ok berlin was good. it wasn't quite a shopping or scenery place, but it was a great history lesson. i kinda threw all my history knowledge back to my secondary teachers, but the reminder of german history cos of this berlin trip kinda brought back some mixed emotions.
i remember the most impactful thing that i got out of this trip was what the guide said after our concentration camp tour. he said that we shouldn't just blame the germans on everything that has happened. this is not just german history, it's also human history, history that could happen anywhere else. the germans have already opened up this part of their history to the younger people in the country, and this shows that they are at least repentful. i suppose as inhumane as the germans, more specifically the nazis, were, it was due to the circumstances at that point of time. maybe desperate times really called for desperate measures.
i'm not exactly defending the nazis for all the horrible things they have done, i actually felt angry when i was listening to all the stories that our guide told us. but well, we never know if any other countries have been worst at such crimes. if they never ever opened up this concentration camp, the public would never have known such stuff have happened too. more of the stories as i go through the photos.
Day 1: bus+ferry to berlin, check-in, free&easy dinner
you know the trip to berlin was quite an exciting one. the bus we were on just went straight into the ferry! call me ignorant or what, but i've seriously never seen a bus driving straight into the ferry before. it was so cool. so anyway, the above picture shows us in the bus waiting to get out of the ferry when we arrived in berlin.
we were staying at room 429!=) it was a 8-person room, so the five of us stayed with this nus mba person, boon chai, and another two of the isup people.
group shot outside our hostel! it's a REALLY huge hostel, clean and safe.
our dinner! quite expensive though. it's 5 euros which is $10. basically bbqed pork lar.
Day 2: guided tour, free&easy afternoon(includes going to Deustche History Museum and Birkenstock), dinner with isup
a group shot in the bus before our guided tour
our first stop: brandenburg gate
wanjou!=)
elaine!
me with the parliament house (i think). the queue to get in (it's free) was freaking long. the guided tour didn't allow us to have that luxury of time, so we didn't go in in the end.
me with the back of the brandenburg gate.
the double brick line indicates where the berlin wall used to be. we were standing in used-to-be west berlin.
holocaust memorial! supposedly a good location with good architecture design. this place basically doesn't have any sign that indicates it's the memorial so people will raise questions when they walk past.
this is the site where hitler died. there's no memorial here, it's just a normal carpark.
the ideal world of socialism
this panel is exactly in the same dimensions as the previous photo, which shows the IDEAL communist world. this panel basically contrasts that and shows the unhappiness of people.it shows an uprising in 1953 which had a lot of people killed as a result.
the second largest remains of the berlin wall
checkpoint charlie, after alfa and bravo. for the crossings between east and west berlin.
successful group shot!=)
zoe!
kevin aka ah pek aka pig. look at his expression lar
beautiful place which marks the birth of berlin. love the architecture even though we didn't enter. this place marked the end of our guided tour.
group shot with our handsome guide, paulo.=)
my lunch! it's called currywurst. it was quite nice lar i feel.
taking funny shots with wanjou in the museum cos we got bored after a while
attempted artistic shot
birkenstock! FINALLY found it. we were all so happy cos ALL of us bought something.
best toilet in town? so weird.
dinner with isup people. a SUPER filling dinner lar.
night time view of the TV tower.
Day 3 - Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, bus+ferry back to Copenhagen
here we are at the concentration camp. we were warned that this is a place filled with emotions...
the model of the ENTIRE concentration camp, but we only visited a small part of the camp
the place where they trained the soldiers. now used for military training too (i think). apparently they were taught to be brutal to the prisoners.
the clock at this place called the Station A doesn't indicate the current time, it actually shows the time when the prisoners were liberated by the soviets
the words say "Work will set you free". this is the gate leading to the place where roll call happens everyday. the longest roll call was done at -20 degrees celsius, where many people collapsed and died because of the cold. if i never remember wrongly, 400 prisoners collapsed on that day. and each prisoner only got 600 calories of food everyday, just barely sufficient for them to survive.
this place where there's barbed wire with 400V of electricity running through it. if anyone were to run towards it, they would be shot to death by the guards. many committed suicide using this method.
entering one of the barracks. these were all male barracks. prisoners had their own hierachy too. the worst lot was the homosexuals, then the jews, then the communists, and lastly the criminals, for example, professional thief. apparently these criminals were used also as spies, if anyone from the lower hierachy commits a mistake and one criminal reports it, he would get extra food for that. there was this hierachy cos they wanted tension amongst the prisoners, so there wouldn't be this huge uprising. and true enough, there wasn't any massive uprising from the prisoners, and nobody managed to escape successfully even with a prisoner-guard ratio of 100:1
the bathroom
the clothes worn by the prisoners. it's the same for summer and winter. apparently it's too hot for summer, but too little for winter, so a lot of people actually died from the cold. it was also the nazis' wishes to have the weak people dying and the strong people surviving so they could replace the weak with new prisoners..
