.  What makes Prague so unique is that it wasn’t bombed in the war so most of its buildings are still in tact.  I feel like a lot more places in Europe would be as beautiful as Prague if they weren’t destroyed in the war.   We went to a lot of synagogues as a part of learning about Jewish history, and I knew a lot of it already because of the synagogues I have been to in Berlin. We visited the “Old New Synagogue” which is still functioning, but was about 700 years old.    Another thing I really enjoyed was the Jewish Cemetery we visited, and our tour guide told us that between 40,000 and 80,000 bodies where buried there.  I have been to a few other Jewish cemeteries but this one was overflowing with stones and I can’t even imagine what it must look like underground.   One of the largest anti-sematic pieces of literature that tell lies and propaganda about the Jews features this cemetery as the meeting place of the Rabbi that are trying to take over the world. Prof Wagner told us this, and I had heard about the book before, and it blows my mind that there are people that would actually believe such a ridiculous and hateful story, but it just reinforces that a lot of hatred grows out of ignorance.  We also went to a really old library that reminded me a lot of Beauty and the Beast, which I assume that Disney drew inspiration from it, because it was very beautiful. I bought a postcard with a picture of the library because photos weren’t allowed and I wanted to remember the site.  I have been getting used to using Euros instead of US dollars during my time in Berlin, but it was really confusing to use to Czech Kronor because I had no idea what it meant. It reminded me of when I first got to Berlin and I was confused about the worth of the Euro.  I had a really good weekend experiencing Prague, but I am excited to arrive back in Berlin.  Although I enjoyed Prague, it seemed like a very touristy area which was unattractive to me. I saw probably about 30 souvenir shops (if not more) which just seems like overkill. It is little things like that which make me appreciate Berlin even more, as Berlin attracts a lot of tourists, but the city isn't specifically made for them. This upcoming weekend I am going to Stockholm, Sweden to visit one of my best friends from UW. I will be back in Seattle in just under 3 weeks and it is crazy to me how fast time is passing.

More later, Ciao from Berlin!
Becca

Outside of Cathedral

Prague at night

Jewish Cemetery

Inside of Cathedral

View of Prague from Charles Bridge

Visiting Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

Panorama of the Camp

Entrance to the camp: During operation (left)   2012 (right)

"Work will set you free" 

Ruins of the Crematorium

On Friday, Thorsten took us to visit the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp site/memorial.  The reading for this week talked about how East and West Germany dealt with the actual sites of the camps. I learned that for about 10-15 years after the end of the war and the liberation of the camps, that they were mostly ignored and allowed to fall to ruins.  Sachsenhausen lies in former East Germany, about an hour north of Berlin. Controversies arose about how to properly memorialize the camp and what should be reconstructed.  In 1961, the GDR created its own memorial of the site, compromising the integrity of what actually happened there, as it was seen as a memorial for communists, and the presence of the Jews was almost entirely ignored.  After reunification, the memorial was redone to restore the integrity of the camps original layout, not by complete reconstruction, but recreating a sense of the boundaries of the camp and the pathways taken by the prisoners.   The reading also talked about landscape as memory and the history that is tied in to places of great tragedy such as concentration camps.  Being in the camp was a very powerful experience. The entire time I was there I felt a sense of sadness and uneasiness from just being in a place associated with so much death and suffering.  Unlike other camps, Sachsenhausen was primarily a forced labor camp, and not an extermination camp, although many people died there, around 100,000 people died of malnutrition, disease and starvation, among other causes. Although it was not meant for extermination as its sole purpose, there was still an area, called "Station Z" where people were systematically murdered by gunfire and then their bodies were burned in the crematorium. Thorsten told us a story about how supposedly people were brought into a room one by one, and that a guard would tell them that the SS needed their height, and that after going against the wall to be measured, someone on the other side would shoot them in the head. Then after they would be carried into the next room and promptly burned.  It was a very sad experience being in the camp.   We also saw the remains of the "Jew Barracks" which had been set on fire by Neo-Nazis in the 1990s.  Half of it had been destroyed, and an exhibition was erected in its place. The other half, while having evidence of being burned, still stood and I was able to walk through and see what it was like. I can't imagine having to live in the conditions that they did, and it really brought all of the things that I have been learning about Berlin and the Holocaust into real life.  Thorsten also explained that within the camp, not all prisoners were equal, and that a suppression tactic used by the SS to remain in power was to create disparity and hatred among prisoners by creating a hierarchy. I found this very interesting because I assumed that all of the prisoners would be united by their common suffering, but I learned that this was not the case.

