Teacher blog

This morning we departed the hotel and made our way to the Rosenstrasse memorial. I was completely unfamiliar with this event, and had no idea what to expect. Most of the items on the itinerary that I was unfamiliar with I intentionally did not investigate so that I could go in and learn on site, rather than trying to become an expert beforehand. I never understood people that did that. 

My first day in Berlin wasn’t very different from that of the other colleagues that came to the Centropa Academy. Everything I experienced on this day can be defined as my first: visiting Berlin, Germany, entering a synagogue, attending a mass – Shabbat, kosher food. In a word, everything was new and exciting…

It is a challenge to get to KL Natzweiler-Struthof, but the Nazis deliberately chose remote locations for their operations. Additionally, this location was chosen to be able to mine pink granite for the Reich's building program. It was initially populated by prisoners transferred from Sachenhausen and was primarily a political prisoners' camp, but others were brought here as well. A collection of Jewish skeletons was started by the doctors.  Cadavers were provided from its operational gas chamber upon requests from German medical schools.

This morning, we hopped on the bus and sped off to our destinations. I was happy this day came at the beginning, because it contained two places that I wanted to see in Berlin.

Upon pulling up to the Museum, I was struck by the architechture of the building. The radical design of the building was compelely unknown to me before we arrived. As we filed in and made our way upstairs, I was very intrigued to see what else the building had in store for us.

It's been two days since I left Berlin and I'm slowly winding down. I got rid of the stitches and the annoying tape, that helps a lot! Today, I met a collegue and good friend of mine and of course I told her about centropa, our week in Berlin, the projects, the films, my ideas ... and she was not only patient but also very interested. I realized, again, how thrilled, excited and rather hooked I am about the possibilties centropa offers and I do hope that I'll be able to convey some of this to my collegues.

Standing at the railroad station made me think about a woman that spoke to my students about this very topic.  Her name escapes me but I wonder if she in fact left her home from this very station.  She told us that she ended up living in The Dominican Republic and married and raised a family there.  I never knew that their was a Jewish community there that was built up during The Holocaust.  

Could you see the faces of the girls and hear their voices in the hall as you walked by? I could.    I could close my eyes and see the young, innocent young ladies laughing and smiling on their way to class.  And of course I read the wall photos and found that the very commission that Tony works found were instrumental in reopening the school after 1989.