Museum, St. Michaels Tower, and Labor Camp

---

What a couple of days! Thursday we toured a museum that detailed the history of Hamburg. From its beginnings as a small settlement through its rise to prominance as a trading mecca. From pirates to nearly burning down in 1842, to a city of 2 million people today. The docent did her best to give the tour in english, and for that we were all grateful!

After the guided tour, we walked a couple of blocks to the church of St. Michael, where we climbed the tower for excellent views of the city. It was a very hot and humid day, much more humid than any I have experienced in Washington. Nevertheless, Jeff Bajema took it upon himself to run up the entire 200 steep steps of the tower not once, but three times! I'm thinking he'll be ready for football season!

From there it was on to downtown and some shopping. Some of our group departed to go swimming with their German partners and thier class. The rest of us browsed the downtown pedestrian street and got some gyros for lunch. With the heat and humidity, the gellato that followed was a life saver!

Thursday evening at about 8pm it began to rain. As I type this on Friday evening, it has yet to stop! We've had some impressive and long lasting thunder and lightning as well. It was great to see though, that the kids did not let the weather effect them AT ALL! Not a mention of the rain today. We all seemed to enjoy it!

Friday began with a meeting to discuss today's trip to the labor camp. Outside, the rain was pouring! We departed at 9:30 and hopped on the bus, which took us to a train, which took us to another train, which took us to another bus, which took us to the camp. The labor camp experience was impressive. It was incredibly easy to picture everything as it was happening. It was pointed out by Maranda Blau, and confirmed by our guide, that some of the very trees standing on the grounds were there when the camp was in use during World War Two. As you see the picture with the wooden gate and barbed wire in the background, it is interesting to not that this was THE ACTUAL MAIN GATE to the labor camp. Our guide told us a story of a survivor who came to view the memorial. As soon as he saw that gate, he was moved to tears and had to exit immediately. He was able to return several days later and told his story to everone there.

The thing that really impressed us was that inside, they have documented the stories of many of the survivors of the camp along with pictures and artifacts. This really put things into a human perspective. The students handled the two and a half hour tour brilliantly and both Heidi and I believe that they all got something meaningful out of it.

Then it was the reverse commute back to school, and home with their partners who were all waiting for us here. It sounds like the weekend will be chalk full of excitement for most! I've heard about plans of festivals, trips to the Baltic Sea, swimming, shopping, and sleeping in tossed around.

I will update thiss blog over the weekend with pictures from our arrival and the details of a little test that Heidi and I have come up with for the kids. HINT: Think "Amazing Race." Be sure and check back soon!

Happy 4th of July!

-Ben

---

Comments

[Heidi]

Kids were amazing!
I would just like to add that the tour guide pointed out that our kids behaved brilliantly! It was long, it was raining, cold and they still did well! Bravo!