Today we trained it up to Fürstenberg an der Havel to explore the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. It’s pretty far away from Berlin – but three trains and about three hours got us there.

At the camp, students explored a variety of topics including women guards, women prisoners, unique features of female solidarity, children in the camp, the Corrie and Betsy Ten Boom story, the Saint Maria of Paris story, post-war prosecutions, and the juxtaposition of a concentration camp with a beautiful lakeside German city, separated from each other by only a small body of water – and each in view of the other.

After two plus hours of exploring, we came together and gave voice to many of our experiences, thoughts, and questions. This group is ready to process and share; they are not afraid to ask questions and stress-test standard answers…it’s great.

Tomorrow is our last day in Berlin. It is designated “free Berlin.” We’ll see what they choose to do. As for me, I’m going to visit the Freie Universität of Berlin exhibits on the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. This now defunct organization provided the primary thrust behind the National Socialist’s program of racial hygiene and scientific racism. The Max Planck Institute has taken many of the inherited archives and created a few exhibits open to the public. I’m looking forward to checking them out for the first time. I may also go and see if I can find the Weiβensee Cemetery.

Thanks to all of you for following us. We are doing well – having hard conversations as a result of being exposed to a radical ideology and some terrible places of perpetration, but also enjoying each other and helping each other along the way.