their toilets
their bunks. think there were usually about 3-4 people sleeping on one bed. it was awfully squeezy
the prison within the prison. the son of joseph stalin actuall stayed in here. the nazis wanted to trade him with another higher ranking officer, but apparently stalin said he wouldn't trade a lieutenant with a field marshall (info from boon chai cos i forgot the rank), so he was tortured here...
the prison...
one of the saddest places i think. shows one of the ways for torture. they would tie up the hands of the prisoners and hang them up on this pillar till they dislocate both their soldiers.another way for torture is to use metal (ropes?) to give 25 lashes for one prisoner for no matter how small the crime is. it was so painful that the prisoners would scream and their screams would be heard throughout the concentration camp, as warning to others. apparently that would cause the skin to rupture, exposing the organs in the body. DAMN GROSS CAN.
oh the person in red was our guide, louis.
inside the prison room
along the corridor of the prison.
the well which was 5m deep. sometimes they would throw prisoners into the well with a rotting corpse, and would only bring the living ones up once they think it's sufficient punishment for them. can you imagin that. GOODNESS.
the tracks where prisoners were made to try on the boots made in their factory. prisoners were made to run distances equivalent to a marathon everyday with their boots, together with a 20kg haversack and even during winter. should one fall, the guards would shoot him as a warning to others. and remember they only got 600 calories everyday.
the place where people would be hanged. this place is directly in front of Station A so when people were hanged, the last thing they would see was a canon pointing at you.
the worst torture before the hanging was that one of the prisoners stole margarine from the kitchen to go with his bread. the guards then made him eat 3 LITRES of margarine, then stepped on his stomach and i can't remember what happened next. it was just too disgusting.
one of the quotes in the kitchen museum. sad rite.
another sad quote
the memorial erected by the communists. the 18 triangles represent the 18 countries where the prisoners were from. the right one in the statue shows a prisoner. this was apparently quite badly represented. the prisoners didn't have hair, nor a jacket. and obviously they aren't as nutritioned as the one depicted in the photo.
the place where a lot of shootings take place. guards with rifles would be behind doors, the prisoners would then be lined up facing the doors, and the prisoners would then shoot them, with the prisoners looking straight into the eyes of the prisoners. they had to shoot like 250 prisoners each day, so apparently it wasn't a very good experience for the guards too.
Station Z where more shootings take place.
saddening...
an illustration of how prisoners would be picked up. the bones would be too brittle, sothe guards would wrap him up with a cloth and drag him using the cloth.
the memorial
basically this was the site where poisonous gases would be tested on people. think there was this example of 20 female resistance fighers that were stripped naked and thrown in. they injected this poisonous gas inside, and the women died after 20 mins. when they did the autopsy, they found that these women suffered from third degree burns in their throat. that was how they were all killed. can you imagine their suffering...
this was the place were majority of the prisoners were killed. basically they were taken to a room after being told that they would be examined by a doctor. they were made to strip naked, and loud music was played. they were then brought to this room with a door behind them. behind the door would be a guard with a rifle, who would open this opening and shoot the prisoner at the back of his throat. in this way, the guard didn't have to stare at the eyes of the prisoners as he shot them dead.
double wall for sound-proofing to hide whatever that was going on behind the walls. loud music was played for the same reason.
the crematorium
the medical centre. basically prisoners were used as guinea pigs. if prisoners complained of illness, they would be bought to this place for experiment. apparently the 'doctors' would insert some bacteria inside, then pour some acid on the person to see if that cures some illness called the gangarin. obviously it doesn't. until now, there's still no cure for gangarin, and limbs have to be amputated if the person gets the illness
where autopsies were done. the 'doctors' were basically given four ways of natural deaths and they had to choose one for each autopsy. they would just cut up the body and sew it up to show that an autopsy was done, then the 'doctor' would give a reason for a natural death, and signed against it. so well, nobody would know these prisoners were killed by what.
houses outside the concentration camp that was built by prisoners. basically these houses also served as an extra layer of security. if the prisoners escape, they would enter one of these houses where guards stay, and then they would be caught and of cos shot.
sad sad sad...i didn't mention anything about the Death March. so anyway, the Death March happened when the Nazis knew that the Soviets were coming, so they got all the stronger (who were really weak, but comparatively, they were strong) prisoners to go on a march to the Baltic sea (i think). their idea was to make them go onto some ship, and sink them so there wouldn't be any evidence of the torturing at the concentration camp. 3000 weak ones were left at the camp. the Soviets came in the middle of the march, the nazis guards fled, and liberated 50,000 malnutritioned prisoners, almost dying, to the shock of the villagers.
ah well. time to cherish our present cos at least you know most of these wouldn't happen at this time and date.
so yeah, that's berlin for you. nice experience definitely. BEST HISTORY LESSON EVER.