Busy day

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I can tell that the trip is starting to get to me; last night I had a dream about being at a funeral. I don’t like thinking about death any more than this trip requires. But we woke up to snow so that made me happier.



We started off the day by heading to a neighborhood on a street renamed Einbahnstrasse, which consisted of mostly Jewish families before the war and before they were all deported. The people that now live in the neighborhood have decided to buy these things called stumbling stones, which are metal plaques that are placed on the sidewalk in front of the house that the Jewish family lived in in remembrance of each person. It was thought-provoking to try and think about what life was like back when they lived in there and what the stores would have been, instead of name brand stores.

After that we took a train to another memorial called Gate 17. It is a memorial at the tracks where thousands of Jews were loaded onto the trains and shipped off to the camps. On the platforms next to the tracks were metal memorials with the date of when every train left, the number of people that were on it, and the destination of the train. I had mixed feelings about it. To an extend I was surprised at the small numbers of trains that left that station (I would say about 20-30) and the wide range of the number of passengers, about 17 to almost 2000. While I know that is still a lot, I expected a larger number, but it makes sense because there were not that many Jews in Berlin. It was just a very perplexing experience.

Part of the group then broke off and went to the Käthe Kollwitz Art Museum. She was a Jewish artist before and during the war. Her specialty was in drawing the darkness and grief that people feel; her work was amazing. She grasped the feeling of sadness and you felt it just looking at the drawings. On a side note, she could draw a hand like I have never seen before. It was lifelike in every picture.

After the art museum we went to the Daniel Libeskind lecture. Mr. Libeskind is the man who designed the Jewish Museum and Memorial, the World Trade Center Memorial, and many other famous buildings around the world. It was a wonderful experience getting to hear him lecture about how he came up with his ideas and the significances behind every detail.

We then went to a small restaurant as a group and had a wonderful dinner. It was a great very interesting day.

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