World War II: Life in a Time of War

We arrived in Prague last night and settled into The Hostel Rosemary. The crew enjoyed yet another delicous meal arranged by gabe at the Cafe Louve just down the street from the hostel. We kicked off the morning with a scrumptious blend of breakfast assortments at a hotel just a few blocks away.We boarded the scumbag tram (the tram with the most pick-pocketers) up to The Prague Castle.

Fun Fact: The Prague Castle is the largest castle in the world.

The group bared the cold weather and got to admire the architecture and detail of the castle. With its deep rooted history and stunning stained glass windows, the church was easily one of the most beautiful sites that we’ve seen on this trip. We even got a glimpse of the changing of the guards while touring the castle. A breathtaking view of the city could be seen from the castle as well.

After a long morning, there was an optional private tour of the Jewish District. Six of us went on that tour led by Gabe’s friend, Peter. There we learned an array of information on Jewish history and were able to tour a few Synnagouges. We walked through an old Jewish ghetto and saw the Jewish cemetary which holds an estimated 1,200 graves with over 100,000 buried there. Being Jewish himself, Peter was very knowledgeable in this subject. The most important thing to take away from this history, in Peter’s words: “They tried to kill us. We survived. Then we ate.”

We’re exploring Old Town Prague tomorrow and I think I speak for everyone when I say that we can’t wait to see what else this city has in store for us.

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We spent our first morning and afternoon touring Dresden and got to see some spectacular sites. We began the tour of Dresden by walking around the neighborhood around our interesting aztec themed hostel named Mezcalero which stood out considering we are Germany. Keep in mind this part of the city was not affected by the terrible bombings as much as the city on the southern side of the Elbe River. It was great to see some of the baroque architecture in this neighborhood that survived World War II. We then headed over the river to the southern side of the river where we looked at the sites that were devastated by the bombings. Our tour guide Gabe did an excellent job taking us to the few buildings that survived the bombings although you could still see major damages. We had a folder with pictures of the city before and after the bombings and they were truly breathtaking. After looking at these pictures and the buildings in person the class certainly had an understanding of how lethal these bombings were. Due to the location and history of Dresden the bombings were comparable to the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which suffered the blow of nuclear bombings. Dresden is located on the south eastern side of Germany and remained basically untouched in the beginning of the war because planes were afraid to fly that far over Germany. Towards the end of the war planes were able to reach Dresden but the air raid alarm that notified the citizens of Dresden of the possible danger ahead they went ignored as this was the 112th time this alarm had rung. However, this alarm soon became a reality. The RAF (British air force) achieved a type of “fire storm” strategy which essentially burned this city to the ground. Small 4 lb incendiaries that are used to start fires were dropped along with other blast bombs weighing up to 500 lbs. The strategic combination of bombs destroyed the city as well as the people trapped. The citizens that made it to their safety rooms ended up staying in them for too long and died from suffocation of carbon monoxide poisoning because the alarm that was supposed to ring telling the people the bombings had stopped and to come out from hiding never rang because the bombings cut out the electricity in the city.  Some of the noticeable architecture that we looked at included the city hall, the church, and the winter and summer palace. The people of Dresden have been resilient in rebuilding their city especially the women of Dresden as many of the men passed away in the war. A statue in front of one of the major buildings recognized these women as the statue depicted a women holding one of the hammer-like tools used to chip away cement from the bricks in the ruins.  This type of resilience still stands today as major donations are still contributed to rebuild some of the buildings exactly as they were. It is clear that Dresden was a beautiful city before the bombings and that it is on the right track to achieve this beauty again soon.

