Sachsenhausen

Tuesday, June 11th

Today I went to a concentration camp. There is a tour company called, Vive Berlin, which gives free tours out to this camp which is a little bit north of Berlin. Sachsenhausen was used mainly for political prisoners and as a training camp for SS officers who would go to oversee other camps.

I don't really have a lot to say about the camp. It makes me sick and really sad to think about what was done to the prisoners, sometimes by the other prisoners, at places like this. Being in Berlin, and Sachsenhausen, and learning more about its history made me realize how important it is to remember what happened and how it happened to make sure that it never happens again. One of the tours I went on, I think it was Barry's, he pointed out that things don't happen exactly the same every time so we have to pay close attention to how they are happening now.

 

 

 

 

 

I was really moved by this statue. The figures each have a name, they are: Death, Grief, and Defiance.

I've been thinking a lot about walls or barriers and what you can see through them, over them or behind them. I went back past the wall at the Topographie of Terrors and took this next picture.

I had some time before meeting Jocelyn and Sheraka for dinner so I went to Fassbender & Rausch which is a super fancy chocolate shop. Because you should get dessert before dinner. They have a cafe where they serve amazing chocolaty things. I ordered and iced chocolate, which was like a thick chocolate milk with two scoops of ice cream in it. Delicious. It came on plate with a little glass of water, because its so rich. There was also a small piece of chocolate on the plate and I would like to say that I ate it and it was amazing. Except the waitress stole it with the plate and I wasn't fast enough to stop her. Rude.

I also made sure to take some pictures of the Ampelmann, which means traffic guy, which is what he is (there's a lot of joking in Berlin that Germans are very creative when they name things). Some dude in East Berlin did traffic psychology and found that this guy was the most effective at getting people to obey when crossing the street and especial effective for children. Barry said he's the one thing that the East Berliners won.