First, before I start, let me say that the experience I have had so far in Europe has been beyond imaginable. No issue with the food or the hotels - it is quite obvious that the American Gathering has covered a large portion of what this trip REALLY should have cost. Furthermore, there is no other trip that can hit the amount of sites that we are seeing in the time that we have. Yesterday, I realized how grateful I am that in one day, I saw Sachenhausen, the Wannsee Villa, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. And the day before, I went to Ravensbruck, the Olympic Stadium, and Track 17. While this may not seem like a lot, each site completely drained me. I was not looking forward to the hour or two bus rides to get to each site; however, I needed that time to ask myself, "Did that really just happen? Did I really just see that?"
First, let me talk about Ravensbruck. This is an all-women's camp; however, there will be about 20,000 men placed here as well. For my students, Dr. Spatz was liberated here. Also, Corrie ten Boom was located here as well. Many of the women were caught as resistance fighters and were brought to Ravensbruck. I think what shocked me the most was how close the local town was to Ravensbruck. People, the pictures do not do it justice. Across the beautiful lake, there is a church steeple and a town...yes, they could see Ravensbruck. They knew...the whole time they knew! Witnessing the distance with my own eyes was absolutely mind-boggling. Ravensbruck has a small crematorium located there - a gas chamber was built, but not until 1944, which is nearing the end of the war. One must remember that every camp served a different purpose. Ravensbruck was not built to be a killing center; however, killing there did exist. After our tour, we got to spend an hour to walk around the place on our own. Let's just say I was in the right place at the right time because our tour guide asked a couple of us if we wanted to go to the roof of the administration building. He could only let 6 people at a time go to the roof, and there were only nine of us when we were asked. We all agreed and I was one of the first that was able to go up to the locked attic and walk up several flight of stairs to finally reach the roof of the administration building. When I stood on top, there were no words to describe the sight I saw. You could literally see just about the whole camp - from the crematorium to the barracks to the area where appel, or roll call is done, to the commandants office and rooms of the guards. And I even had a better view of the town located across the lake. I cannot lie when I say that I lost it at that moment. I don't know if it was because I saw the whole picture instead of the smaller individual areas of the site or if it is because I thought of the stories and the horrors that our guide told us...but I do know that I thought of Dr. Spatz and her experience that I read in her book, and I couldn't believe that I was standing there and standing on the soil...or the roof...of the site where she was located - and this is only after her experience in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
You would think this experience alone would be enough for the day, but we still had more to do. After Ravensbruck, we went to the Olympic Stadium where the 1936 Summer Olympics were held. In 1931, Berlin was chosen as the site for the Summer Olympics. Hitler will not come to power until 1933, and in actuality, he didn't want the Olympics to be held here; however, some of his staff members encouraged him to follow through and use it as a propaganda tool. Sure enough, Hitler will do this, and for months leading up to the Olympics, all anti-semitism and hatred toward foreigners and Jews was put to the side. Hotels and restaurants were told to treat the foreigners the best they have ever been treated, and they do! In fact, several Americans that were black spoke about how they have never been treated that well in America! The spectacle that Hitler displayed at the Olympics helped him to win Time magazine's Man of the Year...yeah, think about that...I thought it was interesting that as we turned the corner to go to the Olympic Stadium, there was a street named Jesse Owens. :) Seems fitting - after all, Jesse won several gold medals and ticked Hitler off since he was black. Hitler did not do a good job of hiding his emotions... :)
After that, we went to Track 17. Now, I thought Ravensbruck was tough....::sighs:: There are no words for Track 17. The track is located in Berlin and it is no longer in operation. From this track, thousands and thousands of Jews were deported to different camps whether it be Auschwitz, Theresienstadt, or other locations. Standing in that location and closing my eyes allowed me to imagine the fear and anxiety that many had. While I could NEVER understand how they felt, I had chills standing on the platform. I think the most impressive and heart-wrenching part of Track 17 are the inscriptions that run along both sides of the track. In order by date, the number of deportees was inscribed with the location of where they were sent. Talk about powerful....
