A Memorial, Museum, Church, and Castle On Friday, the team had a hefty agenda, but we pulled it off. First, we made our way to the Jewish Ghetto Memorial and then we headed to the Museum that is now housed in Schindler’s old factory. The processing here centered around some of the unique features of it (informative, engaging, creative, definite flow) but also the felt sense that the Polish-Jewish tension was not properly explored. This was a good opportunity for us to explore some of the questions around discovering and communicating history. After some lunch, we wound our way over

The (Long, Fun, Beautiful, Wet) Trip to Kraków Taking a train from Berlin to Kraków is the way to go. There was beautiful scenery, no traffic jams, and a lot of enjoyment being able to move about freely as we traveled. But still….it was a long day. And to put the icing on the cake, we got rained on pretty hard at the very end. But, it is such a bonus to have Christian Marx traveling with us! What he will be able to add to the experience for all of us will be invaluable. Well, we arrived in town

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

A Classroom (and a Moving Ceremony) in Brandenburg Today we were joined and led by my friend, Christian Marx, historian and educator who works for the Brandenburg location of the Memorial to the Victims of Euthanasia Murder. He kindly met us in Berlin at the “Trains to Death, Trains to Life” Memorial at Friedrichstrasse Station and then escorted us to and through the beautiful city of Brandenburg (stopping to see a segment of the old city wall as well as a beautiful St. Catherine’s church, the original structure dating back to the 1200’s) and then on to the memorial. Here

Walking, Learning, Processing, and then more Walking! Today I need to be short and sweet. Up at 6:30 for an airport run (all students are here now!!!) and then well over 20k steps were taken to accomplish our walking tour of downtown Berlin. I’m crashing fast. Here are the events and locations followed by a set of pics – most from the student’s eye. We peeked inside St. Mary’s church, then stopped by the Rosenstrasse Protest Memorial, then we paced through Museum Island, by the German History Museum and Humboldt University on our way to Bebelplatz. Then, through Gendarmenmarkt on