I loved Germany!! I was so excited to get there and explore and was certainly not disappointed! I spent my first day on a field lab for my Acting Techniques in Interviews class. We had to spend the day observing people in various locations around the city. We started off by heading to a small market in an outlying neighborhood. The second spot was the Rathaus, or town hall. After lunch, our tour guide brought us on a detour to a “surprise” visit somewhere. It was a German elevator, and incredibly different from anything I’ve ever seen! It worked on a pulley system. One side went up and the other went down…there was no door. Instead, you just walked onto a platform and it brought you up, around, down, around and back up again! It was the coolest! After our detour, we headed to the smaller of the Alster lakes and my partner and I got gelato…pistachio, of course! Wouldn’t have it any other way! Our final stop of the day was to an outer neighborhood that is a little more artsy and edgy. It reminded me like the Village…I loved it! I could definitely see myself living somewhere like that. On the way back, we took a ferry back to the ship, which was a fun experience! It was a surprisingly fun field lab! After dinner and napping, I woke up feeling like a new person and was ready to go out. We headed out to Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s Red Light District. Soon, however, our group of six turned into a group of twenty, which quickly turned into a group of fifty. Dani and I finally decided that we just couldn’t handle them all, so we separated ourselves and found a quiet bar and got a glass of German wine. We definitely salvaged the night! We headed back nice and early so we could get a jump-start on the next day.
In the morning, Dani, Emily and I went on the NewHamburg walking tour at 11. It was amazing, as usual. With every tour I do, the more I feel like I would absolutely love to work with that company one day. We saw everything from the Rathaus to various churches (which he gave us time to go in and explore) to various architecturally intriguing buildings. We saw the place that the Great Fire of 1842 started, as well as the new part of the city that is currently under development. After the tour, we continued with the guide for lunch at a local pub. I presented the server with my gluten-free card and they did everything they could to accommodate me! She brought over another server who got the owner who then brought the card back into the kitchen. They asked me what I would like to eat then created a special GF dish for me! It was so incredibly hospitable of them- very few restaurants have ever been so great, both in the US and abroad! After our amazing lunch, we made our way up to Alster Lake to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing. There was no way that any of us were going to rally for a pub crawl, so after dinner we decided to just go to a nearby bar and share a bottle of German wine. It was wonderful! Relaxing and delicious, and exactly what we needed to unwind after a long day of exploring the city.
The past few weeks have consisted of a nonstop array of boat engines, traffic, chatter, and music. We’ve navigated the busy streets of London, St. Petersburg and Moscow, and have traversed the North and Baltic Seas. The next day, however, the hustle and bustle that had become the soundtrack to our lives came to a discomforting halt as we stepped out of the bus and onto the unsettlingly peaceful and beautiful grounds of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp right outside of Hamburg.
My first introduction to the Holocaust and World War II was in the second grade when my class read the book Number the Stars. Since then, I haven’t stopped learning about this period in history. I’ve taken classes that cover it from both an American and European perspective, and have discussed it in length, both in an educational setting and a personal one as well. But no number of history lessons, stories, or movies could have prepared me for the feelings that come along with seeing the places they depict in real life.
At any one time, the camp housed anywhere from 12,000 – 14,000 Jews and prisoners of war and it’s primary purpose was a work camp. Though there weren’t any official extermination facilities on the grounds, the people there still suffered the same atrocities that those in other camps did. Women were forced into prostitution, children were separated from their parents, and none were given enough food to survive. A slice of bread was a reward at the end of a good day. At Neuengamme alone, 42,900 people died from suicide, starvation, disease or murder.
I had a few friends who went to the camp earlier in the week and came back and said it was “cool” or that they went in expecting a very emotional experience and never got one. After leaving the camp, I was left baffled over how they couldn’t have reacted the way I did. The unexpected silence was what initially shocked me the most, but what truly got me was one of the quotes from an Italian man, Rinaldo Rinaldi, that was imprisoned at the camp. Almost all the quotes were in German, and this was the only one I could actually read. The quote was hanging over the book that held his personal biography and read “…questo è l’inferno, sarà il purgatorio, l’inferno, io sono morto, ma quando sono morto?” Essentially, he was saying that he was in hell and “I am dead, but when am I going to die?” The testimonies were the most touching parts, but we couldn’t understand any that weren’t printed in English on the information cards. So the fact that in a sea of German, the one Italian quote stood out, hit me like a ton of bricks. Reading that testimony put the rest of what I saw into perspective. From uniforms to bunks, to videos and sketches, everything made the fact that I was walking through the halls of hell that this man once inhabited even more real.
