17 May 2011: Berlin, Germany / Krakow, Poland
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Fields of rapeseed (used in
canola oil) hug the highway
throughout Poland. |
We're 6 hours into our 9 hour drive to Krakow from Berlin, and the bus is silent. Perhaps we're exhausted from the long plane ride and rushing around Berlin yesterday and this morning, or perhaps the realization that tomorrow is the big day - we'll be visiting Auschwitz I and II - Birkneau - and there is much mental, and physical preparation needed.
Our drive has been long, and exhausting. We stopped, however, along the highway at a McDonalds for supper - something that lifted our spirits and provided some giggles as all 60 of us piled in, ordering salads and Big Macs. Surprisingly, it was good. Allison and I shared a salad and a Big Mac, but the burger wasn't greasy, the fries weren't salty. Perhaps this fits into the realization that European food is healthier, or perhaps my mind just told me it was delicious after such a long bus ride.
Entering Poland was a surprise, for me. I expected being stopped, showing our Passports, getting a stamp, etc, etc and a security check as often happens when crossing into Maine / the United States from Canada. My expectations, yet again, failed me. The border was simply a falling down shack labeled "currency exchange" on the side of the highway, with several German Police Cars parked nearby. No sign. No stopping. No nothing. However, the road drastically changed. The first hour and a bit of the drive in Poland was on the highway Hitler had built to enter the country: it's only connection to Berlin, at the time. I'm sure there has been some restoration / upkeep since the 1940s, however, it didn't feel like it as we bumped and thrashed around. It's all part of the experience, right? (Deciphering my journal entry regarding this was quite a task).
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| Myself (sorry it's blurry) in front of the Wannsee Villa, Berlin. |
This morning we finished our time in Berlin. I'm still just so stricken that so much history - so much terrible history, and so many atrocities - took place in such a beautiful city. And that so much of this was legitimized. That blows my mind, breaks my heart, brings tears in my mind. I'll never understand. In some ways, I understand how: we visited the Wannsee Villa, where the conference took place in January 1942. I understand how these things were legitimized with Hitler's extreme power, but at the same time, I'll never understand how. Or why.
I'm feeling anxious regarding tomorrow's itinerary, as I already feel I have the weight of the world on my shoulders, yet I haven't seen half of what I need to, and will, yet. And yet so many people in the world don't know, or don't care to educate themselves. And that hurts me; that's a sin in itself.
Poland is absolutely gorgeous. I'm finding it similar to Canada in some ways, yet differing greatly. One of the guys on the bus said it reminds him of Saskatchewan: it's very flat, and I'm also noticing "shelter belt" kind of tree lines around farms to break up the vast fields. Interesting...
Key Points of Interest / Other Places Visited Today:
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Plaques surrounding the Track, stating the date, how many
Jews were taken, and to where. Numbers ranged from 18 to
almost 2000/day. |
Gleis 17: "Berlin-Grunewald is a railway station in the Grunewald district of Berlin. Beginning on October 18, 1941 its now infamous Gleis 17 (Track 17) was one of the major sites of deportation of most of the 55, 000 Berlin Jews. The trains left mainly for the ghettos of Litzmannstadt and Warsaw, and from 1942 went directly to the Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps. On October 18, 1991 a monument was inaugurated at the ramp leading to the former freight yard. A memorial was established on January 27, 1998." (MRH Notebook 2011).
We started this morning at Track 17, where so many Jews were shipped to their destiny, never returning. The train station, still in use today, even still uses a Track 17 (unsure how I feel about this). I was, however, surprised by the area: very wealthy, gorgeous and built up. I'm not sure what I expected of Berlin but I was surprised that all of Berlin, especially this area, was so built up and gorgeous: not in ruins. I closed my eyes and tried to place myself in this spot, years earlier. Feeling the tracks, the rocks, and the monument on the walkway up to the track was hard for me. Using my sense of touch made this real for me.