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On Sunday afternoon we left Berlin and took a two hour train ride to Dresden. We took a tram a few stops to our hostel, checked in and settled for about an hour before we met up for a collective dinner. For dinner we took another tram a few stops to the Watzke brewery/restaurant. Our hostel and the brewery are located on the northern side of the Elbe river which runs through the city of Dresden. Fortunately the fires from the bombings of the Second World War never spread to the Northern side of the river. In fact, we learned the next day when touring Dresden that the view from the brewery would have been a perfect place to watch the horrible bombings. For dinner we were served massive trays piled with large amounts of meats, potatoes, and vegetables. Sausage, ham, pork, and chicken seemed to be just a few of the items on the tray. To wash down the delicious meats and hearty meal the students enjoyed the local fresh beer while some tables may have even enjoyed a small keg they liked it so much. The first night in Dresden has been an exciting one, luckily we were able to get well rested in our accommodating hostel to rest up for a day of touring Dresden.

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Our last day was spent in a rather somber location, Sachenhausen NS terror site. However even in a concentration camp, Gabe found a way to make the day interesting, funny, and melancholy at the same time. He spent much of the day recounting the history of the site, but what i found more powerful were his talks on strength and courage. To make it through alive in one of these places must have taken a magnitude of will power that I doubt anyone in our generation has ever had to match. Gabe recounted stories of atrocities committed by wardens seeking promotion in the Nazi army of humiliation of  prisoners, torture, and the overall environment of bleakness. One story that shocked me the most was of the man who made it through the entire Nazi reign in custody simply through his up beat attitude. If I were in a concentration camp, the last thing i would be thinking about are jokes to tell or the lighter side of the situation. With death just around the corner, and Nazi torture even closer, what sane person would? In fact it would be the only sane person. Strength through joy is the strongest form of defiance in those dreadful conditions, and perhaps the best way to deal with the situation. To say that you needed to be strong to survive is an understatement, but to find happiness during it is an entirely different echelon of mental will power, and it is something that we can all take notes from. We don’t have to be oppressed people and thrown into box cars to our imminent deaths to find strength, in our everyday lives we could use a dose of optimism or at least a stroke of joy in the face of obstacles. Whether it’s a lost bag at the airport or getting sick on a trip, finding the bright side is the best way to overcome, and I think that is what Gabe wants us to understand, more so than just the history of WWII, and it will be something that I always remember.

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By Kyle Klaus

Today we spent the day at the Wansee conference house, a beautiful landscape with a pristine lake adjacent. For a place that held some of the worlds most evil people it was a surprisingly lovely house, had I not known what had happened in there I would love to live there. Unfortunately the beauty was short lived and the information became stale. We didn’t really have much time to go over what was actually said at the conference because we spent too long picking what we wanted to eat. It seems most of us were under the impression  Gabe would be our tour guide filled with his usual wit, instead we were given a tour by a rather dull, yet highly intelligent German man. I do not blame him for his rather lack luster approach to German history because as Gabe said “the Nazi’s killed off all the funny ones”. What was even more surprising was that we were expected to give our own presentation to the group. I found this to be rather annoying because in class we usually get a couple days or weeks to put together a presentation, granted this was a much less stressful presentation, but we only got an hour. Furthermore, I found it strange that the historian was making us present to him on a topic that we were there to learn about in the first place. I understand that information might resonate with us more if we do the research ourselves, but that is usually in a classroom setting that gives us more than a couple hours of warning. Overall the day was on the dull side and I think we all couldn’t wait for Gabe to take back the reigns.

