Berlin!

The latest post is something I wrote for a school newsletter, hence the slightly more rigid writing style. This weekend I'm off to Marrakesh--later this month, London & Switzerland. Updates to follow!

Study Trip to Berlin

Berlin welcomed us with open arms and open clouds. Forced to imagine Berlin’s beauty on a summer day rather than live it, we focused instead on the beauty inside buildings, starting with a few of Fredrick the Great’s palaces in Potsdam. Roccoco rooms, lavish and fitted so that the walls complimented the furniture and even the flatware—our tour guide pushed past the Ikea upgrades and the oil paintings, illuminating the lives of the monarchs who once lived there. Crippled princes and overbearing mothers, feminine sons and murderous fathers—history came alive to tell us that, though the place looked beautiful, money and power couldn’t buy good parenting.

At the house where the Wannsee Conference took place, we discussed the beginnings of the Holocaust and the historical details that were most striking to us. It was strange to stand in such a lavish house and look out the windows at the beautiful view, only to realize that 60 years earlier, men calmly calculated the final solution under the same roof.

Our visit to the Stasi prison was one of the more fascinating moments of our tour, and one of the more sobering. We were shown interrogation rooms, torture tactics, and a thorough history of the prison, described by both a historian and a previous resident. The prison stood as a monument to the human rights violations of the past, and as a reminder of those taking place currently around the world.

We were lucky enough to see several museums on our trip. The checkpoint Charlie museum was a monument to the sadness and pain that the Berlin wall brought, as well as the ingenuity it inspired in many when it came to means of escape. The Jewish museum pulled back the focus from German treatment of Jews during WWII, and gave us a larger picture of conditions surrounding Jewish life in Germany for hundreds of years. The German history museum allowed us to see the evolution of Germany, from before the Romans to present day and everything else in between. All of these museums could have taken days to fully experience, just as Berlin would take many years—but we got a great taste, and for many of us this translated into a desire to return.

At the Reichstag, we were able to ask questions on world affairs of Hans Ulrich Klose, member of the Bundestag. Mr. Klose educated us on the political climate of just about every continent, giving his opinion on the future of energy, the economy, the environment, elections, and world stability. He was eloquent, candid, and good humored, and one of the highlights of the trip.

Some of us also managed in the midst of our busy schedule to sample Berlin’s night life, sampling the local culture and the local beer. Overall, it was a fantastic trip that allowed us to more fully understand the German past and the German present.