Are you beginning to see why it is tough for me to blog on a daily basis? The power is beyond imagination...I am unsure if I could ever relay the impact that these sites had on me to my students, but it is a challenge I am willing to accept.
On Sunday, we did it all over again with different sites. Our first camp that we visited was Sachenhausen. Sachenhausen was one of the first camps created. Prior to 1938, camps were mainly created to hold political prisoners. Social Democrats, Communists, and anti-Nazi conspirators were placed in this camp. Others that will see time in Sachenhausen are homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, gypsies, and many more. Remember how I mentioned that Ravensbruck had a town directly across the lake? Well, Sachsenhausen had homes located around the camp. In fact, there was a little girl who lived in one of the homes and she used to journal when she watched prisoners entering the camp. She recently passed away several months ago, but she would come and speak at Sachenhausen about how she saw prisoners entering. Once again, people knew... Sachsenhausen was not built to be a killing center, but like most camps, towards 1943-1945, a small gas chamber and crematorium will be built. We started by entering the triangular shaped camp - the propaganda used by the Nazis was unbelievable. Before you enter the camp, there is a large area that looks like a park. In that park, they even had a small petting zoo! This was used to make the prisoners believe that their stay would be pleasant. Then, once you pass the gates that state "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work will set you free) one can see the barracks and a massive memorial constructed to honor the political prisoners that lost their lives at Sachenhausen. As we worked our way through the camp to learn about the lives of prisoners, we finally made our way to the back of the camp and we learned about the fate of 10,000 Soviet POW's. Basically, each POW was brought into an office disguised as a doctor's office. After undressing, the POW would step into a room to be measured and given an exam. Through a hole, a shooter would kill the POW with a shot to the back of the neck. One by one...they did this to 10,000 Soviet POW's and then they were sent to the crematorium. They completed this in 10 weeks...talk about chills....then, we turned the corner to see the remains of a blown up building...and there were the remains of the crematorium and a small gas chamber big enough to hold about 20 people. I cannot say anymore about this...other than I could not breathe the whole time we walked around the building. I'm pretty sure you understand the difficulties of writing about that experience. I can only imagine what it would be like at one of the major killing centers that I will be visiting pretty soon.
After Sachsenhausen, we went to the Wannsee Villa. The villa is a beautiful place located at a popular yacht resort. Clearly, it is an area for the more wealthy. The villa is where Reinhard Heydrich met with 14 other higher officials and cabinet members of the Third Reich to discuss plans for the Final Solution regarding the use of Theresienstadt and the mischlinges, or mixed blood. (Mixed blood would refer to those that have grandparents or parents that are Jewish, etc. It's a lot of rules - check out the Nuremberg Laws for more information.) But anyways, sitting outside the villa and being in the room where the discussions took place was interesting. The villa is at a beautiful spot - it's hard to believe that such a beautiful villa was the location of such a difficult conversation.
Last but not least, we went to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. There are over 2,000 stelae ranging in different heights located throughout this particular spot in Berlin. Underground, there is a museum to learn about many of the people that were persecuted. In one room, a name flashes across the wall and a story follows. In the pamphlet, it mentioned that it would take over 6 years to discuss each victim in this way.
This morning, we walked to several memorials. We saw the Roma and Sinti, or gypsy, memorial, and we also saw the book burning memorial. I was impressed with both of these memorials because I felt there was a lot of thought put into them. The book burning memorial was actually underground. You walk up to this glass platform, and when you look into the glass, there are a lot of empty bookshelves in it. The gypsy memorial was a nice circular waterfall with a timeline of what happened to the gypsies. There was also a violin playing over a speaker that no one could find...it was very nice.
Pictures are difficult to upload to this blog site. Will try to upload as it will let me.
Anyways, that was the past two days! What are your thoughts?? Make sure to comment!