September 21, 2012

Breezing through Berlin

September 21, 2012 Europe Germany Travel Tips

Two and a half days were hardly enough time to do Berlin justice so we had to spend our time wisely.  We arrived two hours late on Monday afternoon due to train delays which cut our time even shorter.  Our hotel,  Hotel Pension Columbus, was ideally situated close to Zoologischer Garten subway station, just half a block from the famous Kurfürstendamm Strausse, which locally known as the Ku’Damm. This very broad, long boulevard is often referred to as the  Champs-Élysées of Berlin.  The tree lined street is full of shops, houses, hotels and restaurants including many fashion designers as well as several car manufacturers’ show rooms.

On the advice of our hotel host, we joined a historical walking tour (The Insider Tour) on Tuesday where we spent the entire day walking around the city learning about its history and culture.  Our tour guide, Tarek was passionate about Berlin and enthusiastically shared his knowledge with us throughout the day.

Inside the Reichstag Dome – great views of the city from the top.

Brandenburg Gate with Reichstag Dome in background.

Brandenburg Gate – the Berlin Wall was built right in front of this monument.

Holocaust Memorial (above and below)

Nazi Administration Building

Mural on the Nazi Administration Building promoting Socialism

Remnants of the wall that was installed in 1961
dividing East from West 

Checkpoint Charley where non-Germans 
passed to/from East Berlin.

Neue Wache: Another memorial to those who perished in the war.

On our final day we visited Museum Island in Berlin’s historic heart, home to five world-class museums.  This unique ensemble of historic buildings, all built under different Prussian kings, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. You could easily spend a week visiting these museums.  We visited the Neues Museum which after years of renovation had re-opened in 2009.  The museum is home to the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection and the Museum of Prehistory and Early History, together with artefacts from the Collection of Classical Antiquities.  Its most famous artefact is the bust of Queen Nefertite.  This was a great foretaste of our upcoming visit to Egypt.

Neues Museum

The Ser River near Museum Island (it really is an island!)

Some of the museums on Museum Island

Cathedral on Museum Island

We had gorgeous weather during our three days in Berlin – warm, sunny days and cool nights. But there was a crispness to the air that reminded us that the days of summer were numbered and winter was not far off.  This is the perfect time to head south!  And so comes to an end our European leg of our adventure.  It’s hard to believe we have been in Western Europe for almost six months, visiting  a total of eight countries: Italy, France, Spain, England, Scotland, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Germany.

On Thursday we flew to Hurghada, Egypt – yes, in spite of the recent news reports we decided to throw caution to the wind, take unnecessary risks, and put our lives in danger in order to have some good blog material to write……..just kidding!  But seriously, it is a little scary when you watch the news and see all the violent demonstrations that are happening in the Middle East right now.  We also know that the news is usually sensationalized and must be taken with a grain of salt.  All this to say, we are heeding our own government’s advice to avoid Cairo at this moment.  Instead we are travelling to the coastal, touristy area along the Red Sea south of Hurghada where we will spend nine days relaxing and diving.  We’ll figure out what comes next later.

 

Travel Tip #1: We highly recommend Hotel Pension Columbus if you are looking for clean, comfortable, budget priced accommodations in the heart of Berlin.  It is located within a 5 minute walk from the Zoologischer Garten subway station and the bus to/from the Tegel Airport is less than a block away.

Travel Tip #2: If you don’t have much time to see a city, we recommend taking a historical walking tour.  Not only will you learn a lot about the history, and see a lot, the guide is usually a local from whom you will get a local spin on things.  In Berlin, we recommend The Insider Tour.

A visit into Germany’s dark past

September 21, 2012 Europe Germany

An imposing memorial on a hilltop stands as a vivid reminder to the horrors of Germany’s dark past.  In a pretty beech forest just a few kilometres outside of Weimar, a town famous for its cultural life and ironically where Germany’s first democratic constitution was signed, the Nazis established the concentration camp of Buchenwald. In July 1937, Buchenwald became the first and largest of the concentration camps on German soil.  Between April 1938 and April 1945, some 238,380 people of various nationalities and groups were incarcerated in Buchenwald. The camp was operational until its liberation in 1945. Between 1945 and 1950 the former camp was used by the Soviet Union as a special camp for Nazis. On 6 January 1950, the Soviets handed over Buchenwald to the East German Ministry of Internal Affairs who then demolished most of the buildings.  Today the remains of Buchenwald serves as a memorial and permanent exhibition and museum.

I must admit I had mixed feelings about visiting a concentration camp. In the end, I decided it was important to face this part of Germany’s past.  The first thing I noticed when we drove into the memorial site is how isolated and densely wooded the area is.  It would be easy to carry on all kinds of atrocities in secrecy here.

After collecting our audio guides and maps, we headed off in the direction of the camp for a self directed walking tour.  The whole camp was dismantled in 1950 except for a few buildings that stand to this day:  the main gate, the crematorium, the hospital block, and two guard towers.  Passing through the main gate, you enter into the camp compound which today is a large field of rubble outlining the foundations of the barracks since all prisoner barracks and other buildings were razed. It is eerily quiet and disturbingly peaceful.

As I walked through the camp, listening to the audio guide information, I was overcome with emotion as I heard about some of the most  outrageous acts of cruelty imaginable.  In fact, it is quite unimaginable. It is beyond me how human beings are capable of such horrors. Technically speaking, Buchenwald was not an extermination camp.  It was a forced labour camp and yet about 56,000 people lost their lives here.  One of the primary causes of death was illness due to the harsh camp conditions.  Starvation, disease, malnourishment not to mention the fact that many were literally “worked to death” under the Vernichtung durch Arbeit policy (extermination through labor).  Many died as a result of human experimentation such as testing new vaccines.  Others were simply murdered.

As I walked through one of the few remaining buildings next to the crematorium, I was surprised that one room looked like a clinic.  Rather than get medical treatment here, I was shocked to learn that this was where prisoners were brought  to be killed.  Apparently, the appearance of the room was a mere ruse to keep the inmates calm and unsuspecting when they entered the building.  The inmate would be asked to stand against the wall next to a measuring stick under the guise of measuring his height.  Meanwhile, in a hidden room behind the wall, a guard was posed to shoot the inmate in the nape of the neck. This was just one example of the cruelty meted out at Buchenwald.

The room with the measuring stick.

Behind the wall with the measuring stick from where the prisoner was shot.

There are two museums within the camp perimeter, both of which were closed on the day we visited.  Apparently, museums are closed in Germany on Mondays and that just so happened to be the day we visited Buchenwald.  I’m sure we would have seen more graphic examples of the horrors of the camp.  Honestly, I think I had seen and heard enough through the existing displays and the audio guide.

Throughout the camp, various memorials have been installed commemorating the different groups of people who perished.  The largest memorial is the one mentioned earlier, located on a hilltop which can be seen from miles away.  It is a grim reminder of some of Germany’s darkest moments.