Berlin Conference

I recently returned from a six day trip to Berlin, Germany for the Berlin Fulbright Conference. This conference is a large gathering of the Fulbright grantees to and from Germany as well as any American grantee currently in Europe who wants to attend. During the conference we were able to attend different sessions on education and cultural differences, hear about the experiences of other Fulbrighters around the world, and learn about what other people do on their Fulbright grant. I won't bore you all with the details, but it was a good week for me professionally. It was good to speak to some new people, but also good to spend time with my American counterparts in Hungary.

While we were in Berlin we also had time to explore the city and surrounding area which was really impactful. The first night we were there, we went to the top of the Reichstag Building. The fire at this building in 1933 gave the, then young, Nazi Party a helping hand in establishing their dominant government. Today, the building again houses the German government, but now they have included some important changes. As you ascend and descend the glass dome at the top of the building, you have a clear view down into the chamber where government debates are held. This was done by the architect to symbolize the transparency of the German government, because people can literally watch the proceedings.

 Mirrored pillar that direct light down in to the chambers so people can see the government working

 Government chambers

 Dome at the top of the Reichstag

The next day we went on a walking tour of the city which took us to most of the important sights. Our tour guide was great and provided a wealth of information about the city and its history. He compared the city several times to a movie set. The idea being that Berlin is always changing and we saw clear evidence of that during our stay there. The skyline is cluttered with cranes for big projects and reconstruction. Also, because of the destruction the city experienced during WW2 most of the landmarks were completely destroyed and have had to be reconstructed. It is interesting to walk around an otherwise very modern city and come across a building that is supposed to look like it was built in the 1700 or 1800's, but know that it wasn't constructed (or reconstructed) until the mid-1900's. A good example of this is the Berlin Dome. The building as it currently looks wasn't actually completed until 1905, but was designed to reflect the architecture of classical Rome. Then, during the war it was heavily damaged by the fighting and subsequent fires, so after the war it had to be refurbished. Now, you walk into it and you think you should be in something very old, but in reality you are in a building that was finished about 50 years ago.

 Berlin Dome and TV Tower on night 1

 Berlin Dome during the day

 Inside of the Berlin Dome

 View from the top. The TV tower and the red brick building on the right is City Hall

 Looking down from the Berlin Dome

View over the city

On Tuesday, we had a break in the afternoon so we decided to go to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in nearby Oranienburg. This was my first time at a concentration camp and it made the horrifying events of the Holocaust even more atrocious. I consider myself an educated person; I know what happened in the Holocaust, I have read the books, watched the movies, and seen the pictures, I teach about it at school, but physically being in the same place where the atrocities happened was overwhelming. I am going to write an entire post about my reflections on my time spent in Berlin, so I won't spend the time now. Because of how impactful a few of my experiences in Berlin were, I felt like they deserved their own space and discussion. 

 Entrance to the camp

 Outside the camp there is an area with many memorials to the victims

 Memorial area

 Inside the camp walls - you can see the protections put up so that no one could escape

 Just inside the entrance looking out over the camp grounds

 Inside one of the Jewish Barracks that is now a museum

 Memorial inside the camp

 Another view of the camp, this time looking back at the entrance. The large areas filled with stones are where the barracks used to stand. Today only 2 remain and they are dedicated to the victims, particularly the Jewish population

 This area was used for hanging and shooting victims

 What is left of the crematorium

 Mass grave area

 Gates to the camp as we left. The fact that the gate is open and we could enter at will and leave freely was not lost on any of us

The day we left Berlin our flight wasn't until 5:00 pm so we decided to go back and visit Checkpoint Charlie again and this time go into the Museum. Checkpoint Charlie was the best known crossing point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War. The guard post still stands in the middle of a busy, modern street and the museum overlooks it. I don't really know what I expected from the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, but it blew me away. It was dedicated to the victims of oppression and uprising around the world, but obviously a huge part of it focused on the history of the Cold War and Berlin and the people trying to escape East Berlin for the West. Logically, I knew life in East Berlin during the Cold War wasn't great; I knew people were oppressed by Communism and wanted to escape. However, going through the museum and reading about the dangerous ways in which they tried, succeeded, and failed to escape made me rethink everything I thought I knew. Their desperation was so clear and people are only that desperate to escape something if their lives are truly awful. 

 Where the Berlin Wall stood is marked by these bricks. I thought this picture was meaningful because she is riding her bike freely over a place where people died trying to do the same thing.

Berlin Wall

Checkpoint Charlie today. The Americans built a small, temporary structure as an insult to the Berlin Wall. By building such a structure they were saying the wall was unimportant and wouldn't be there for a long time. Sidenote: if you ever happen to be in Berlin, these "soldiers" are a huge tourist trap. They look like they work there, but in reality they get you to pose for a picture with them and then charge you 2 Euro.

 Looking down the street into what used to be East Berlin

 One of the ways people escaped was in this welding machine. Families of 4 would squish inside and be transported across the boarder

 Another means of escape in the trunk of a car

 People built this ladder which could be broken down and quickly assembled to climb over the wall

People also built these flying machines to attempt to fly into Western Berlin. Many times the people building them had no knowledge of aviation and used pictures in books to help them construct one.