Study tour to Berlin, Weimar and Dresden

A piece from Tell Halaf Collection at Pergamon Museum, Berlin
German Orchestra at Philharmonie
Dresden

Brandenburger Tor
Weimar
Buchenwald (fromer) concentration camp

I am back at my dorm after having a fantastic time in Berlin, Weimar and Dresden. As much as I enjoyed my time in Germany, I would say that I missed my comfy bed in my dorm here. I am very glad to be back; somehow it feels like home here now. Overall, my trip went fantastic. There were 20 of us total in German History and Culture class, it was a study tour that all of us were looking forward to, it turned out to be a fantastic tour, I would remember it for the rest of my life. Going to Berlin with a talented professor/Historian (who knew everything about German history that a person needs to know) made it a lot of fun. So, I am going to give you a brief overview of what we did in Germany.

Last Friday, our class met in downtown Copenhagen in the late evening, we were told in advance that we were driving to Germany. So, we met and got into our bus around 9pm to head towards Dresden. It was ten-hour drive (not that bad, I heard some groups were driving to France which is worst, more than 15 hour drive I would say). In our way there, we had a 45-minute ferry ride from Rodby to Puttgrarten.

All of us slept till we got to our hotels early in the morning. After checking in and having continental breakfast at the hotel, we headed out for a historical city walk. Dresden is a beautiful town with a lot of historical buildings; we had some oral presentations from a few people in the class, (of course we get graded on that). After walking for a few hours, we had lunch at Pulvertum restaurant in Dresden (highly recommended if you ever go there). We visited Hygiene museum and headed to our hotels afterwards.

Next morning, we checked out of the hotel to go towards Weimar (out next one night stop), Weimar is called the cultural capital of Germany. It is rich in culture and history with a lot of old cafes, restaurant, small gift shops and wide streets. People looked so relaxed and laid back there, they were in no hurry to get anywhere. We visited houses of Schiller and Goethe there, the most important writers, poets, and philosophers in Germany history. Goethe was world known because of his multi-talents; he was interested in drawing, sketching, writing poems and books, collecting rocks, and having knowledge of science. Two hundred years ago from now, it was indeed a lot. After spending some time on our own in that little town, we departed for Buchenwald.

Buchenwald concentration camp is located a few miles away from Weimar; it was one of those camps that Nazis built during World War II. The camp was originally built to hold 8000 people but at the end of World War II, there were more than 100,000 prisoners who lived there. 65,000 prisoners were killed in this camp. In 1945, U.S soldiers came to rescue these prisoners. It was really sad to visit this camp; all of us were shocked to learn the facts about the Nazi regime. With that site, out exhausting day ended and we went back to out hotels.

Next day, we finally left for Berlin, the day that everybody was waiting for, in our way there we watched the German movie Goodbye Lenin (with English subtitles), the movie was made about the days when East and West Germany were separated and there was a wall among two regions called “Berlin Wall.” For those of you who don’t know, in 1961 Berlin Wall was built in Germany which separated East Germany from West Germany, people were not allowed to cross the borders or go to the other side to see their relatives. After the death of more than 200 people (who were killed in trying to cross this wall), in 1989 people from both sides destroyed this wall and thus the new Germany came into being. In 1990, formal reunification of Germany was celebrated. Our four days in Berlin, we had a historical walk of the city with our professor. We visited these places:

Berlin Wall memorial: Memorial was built in order to establish the significance of the Berlin wall. Some pieces of the wall are still left in front of former German and Prussian parliament. Germany sent some of the wall all over the world, one painted piece of the wall is found in New York.

German parliament: It is the most visited parliament in the world, almost 3000 visitors a day. Germany had been through a lot in the history (World War II, Cold War, separation of East and West Germany), in the past it looked like that Germans were not granted their rights properly. This new German parliament now has a sign in front saying, “to the German people.”

Victory column: very high golden statue, which Nazis moved from one side of the city and placed it in the square where it is now.

Holocaust Memorial: After a big debate in German government, Germans decided to build this memorial for the victims of holocaust. It is rather an arbitrary and abstract construction to remember those million of Jews, non-Jews Germans who suffered in the Nazi regime.

Homosexual Victims: Right across from the Holocaust memorial on the other side of the road, there is a memorial for Homosexual victims of World War II. In this memorial, there is a video, which shows two boys kissing each other, we were told that homosexuals were special targets of Nazis and the suffered much more than others and had pink sign on their uniforms to distinguish them from others when they were in prisons.

Jewish Museum: Another most visited places in Germany is Jewish museum in Berlin. The building itself is greyish looking, covered with metal, and is shaped like a snake. Museum consists of the things that display Jewish religion, culture, lifestyle and ideologies. There are three axes in the museum; one of them is called the Axes of Holocaust where they have pictures and names of all the concentration camps that held Jews in World War II.

We ended up having delicious Jewish dinner at the restaurant in the museum. It was buffet system and all of us overate because it was hard to stop.

Brandenburger Tor: tor means “gate,” Brandenburger gate is one of those beautiful touristy sites in Berlin where you get to see people from all over the world talking picture of this magnificent gate. There are musicians playing music, soldiers holding German flags, people dresses up in different funny cartoon characters so you can take pictures with them and etc. The gate itself opens up to Branderburger region, once upon a time only Royalty could go through the main two pillars of the doors but now a days its not like that at all.

Philharmonie: The opera house/cultural center of Berlin. We went there for a concert where the German orchestra played a symphony of Johannes Brahms. It was one of the greatest experiences, since I love classical music and Brahms is one of my favorite ones. Germans were dresses up very elegantly for the performance; no jeans or casual wears were seen.

Pergamon Museum: Museum consist of all the sculptures, art brought from Middle East. It was called Tell Halaf adventure.

Sehitilik Mosque: There is a large minority of Turks in Germany, we visited this Turk mosque and took a tour of the small Turk society in Berlin followed by great Indian/turk dinner.

It might not seem a lot to some of you, but including our nights out in Berlin clubs/bars, it was a bit over whelming. By the way, German bear glasses are huge and relatively cheaper. Most of us were told to bring back bear from Germany for our Danish friends.

I have to get myself together before my classes start back again tomorrow but I would keep in touch.

Hej Hej.