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Centropa Blog Post 3 from Susan Cohn

The day started with a trip to Wannsee-Berlin to visit the site where the Nazi's decided to make the murder of the Jews the national policy of the Nazi German government.  In this beautiful, quiet, elegant lakeside villa, the most horrific actions in the history of humankind were discussed and operationalized by the Nazis.  The last part of the day was a visit to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of the Holocaust.
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From big picture...

This morning some of us traveled to Wannsee, the site of the 90 minute meeting where the arrangements to murder 6 million Jews were finalized. We ended with a visit to Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, where you can read about individual families and people. From the big picture to the individual stories...

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Train Stations

Train stations are meant to convey comings and goings, movement and change - sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.  German examples include the Anhalter Banholf - where thousands of Jewish children's lives were saved with the Kindertransport program with England (see the pix) for new beginnings. And the Gleis 17 Grunwald Station - which we will see tomorrow - where many Jews saw the last light of freedom as they boarded cattle cars for the concentration camps ending their lives.

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jewish museum today...

... and we had besides high temperatures very high intellectual/emotional impacts. Thanks to the speakers :-)

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Change, Loss, and Collaboration

It's day three and trying to put together thoughts on everything we've experienced presents a challege. There is the history that surrounds you at every turn here, and you try to process for example the loss of those 40,000 who once occupied the Jewish quarter of Berlin. The synagogue that has but few who worship or the plaques to mark those murdered. Yesterday when we visited the sites of the wall remains you try to imagine the separation and the oppression. The memories remain palpable and will only continue to be as we finish our time together.

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Visiting remaining section of the Berlin wall

On 24 of July we have  visited the remains of the Berlin wall, wall that has separated East from west Germany. Walls  some times  give as comfort and security, and some time wall is symbol of the hot home.

But there a walls that separate, walls that divide…

Today we visit pain making wall ! Luckily hi is gone, we visit only its remaining, and we hear the a lot sad life stories….

Did people learn the lesson?  

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Living Proof Project

I promised when I finished my presentation I would post links to the websites that are related to the project for people to review as well as to post my contact information if anyone has any follow up questions or feedback.  Thank you so much to everyone who offered feedback and had questions and I would love to collaborate with anyone else that is interested or to even help you along the way to do a similar project, I truly believe it made a difference in my students lives.

Below is the link to the WikiSpace website for the project:

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Creating a Student Museum

As of 2013, for three years students at the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in Philadelphia have created, curated and been docents for museums they have made using Centropa resources and their own research.  Two years in a row they created museum panels to stand alongside Centropa's own exhibits - one of Czech Jewry and the other of Polish Jewry - and in 2013 they created all 38 panels for a truly special exhibit about Sephardic Jewry in the Balkans.

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