Living Quarters of the "Jew Barracks" 

More later, Ciao from Berlin
Becca

November 8, 2012

On the roof of the Reichstag

View from the roof of the Dome of the Reichstag

Time is flying by in Berlin.  In exactly one month I will be landing in Seattle. I am starting to work on all of the final projects for the classes I am taking, and all I can think about is about where the time has gone. I am having the time of my life in this city and I am certain that I will never forget my time in Berlin.   About a week ago, we toured the Reichstag as a program. Ali got to come too, which I was excited about because I was really excited to see the building.  One of the most interesting things I saw in the tour was the writing of the Soviet soliders on the wall that had been preserved shortly after World War II.  I really admire how the German government as well as the people have come to terms with all of the history and memory that is present in their environment.  I just read an article that was assigned by Prof. Wagner and it talked about how "landscape is tied to memory" and that is a statement that I really agree with after all of my experiences in Berlin.    We got to go up into the Dome of the Reichstag which was really exciting as well.

East Side Gallery, Berlin

This was Ali's last weekend in Berlin, so we tried to do as many tourist-y things as possible. We waited in the long line to get to the top of the TV tower, but it was well worth the effort. We went at night so we got to see a 360 degree panoramic view of the lights of Berlin and it was very beautiful. I was able to point of some of the landmarks that I have come to be familiar with, like the Brandenburg Gate and the Berliner Dome, as well the general area of my apartment and Humboldt University.    Earlier that same day, we went on a bike ride to the East Side Gallery--which is a 2 km long stretch of what is left of the Berlin Wall.  Even though it is only about a 4 minute bike ride away from my apartment, I had not been there yet, so it was a fun and new experience for both of us. I got a real sense of the magnitude of the wall, as I have had trouble visually what it looked like even after all of my studies this quarter. The graffiti on the wall was very interesting and artistic. I am glad that a portion of the wall has been preserved because it allowed outsiders like myself to get a sense of what Berlin used to be like.

Inside the Reichstag Dome

On Tuesday, I went on an art walk with other students and our guide, Hans Konings, starting in the neighborhood of Wedding. It is a very diverse area, similar to Kreuzberg. We started out by going to an actual studio and getting to see artists at work.  One of my favorite was talking to a young woman who worked with wood to create amazing sculptures.  She was very passionate about her work and it seemed like she was becoming very successful.  All of the people that we talked to had a lot of creative capacity which is something I admire.  I saw a lot of really interesting art and talked to a lot of interesting people, but my favorite part of the experience was getting to talk to Hans. About half way through we all stopped to get coffee, and I had the pleasure of having him and his daughter sit at my table. I talked to him about his perception of Berlin and his own work. He is a very funny and interesting man, who was very knowledgable about all of the places that he took us.  He said that a lot of the non-state sponsored artists mostly care about having a place to live and a place to work, and little else.  He explained that is what made Berlin attractive because there are districts such as Wedding and Kreuzberg that can provide cheap rent, so that artists could move in and focus on their work. However, as I have been learning in Sabine's class, gentrification is becoming a problem and a threat to these low income/low rent areas.  Making Berlin more 'attractive' comes at the expense of the residents that having been living in those areas for generations and they make it more difficult for those people to remain in those areas.  The wood-working artist that we talked to said that she lived in Kreuzberg, and I can only imagine it is because it is still a place where there are cheap apartments available.   I really hope that Berlin doesn't succumb to becoming commercialized in every neighborhood because the diversity and roughness is what, in my opinion, gives Berlin its character. This week in class I have learned a lot about culture, diversity and migration. I really enjoy living in a part of Berlin where these things have manifested over the years, and I also have not witnessed any racism against Turks or other minorities, although I have read about it in class. This really connected to the walk around Kreuzberg that we did with the German students in the previous week, as they talked about the history of Kreuzberg and how it is at risk for gentrification. Usually when I am in school, I really don't enjoy doing reading in school, but the things I have read in both of my classes this quarter have been extremely interesting. The best part is being able to subjects of my reading in real life and having so much history in such a close proximity.    Tomorrow, I am going to visit Sachsenhausen concentration camp with Prof. Wagner and the class, and I am very curious as to how I feel after the experience.  