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By Kyle Klaus

Today’s highlights included a viewing of the Reichstag which gave us a panoramic view of the skyline of Berlin. The audio tour did not give us too much information of the history of the Reichstag but that is what we have Gabe for. His account of the Soviet invasion of the Reichstag told the story of only a few hundred Nazis being run over by thousands upon thousands of angry Soviet soldiers in a floor by floor battle inside the reichstag itself. The battle scars are still apparent today as bullet holes and Soviet engravings are etched into the walls. I found it strange that the current home of German Parliament would want to keep signs of their countries loss plastered across their walls, but then again the Nazi party might as well have been an entirely different nation than it is today, and the scars of the battle are an homage to the lives lost there. The most impressive part of The Reichstag for me was the architecture. THe glass dome represented the transparent nature of the German parliament, according to the audio tour. Regardless of how true or not that metaphor was I appreciate the effort. More impressive was the cascading cone of mirrors in the center. It allowed you to see yourself at almost any place in the double helix design of the walkway that lead all the way to the top and back to the start again, it also acted as a natural light fixture that reflected the sun’s rays to illuminate the dome. To top it off, it had a rotating sun shade that followed the sun so that there was not too much of a glare bouncing off the mirrors. After a delicious Italian lunch of various types of pizza, which outranks most of if not all of the pizza I have ever had, we left for the main event. The Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum), at this point we all split up to have our own experiences, but if we saw half of what the museum had to offer we should understand at least one major aspect of WWII, is that the propaganda used during the wars was not only disturbing in it’s messages but what is more troubling is the fact that people fell into it, showing that the message doesn’t matter as long as the public is willing to watch a grand show.

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We started today off similar to yesterday with the hearty buffet style breakfast and 9:30 start. After a longer trip on the U2 (not the band) than yesterday, we found ourselves standing infront of the North Korean Embassy. This was a surprise to everyone in the group who had no idea that there even were North Korean Embassies given the countries mysterious existence. Out front of the locked gates there was  bulletin board with propaganda aiming at displaying “the prosperity and incredible power” of North Korea. After a short walk we came to what was once the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda. We learned about Jospeph Goebbels, the head of propaganda, and his role in Nazi Germany to gain the German people’s support for the Nazi’s actions. Not far from the former Ministry of Propaganda was the location of the former Chancellor’s office. When Hitler came to power he requested a new office and an new massive building was constucted for the new office. This building was torn down by the Russians to prevent it from being a place for Nazi supporters to possibly rally at in the future. We then walked into a small courtyard of an apartment complex to discover to our surprise that we were standing over Hitler’s bunker. We learned of events leading up to Hitler being forced into the bunker as well as the events leading to his suicide with his wife of 39 hours, Eva Brown. For lunch we went to the KaDeWe which is the second largest department store in Europe and contains a whole floor of gourmet food restaurants on the sixth floor. The popular destination was the sausage bar which served various types of German sausage and was very good. Our final stop of the tour for the day was the German Resistance Museum which is dedicated to the Germans that were against the Nazi Party’s rule during WWII such as Hans and Sohie Scholl who we read about in our class book White Rose. Another notable person we learned about was Claus von Stauffenburg who tried to assasinate Hitler with a bomb and almost succeded. Tommorrow we will be touring the Reichstag which is sure to be an interesting experience. Stay tuned!

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Our first full day in Berlin began with a buffet style breakfast provided by the Pfefferbett Hostel which got evryone ready for the day’s tour with Gabriel which started at 9:30. We began by taking the Berlin underground train system which took us a few stops from our hostel to the old Nazi Rally Grounds of Berlin which was not the main rally grounds but utilized for certain events. On this tour we learned a lot about WWI history as well as important history of German leaders such as Wilhem II and Otto Von Bismarck. Continuing on our tour we saw the Berlin War Memorial Neue Wache which houses the famous sculpture “Mother and her dead son” by Käthe Kollwitz. We then saw the site of the Nazi book burnings and the memorial created by the artist Micha Ullman. Our final stop of the tour was Brandenburg Gate which we learned was an iconic structure in both World Wars. After the tour the group split up and people chose where they wanted to visit with their free time. Most visited the remaining 300 meter section of the Berlin Wall along with the Topography of Terror, which is an indoor/outdoor museum dedicated to the Holocaust. At night the group was split in half with one group dining at Gabriel’s apartment where we ate a delicious Italian, Brazilian, and German combination of foods cooked by Gabriel’s friends. After dinner the other half of the group which ate at a very good pizza place came to Gabriel’s along with a female guitarist named Samantha Beivan who played some amazing songs and ended the night in a great way. Tomorrow we will be touring the 3rd Reich so stay tuned!

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Looking forward to a great winter term!

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