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Monument leading up to the track at Gleis 17, Grunewald,
Berlin, Germany. |
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The beautiful Wannsee
Villa, facing the lake. |
Wannsee Villa: "On January 20, 1942, fifteen high-ranking Nazy party and German government leaders gathered for an important meeting. They met in a wealthy section of Berlin at a villa by a lake known as Wannsee. Reinhard Heydrich, who was SS chief Heinrich Himmler's head deputy, held the meeting for the purpose of discussing the "final solution to the Jewish question in Europe" with key non-SS government leaders, including the secretaries of the Foreign Ministry and Justice, whose cooperation was needed. The "final solution" was the Nazis' code name for the deliberate, carefully planned destruction, or genocide, of all European Jews. The Nazis used the vague term "final solution" to hide their policy of mass murder from the rest of the world. In fact, the men at Wannsee talked about methods of killing, about liquidation, about "extermination". The Wannsee Conference, as it became known to history, did not mark the beginning of the "Final Solution". The mobile killing squads were already slaughtering Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. Rather, the Wannsee Conference was the place where the "final solution" was formally revealed to non-Nazi leaders who would help arrange for Jews to be transported from all over German-occupied Europe to SS-operated "extermination" camps in Poland. Not one of the men present at Wannsee objected to the announced policy. Never before had a modern state committed itself to the murder of an entire people." (MRH Notebook, 2011).
The Wannsee Villa, now a beautiful museum, was full of information and historical background the Holocaust: very useful in preparation for our day, tomorrow. The museum was full of very detailed files and documents; the # of Jews in Europe before the "final solution" came into play, photos, plaques, testimonies, etc, etc. Thinking back on one of our Webinars, everything rang true. It was weird to be sitting here, in a beautiful home, looking out at a gorgeous lake, and a beach across the water, listening to birds sing. It was so beautiful there, but haunting, knowing that such atrocities were planned here.
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Original document, outlining the
number of Jews throughout Europe.
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Memorial attached to lamp post in Berlin. These are directed
to the German population, rather than tourists, in hopes that
history will not repeat itself. Never Again. |
Bayerische Platz: "On the streets around Bayerische Platz, a comfortable middle-class neighbourhood in former East Berlin, is an unusual memorial in the form of an art installation: simple signs attached to lamp posts that illustrate the gradual isolation and dehumanization of German Jews. Outside a grocery store, for exmaple, a picture shows a small item, such as a loaf of bread. The other side has a short phrase detailing a racial ordinance that led to the Final Solution: Jews may only buy groceries from 4 to 5 in the afternoon. Other signs include: "Ban on Jewish musicians. 31.3.1945"; "Jews may no longer keep pets. 15.2.1942"; "Berlin public pools may no longer be entered by Jews. 3.12.138". The memorial was created by Renata Stih and Frider Schnock. Entitled "Places of Remembrance", it shows the thorough integration of the terror of machinery within everyday life in Germany from 1933 to 1945." (MRH Notebook 2011).
As we were sent out through the neighbourhood to find as many of this signs as we could, we were able to incorporate a bit of personal learning, as well. We were asked to find these signs, and find a local to translate the German restriction/law on the other side, for us. This gave us a bit of a feel for how the German population feels about these memorials in their everyday life, as well as how they feel about their history. We found a very helpful, passionate man who took us on a short walk to explain these to us/show us more, and sympathized with our trip and the mission of the Canadian Centre for Diversity. However, another man, as many groups experienced, refused to help us (although he did speak English), and told us that it doesn't matter, "I don't care". Heartbreaking, indeed. I'm becoming very interested in this side of history - how do locals, ie: Germans, in this case, feel about memorials in their everyday life - whether as simple as a sign on a lamp post or as a big a magnitude as the Holocaust Memorial for Murdered Jews in Europe, as we saw yesterday.
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Lunch at Baghdad Restaurant in Berlin. Traditional German
Schwarma as bunnies hopped around the picnic tables. Around
the table L-R is Allison, myself, Andrea, Cory, Chanie, Rachelle. |
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On our way to lunch / before leaving
Berlin, we drove by Checkpoint Charlie.
I'll leave you today with two recent news articles, and another quote.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,765095,00.html
http://www.jewishtorontoonline.net/home.do?ch=content&cid=6723
"Capture the moment, hang on to every word, internalize the meaning, tell a friend, be a guardian of the past, revere our history. The Germans taught us all about the value of keeping records." - Solomon R. Kaplinski, "Requirements for a first-time visitor to Poland |
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