Excursion

We have just returned from our five day excursion to Weimar, Dresden, and Berlin. Each of these three cities provided a variety of experiences and insights into different parts of the German culture. I feel that Weimar provided a city of art and beauty, while Dresden and Berlin showed examples of the terrors of the aftermath of the Second World War.  

I was particularly interested in the drastic changes that Berlin has undertaken in the past 60 years since the war. Before I took this German History class, I had never considered the horrific amount of history and beauty that was lost in Germany during the 1940’s. It was heart-breaking to see the beautiful buildings in Berlin that are now just replicas or monuments of the real thing. I took IB History in high school and one of the eras that my professor focused on was the Second World War so naturally we learned of the terrors of the Holocaust and the effect that the United States had on the war. However, I am very disappointed in the idea that a program that is as highly valued as the IB program would fail to mention the drastic effect that this war had on the German citizens and the individual cities within Germany.

                I feel that the Jewish Museum in Berlin had the greatest impact on me out of all of the museums that we have visited so far. I heard many people comment that the museum was too modern and that it took away from the history of the Holocaust. I, however, feel that it did exactly the opposite. I think that the architect of the museum, Daniel Libeskind, is an absolute master mind and I feel that he had the ability to not only present the history in the museum but also to make people feel the history. The complexity of the architecture within the building forced me to think deeply about what the artist was trying to express which led to me thinking about the Holocaust from many different viewpoints. I would definitely recommended this museum to anyone who was visiting Berlin.

I feel very privileged to have been given the opportunity to travel to these cities and to experience the culture and history in real life because it is truly not something that you can learn from a history book.