A really educational day

Sigrid’s husband Alfred had decided to take Friday off and offered to show us some of the sights around Berlin this morning and then we would head out that afternoon to tour a local concentration camp. But first, breakfast! Now, Alfred had asked us the night before if we wanted a regular breakfast with bread or something more adventurous. Before we could think about it, we told him whatever he felt like would be fine. So, we woke to a spread on the dining room table that can best be described as a Japanese breakfast, as he was very enamored of Japan after having visited there twice. Laid out before us were plates of raw vegetables, salmon, bowls of miso soup, rice, seaweed and hot coffee. As my eyes took everything in, I remembered last night he had asked us if we’d ever tried raw meat & onions (clearly not a Japanese thing……maybe German? I’m not sure) and to my utter horror/astonishment, there was a plate of ground meat and onions, formed into little patties that he explained went beautifully with the rice and seaweed. To his credit, he had gotten up very early that morning and gone to the butcher’s shop to pick up the ground meat and he reassured us we did not need to be concerned about getting sick from it. Okey dokey…….well, when in Berlin, do as the Berliners do, right? We politely picked up some of the meat with our chopsticks and mixed it in with the rice and down the hatch it went. I can’t say we ate that much of it, but at least I was able to take a few bites and it didn’t taste awful, just more of a texture shock, if you know what I mean. The rest of the meal was actually quite good although certainly different from what we were used to. Funny the types of foods you typically associate with breakfast and which you don’t, huh?

After breakfast, Alfred accompanied us on the train to where the Berlin Wall used to stand and the infamous Check Point Charlie station, where American and East German soldiers used to face off. This truly was a fascinating history lesson and having a personal guide with us like Alfred, who lived through the tearing down of the wall, was priceless. For several blocks around the area, you can read informational panels about the origins of the wall and the events leading up to it’s fall. Alfred remembered clearly that night in 1989 when the formal decision was made to allow East Berliners to come across the wall into West Berlin, many of whom had been separated from families and friends for years, and the thousands of people lined up on the east side waiting to cross. Also in that area he showed us the building that Hitler used for his headquarters and where he killed himself at the end of the war. After visiting that part of the city, we wished we had had more time to learn about all the history that’s there, but maybe another trip.
After that, we parted ways at the train station and Jim and I continued on to visit a concentration camp on the northern fringes of Berlin. It is one of the oldest concentration camps and they have done an excellent job documenting what happened there. I must say, it’s one thing to read about the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the war, but something else entirely to actually walk the grounds where such evil took place. From what I gathered, this camp was originally meant as a “work camp” where political dissidents and others whom the Nazis deemed as unfit were sent to serve as free labor for the war effort, and then as they weakened from overwork and torture, were sent on to some of the more infamous camps, such as Auschwitz and Berkenau. By the end of the war, though, people were being killed in this camp as well, many being shot by firing squads. Apparently, the Nazis brought in portable ovens to burn all the dead bodies and one particularly gruesome story mentioned them using the leftover ashes to repave some of the grounds and roads around the camp. Also on the grounds were medical facilities where some of the horrendous “experiments” where carried out on prisoners. I remembered being sickened by one account where they wanted to understand the effects of gangrene and how to treat it so they took pieces of straw contaminated with bacteria then cutting incisions into the prisoners upper arms and sewing the straws up under their skin. Just when you thought man’s inhumanity towards other men couldn’t get any worse, right?

After that sobering afternoon, we headed back to Sigrid and Alfred’s to enjoy some wine and look at pictures from their many travels. We were treated to a visit by their daughter Kathy and her 4 month old son as well. Kathy is a really sweet girl and is finishing law school soon. Apparently, the plan is for her to help Alfred out in his office, since he’s an attorney also, so he and Sigrid can take some more time off to travel. Since Sigrid is a self employed doctor, she has a little more flexibility with her schedule, so they’re really looking forward to their future travel plans. They showed us pictures of Cuba, Mongolia, India and Japan, which all looked like great places to visit! It was a wonderful finish to our visit to Berlin, which we will certainly remember for a long time!

I’m writing this on the train to Prague and am starting to get pretty sleepy. We stayed up until about midnight looking at pictures and had to get up at 4:15 to catch our early morning train so were just a little sleepy as you can imagine……..the sun has risen and the landscape outside looks REALLY cold, with frost and ice everywhere. Might be time to head further south after Prague if this keeps up!!