Friday May 13th
The weekend excursion to Berlin was incredible. The long bus ride from Osnabruck to the capital although quite long (about five hours) was very comfortable and granted me the possibility to view some of the beautiful German countryside. The greenery surprised me, Florida is rich in vegetation and I somehow did not expect to find the same in the outskirts of the great city of Berlin.
Saturday May 14th
Saturday was most definitely a busy day. Thankfully, we all ate a beautiful breakfast at the youth hostel right before the tour of the major monuments started. It was impressive. The mass and the grandness of the buildings screamed for attention and definitely made me immediately curious to see more of the capital. My favorite stop was at the site of the holocaust memorial. The monument consisted of an impressive number of cement blocks that varied in height, also the slope of the ground changed throughout the territory and the whole monument occupied a large portion of territory next to the Brandenburg gate and the central park. What impressed me about the memorial were the feelings that it gave me as I was walking through it. From the outside the cement block seemed all similar and one had the impression to be able to overlook the entire monument. The situation changed completely from the inside of the memorial. The cement block turned into tall wall that separated each and one of us from the entire group. All of us were present yet again the hallways between the cement walls were an impediment to my eyes and I felt completely isolated. I believe this memorial serves justice to the holocaust, the architect was a genius to give free interpretation of his work to the viewer and obviously did a great job in regards to representation since most of us in the group, if not all of us, shared the same emotions as we walked through it.
Sunday May 15th
Sunday we got to visit a very interesting museum the Juedische Museum of Berlin. The tour, which should have been about the historical fact of the second world war and the persecution of the Jews, ended up being more of an architectural/art exhibit about this historical period. I felt that our guide was very competent and actually I believe that the change of plans was of our best interest because it gave the subject (which is something that we all know about and have read much about) a different flare. We were shown three exhibits.The first was very similar to the holocaust memorial but this time the cement blocks were only 49. The idea of this piece was to help the visitor understand the feeling of the Jews that had to leave their homeland and the piece did in fact transmit just that, a feeling of disorientation.The second was called “the tower of silence”. A cold cement tower, irregular in shape, completely dark besides a far pale white light at the top of the right side of it…I felt scared! I feel that for this architectural piece word are very limiting and I wish Jacob’s camera hadn't died because he is my photo supplier for this trip! Thankfully the others have many pics that we can all eventually share by e-mail!The third consisted of another contemporary art piece, a group of iron plates that looked like faces left lying on the floor. The artist created the sculpture for it to be walked on and I just couldn't. Most of my classmates did manage to walk across the metal faces but not all of them were able to cross all the way through. The symbolism behind it was very interesting as our tour guide explained. The metal plates were symbolic of people’s faces; the noise created from the stepping on them recalled the noises of a train or chains…all pointed to the remembrance of the victims of the holocaust.
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