Outside of the barracks, we were able to see where the prisoners worked. They built railway tracks, dug out the Elbe River so the boats they built could get through, made artillery shells, and created bricks out of clay. They were worked like animals, with few breaks for food or water, many of them suffering from extreme exhaustion and exposure to the elements. There was little shade, and the warehouses they worked in were dark, damp, and had one chimney to keep it warm. The working conditions were just as sickening as the living conditions.
Our tour of the camp concluded after walking around the grounds. On the way out, Carlos, my RD who was the trip liaison, caught up with me and asked how I was doing with everything. The only thing I could respond with was, “It’s all hard to process.” It took the rest of the day for me to do just that and put what I was thinking and feeling into words.
Our concentration camp visit was sandwiched between two other stops where we learned more about Jewish history that was especially pertinent to the Hamburg area. In the morning, we went to the small Jewish quarter of the city and our tour guide pointed out gold squares that have been laid into the ground. They all rest outside the residencies of the Jewish people who had been deported and killed. Thousands of stones rest in the ground not only across Hamburg, but of Germany and other European countries as well. We saw an all-Jewish school and walked by Joseph Carleblach-Platz, which is a square commemorating a synagogue that used to stand here. The end of our day was concluded with a visit to the largest and oldest Jewish cemetery in the area. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to tour because it was the Sabbath, but from the outside, it was an absolutely beautiful place.
On the bus on the way back from the bus, Carlos spoke to us about how to cope with everything we experienced today. He told us about a tactic he uses: “What, so what, and now what?” I seriously thought about all this while trying to process the day’s events and here is what I came up with:
I went into this day expecting to view everything from a historical standpoint. I was going to see the places I’ve studied for so long, and was looking forward to being able to put all those facts into context and put an image to the stories. I never expected that I would be hit so emotionally by it all. Within all the ugliness of the time, however, there is one positive piece that shines through. Despite the horrors that they all went through, the prisoners in these camps did everything they did to stay happy, keep themselves entertained, and always remained true to their religion, believing that they would one day be delivered from the hell they were going through. There will always be an evil in this world, and unfortunately it will shine through more prominently throughout different times in our history. What we need to do, however, is not give that evil more power by concentrating on them; instead, we need to look for the one ray of light that may sine through and hold true to it. By doing this, evil will never win out over good. We should thus remember the poor souls who suffered and be inspired by the strength they maintained despite the most terrible conditions.
On the last day of Russia, I was ready to leave. I had loved everything that I saw and did, and was sad to have that time come to an end so soon, but I was eager to get to our next port. Our last day in Germany was different, however. I absolutely fell in love with this city, and wish more than anything that we could have more time to spend here. Our first two days were so much fun, and yesterday was such an emotional and moving experience. To top the wonderful time we spent here off, a big group of all went out for a nice dinner.
Strangely, there were just as many Italian restaurants as there were German restaurants in the city. And almost every one of them had menus written in Italian- my mark of a truly great Italian restaurant. So, we decided to head to this one place we kept walking by near the Rathaus, called Dolce Vino (perfect, I know). I was able to read the menu and figure out if there was anything I could eat, and there was! It was a done deal.
We all sat down inside and our waiter approached us, asking if we spoke German or Italian- there was no English option. But I absolutely could not have been more excited! I got to spend the evening speaking completely in Italian and translating for the whole table. They were so impressed with me that they let me order my favorite wine (Montepulciano, which they normally only sell by the glass), in a liter bottle and at a discounted price. I ordered an amazing carpaccio and had caprese with buffalo mozzarella. The great group of people I was with and I ate fabulous food, drank incredible wine, and I spoke the most beautiful language on the planet. I couldn’t have been a happier girl.
We finished off the night by heading to the Rathaus to check out the free rock concert we had passed a couple times in the past few days. It was so much fun! We had no idea what they were singing, but we all enjoyed it, and it was great to see local Germans soaking in their own culture.
We got an early the last morning so we could do everything we were hoping to fit in. We started the day off by going to the Fischmarkt, which we had heard was something not to be missed! They had everything you ever could have wanted there. Just walking around, seeing everything interact with each other, was such an interesting experience. The fish vendors were all yelling at customers and each other in German. Everyone was laughing at what they were saying and I wish more than anything that I could have understood what was happening. Dani and I then decided to climb the 452 steps up the tower at St. Michaelis church to get a panoramic view of the city. It was breathtaking! From the very top, we could see the MV Explorer!
I really wish we had more time to spend in this amazing city. I truly felt welcomed here by the locals, everyone was so nice, and it was all so beautiful. The culture and history of this country is so rich, and there’s so much more I’m hoping to see. I know I’ll be coming back to Europe soon, and Germany will definitely be one of my stops on my next adventure!
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