Ah, it's good to live in the German capital. Fascinating sights, great events, plenty of parks, tons of nightlife, diverse neighborhoods, cheap prices, lots of interesting history... the list goes on and on. Not to mention that the country's best and most famous tourist attractions are all here. Among them: the German Reichstag, or Parliament building. And since it's just a subway ride away from me, I found myself there not once but twice within the space of a few days in late February. Two different American friends visiting me in Berlin meant two different trips for twice the amount of photos!
 |
| The Reichstag is topped by this striking glass and steel dome |
My first American visitor, Leah, and I had an appointment for a tour of the Reichstag the day after we returned from our blitz through Rome. But that was scheduled for the night, so we spent the day at a solemn memorial to Germany's past: the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp just outside Berlin.
Sachsenhausen, built in 1936, served as a labor camp for 200,000 prisoners and claimed 50,000 lives. (Thousands of prisoners who did not perish at Sachsenhausen were later transported to death camps, including Auschwitz.) After WWII, Sachsenhausen became a camp for prisoners of the Soviets. In a cruel twist of fate, a significant number of these prisoners were Nazis.
During the Third Reich, most of the camp's prisoners were not Jewish - instead, they had been arrested on account of their political ideology. However, that did not spare them from the Nazis' cruelty. Once, after a prisoner escaped, the remaining prisoners were forced to stand outside in their thin pajamas for 15 hours in a foot of snow. One thousand of them died. Other inmates were given boots too small for their feet and forced to endlessly march on gravel as punishment for minor infractions.
 |
| The entrance and guard tower |
 |
| The dark, gloomy weather matched the topic at hand |
 |
| Inside the wooden barracks |
 |
| The beds of rock used to all be barracks |
 |
| The remainders of the crematoria, which the Nazis destroyed in an attempt to hide their crimes. Nazis conducted early tests of Zyklon-B nearby |
 |
| An execution trench used for mass shootings |
 |
| Built in the "panopticon" style, the entire camp was visible from the guard station at the front |
Sachsenhausen was the second concentration camp I had visited, but it wouldn't be the last - when I headed to Krakow in April, we spent a day at Auschwitz. Photos from there will be up later. In any case, after exploring the sobering lessons of history for several hours, Leah and I moved on to our tour at the Reichstag.
 |
| Built in the 1890s, the building survived World War I but was burnt down by an arsonist in 1933. The Nazis blamed the fire on a Communist plot, which helped them sweep into power. The ruins sat disused until East and West Germany reunified in the 1990s. It was then that the super-modern interior and dome were designed and built |
 |
| Invading Soviet soldiers reached Berlin in WWII and successfully took the city after 1,500 Nazis made a last stand here at the Reichstag (although Hitler actually governed from a different building that no longer stands). The victorious Soviets left behind this graffiti that can still be seen today |
 |
| The back side of the German eagle that adorns the Parliament's plenary hall. It weighs 2.5 tons |
 |
| An art installation in the basement consisting of 5,000 boxes, one for every single member of the German Parliament going back to 1919. Among the boxes are ones for Adolf Hitler and Angela Merkel |
 |
| Plenary chamber and eagle |
 |
| Then it was time for the big highlight - the dome! Its design represents the virtues of the new German democracy for the reunited country: transparency, as represented by the dome's glass exterior, and accessibility to the people, as symbolized by the two ramps winding up the sides |
 |
| Quintessentially German, this is. The very top of the dome is open to the elements. Stale air in the plenary hall just below is allowed to escape up and out this big hole. Germans LOVE good air circulation and detest rooms they think are "stuffy." I was amused to see this tendency embodied in the most important governmental building in the country |
 |
| Seats for the Parliament members down below |
 |
| The crazy mirrors reflect daylight down into the hall during the day to save lighting costs. More proof of just how environmentally conscious Germans are |
 |
| The Reichstag is right next to the Brandenburg Gate |
That did it for our visit that day! Soon afterward, Leah jetted off back to the States. And soon after that, a friend I made while still at the University of Southern California, Catherine, hopped on a plane from Budapest, where she was studying abroad, and paid me a visit in Berlin. So where did I take her? To the Reichstag, of course! This time, I went during the day to get some shots of the dome in a different light.
 |
| A view out through the dome and over the Spree River. The Berlin Wall used to run along that bridge |
 |
| Catherine had brought her sister along |
 |
| You don't see German flags in the wild very often, but of course the Reichstag has a few |
 |
| One of my favorite shots I've taken all year! |
 |
| The imposing facade |
 |
| The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the country's first government-sponsored Holocaust memorial, is another Berlin must-see sight that I showed them |
 |
| You can freely walk among the huge cement blocks that constitute the monument |
 |
| Underneath this glass pane in central Berlin is a room of empty bookshelves that serves as a memorial to the book burning that took place in this spot in 1933. The Nazis had just banned books from Hemmingway, Freud, T.S. Elliot, Einstein, and others, and Joseph Goebbels himself came to this site to help toss some books on the inferno. The bookshelves below have enough space for all 20,000 works that were incinerated |
After a night out enjoying Berlin's famed club scene, Catherine's short time in Berlin was up as well. In a way, my vacation was over too - the following Monday was my first day at my internship, and the full-time work grind began.
My next travels brought me to Poland. Photos are coming up! But first, I included some pictures from one of my more recent trips that I took just two weekends ago. My German girlfriend, Julia, brought me along to her dad's childhood village to celebrate her grandfather's 85th birthday, along with nearly fifty other family members and friends. It was a fun weekend with more German speaking and consumption of typical German food than I could have ever expected. When we were not chatting, we were eating or cooking. I'm glad I had the chance to meet yet another nice German family!
 |
| Julia and I at the birthday bash |
 |
| The birthday gathering |
 |
| Us on a walk around Horstmar, a pretty small town outside of Munster. Goats, horses, and lots of chickens lined many of the neat, tree-filled roads. Another weekend, another side of Germany explored! |