More later, Ciao from Berlin
Becca

My weekend in Amsterdam

Sarphati Park 

Anne Frank's House

Last weekend Ali and I went to Amsterdam. I have been in Germany for over a month so I was ready to see another part of Europe, as this is my first time out of North America. Our flight left at 7am on Saturday morning, so needless to say, Saturday was a very long day.  We flew out of the same airport that I flew out of when my class went to Munich a few weeks ago and it was a relief to not have to look up directions so early in the morning. We arrived in Amsterdam at around 9:30 am and made our way to  our Hostel. Since we arrived so early our room wasn't ready yet, so we had the opportunity to walk around for a while before settling in and taking a nap. After walking around for a while I got the impression that Amsterdam is a very beautiful place. Our hostel was right across the street from Sarphati Park, and luckily the weather was nice so we hung out there for a while until checking in.   After some much needed rest, we decided to take the tram toward the Centraal Station, which is the main part of Amsterdam and do some sight seeing. I have always wanted to see the Anne Frank House, even before I knew I was going to be studying abroad. Luckily, while walking around the city I saw a sign that said that it was only .8 kilometers away! After waiting in line for about 30 minutes we got inside and it was definitely worth the wait. I have learned so much about the Holocaust on the side of the Germans and living in the area where it was planned that going to a place where the effects took place was really powerful.  My favorite part of the house was her room. In her diary she talked about how bare and boring the walls where and that she wanted to make it more lively by putting up posters of famous people that she enjoyed.  Anne Frank has been idolized so much as a symbol of the Holocaust and being in her room made her feel very human and real; she was just a teenage girl exposed to the biggest horror of the 20th century.   One thing that was interesting was in a short video documentary on display it said that Anne never had such serious thoughts (that is known) before having to go into hiding, and that such a horrific experience turned her into a mature young woman with deep reflections and criticisms about the world around her even if she couldn't participate in it herself.  The exhibition itself was really well done in my opinion, although I was disappointed that the attic             

was inaccessible.   At the end of the exhibit they actually had the slip of paper with all of the Frank's names on it that was used by the Nazis to collect them. They also had videos of the liberation and the emaciated people and all of the piles of dead bodies at the camps.  It was a really powerful experience and I am very happy that I went.  

Near Anne Frank's House 

On a lighter note, the next day we went to see an English band called "Hot Chip" at the Melkweg, which is the largest music venue in Amsterdam. It was one of the most fun concerts I have attended.  It was really cool to be able to go to a music venue in a different country, as I have only been to ones in Washington. It was a sold out show and we had to wait in line for about 30 minutes just to get in, even though we already had tickets.   Earlier that day we went to the Heineken Experience, which was really fun as well.

Hot Chip at the Melkweg, Amsterdam

Heineken Experience

The weather held out for most of the weekend, but finally on Monday it started to pour down rain. We were planning on renting bikes and touring the city but the weather just didn't allow it. Instead, we walked around and spent a long morning eating a delicious breakfast at a cafe near our hostel.  We went there on both Sunday and Monday mornings and got omelettes both days. We also went to the "Pancake House" which is famous in Amsterdam on Saturday Night and ate some really good pancakes.  It was a weekend of good food. As I mentioned, Amsterdam is a very beautiful city but it is also extremely confusing. The set up of the city is almost a "U" shape, making it difficult to decipher when roads begin and end.  Also, every street looks very similar: a canal separating two nearly identical rows of buildings.  So, needless to say, we got lost a lot, which wasn't very fun in the rain.

Me in front of the Anne Frank House

I had a great time in Amsterdam with Ali but we were very happy to return to Berlin.  Even as a visitor, he told me that Berlin feels more like home than Amsterdam which made me really happy to hear as I am really coming to love this city. Many of my friends in the program are continuing to travel almost every weekend to different places in Europe.  With the exception of the class field trip to Prague I am choosing to stay in Berlin every weekend until I return to Seattle. I am really happy about this decision. Even after going to Munich and Amsterdam, the idea of traveling seems exhausting, and I haven't even come close to seeing all of Berlin.

Ali with a statue of Anne Frank near the Anne Frank House 

Until next time, Ciao from Berlin

Becca