Short and Sweetened (with Aspartame) Today was our last full day in Berlin. Tomorrow morning a train will carry us, luggage and all, to Kraków, Poland. Over the course of the last week we have seen an experienced so much! (Some students were commenting that it seems like we’ve been here for a month.) For about half of us, the day started out by catching a regional train up to Neubrandenburg, a city in the state of Mecklenburg that sits more than halfway up from Berlin to the Baltic Sea. On the northwest shores of the Lake Tollen sits a

Corrie, Quarry, and Glory Ok, I’m not going to be able to live up to that headline…just letting you know that right now. Today the team traveled by rail to the station a small town on the Havel River that sits about 60 miles due north of Berlin, Fürstenberg. Directly across the water from this beautiful little lakeside community lies the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp – the only major camp in the Third Reich’s system predominately imprisoning women. Some may have heard of this camp due to its many notable detainees, the Christian author Corrie ten Boom being the most recognizable

Ideas, Bureaucracy, Distance from Action, and Genocide Today was one of two days specifically dedicated to explore the role of bureaucracy in the Holocaust. The Wannsee House, a spacious and luxurious villa in a ritzy resort town southwest of Berlin, was the location where orders were handed down to the various ministers and secretaries of the Third Reich needed for this coordinated action, this execution of “the final solution to the Jewish question,” to run smoothly. From among the 15 officials who sat around the table one could tally up numerous advanced degrees (at least 8 Ph.D’s) and jurist doctorates,

The Jewish Museum of Berlin Many students started off the day attending a worship service at the notable church of the Kaiser’s, the Berliner Dom. It is a congregation that is said to represent all protestant denominations in Germany, not just the Lutherans. We were able to hear several pieces by a visiting choir and we were also able to witness a couple infant baptisms. The service was translated for the students and the hospitality on display by the church staff was fantastic. One of our students also had a birthday today, Maris Wainwright (Happy birthday, Maris!) – lunch at

Lutherstadt – The Good, The Grand, and the Ugly We ventured by Regional Train 3 down to Lutherstadt in Wittenberg today, a welcome break from our challenging theme. We focused on the two churches where Martin Luther worked and preached, St. Mary’s (aka, the Town Church or Stadtkirche) and All Saint’s Church (aka, Castle Church or Schlosskirche). The beauty of these churches forced us to ask questions about why churches look they way they do in the United States, and if our modern structures have lost a perhaps irreplaceable means by which to install awe into our communal worship experiences.

Separation, Persecution, Exploitation, Warehousing… Today we traveled to the northern most point the Berlin rail pass would take us, Oranienburg. Here is where one of the first concentration camps created by the National Socialists was built and operated, Sachsenhausen. While the eyes of the world were focused on the 1936 Olympic games, taking place only a few miles to the south, the form and function of this massive instrument of horror was taking shape. As we explored the various spaces and exhibits it contained, we learned how this modern tool of social control formed and adapted to the developing and