Complete madness then, a beautiful museum now

madness-pflug

Part of the Berlin Wall, on the Topography of Terrors grounds, that reads “Madness”
(photo by Katie Pflug)

by Katie Pflug

Berlin, Germany’s Topography of Terror historic site is set on what used to be the site of the Reich Security Main office, but it is now a complex where visitors can learn more about the history of the Holocaust and the Nazi reign in Germany.

Even though National Socialist terror was planned and organized by other parties, the Reich Security Main Office was the center of most of the Nazi regime’s mass crimes and acts of terror.  Between 1933 and 1945, the central institutions of Nazi persecution and terror – the Secret State Police Office with its own “house prison,” the leadership of the SS and, during the Second World War, the Reich Security Main Office – were located on the present-day grounds of the “Topography of Terror” that are next to the Martin Gropius Building and close to Potsdamer Platz, according to its website. It was just blocks away from the Suite Novotel, where the Point Park group stayed during its time in Berlin.

After the war the grounds were leveled and initially used for commercial purposes. Later, in 1987, as part of Berlin’s 750th anniversary celebration, the terrain was made accessible to the public under the name “Topography of Terror.” An exhibition hall and the exposed building remains on the former Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse (today’s Niederkirchnerstrasse) and Wilhelmstrasse were used to document the history of the site. The documentation center opened in 2010.

Exhibit at the Topography of Terrors (photo by Katie Pflug)

Exhibit at the Topography of Terrors
(photo by Katie Pflug)

Now the grounds of the Topography of Terror have a haunted feel, almost as if visitors are being transformed back into that time period. It has part of the Berlin Wall as a backdrop, which adds more history and eeriness. There is a piece of the wall with the word “Madness” lightly written.  This part of the wall stuck out to many visitors because many of them stopped and looked at the part of the wall particularly long.  “The word [madness] describes how Germany was during that time period through the use of one word,” Andrea Karsesnick stated.

The outside exhibit begins with the year 1933, which is when the Nazi Party rise began. It was set up with large pictures, text, and propaganda posters.  There are also other sections of the wall that are on their sides, with the metal exposed.  The wall, in the form, looks like an art form.

It all starts in 1933 with “The Path to Dictatorship,” describing how Adolph Hitler came to power.   This section of the exhibit is very time consuming but worth each second. It starts with describing the phase where Germany was between democracy and a dictatorship.

There is one picture in particular that stood out more than the others.  The picture of the marching SS officers holding the flag with the Nazi symbol on it made it known to everyone that the Nazi Party was taking over.  This photograph was taken in January 1933.

The Reichstag Fire and Nazi Terror in Berlin was another key section of the 1933 exhibit, explaining the burning of the Reichstag building.  The burning of the Reichstag building, executed by a young Dutchman, Marinus van der Lubbe, led to the Nazi Terror taking place in Berlin.

The Topography of Terror, a commemorative site in Berlin, details the Nazi Party's rise to power in 1933 through the end of the war and the Nuremberg trials. Here Professor David Fabilli views some of the public shaming Jews endured in the years leading up to the Holocaust.  (Photograph by Helen Fallon)

The Topography of Terror, a commemorative site in Berlin, details the Nazi Party’s rise to power in 1933 through the end of the war and the Nuremberg trials. Here Professor David Fabilli views some of the public shaming Jews endured in the years leading up to the Holocaust.
(Photograph by Helen Fallon)

There are many propaganda posters hanging around the exhibit.  Each of them offers an explanation of what each poster is trying to persuade everyone to think is right.  Each of the photographs and propaganda posters really brought the exhibit to life.

In the middle of the 1933 exhibit there are separate hanging posters to remember some of the victims of Nazi Terror in Berlin.  All of the victims’ photographs are accompanied by their personal stories that would make anyone sick to his or her stomach.

For example, Franz Wilczoch, a laborer, was taken to the district court prison on June 22, 1933.  The Nazis were using the district court prison as a detention and torture center.  When he was there, they severely maltreated him.  His face was beaten with burning torches, they poured hot tar onto his wounds, his hair was cut or torn out, and he was plastered with adhesive tape.  He died from his injuries on June 30, 1933.

The exhibit then goes into events happening later in 1933, such as the Anti-Jewish Terror, purges and employment bans, Day of National Labor and the destruction of the trade unions, book burning, and the consolidation of power.

After the 1933 exhibit there is much more to see inside the  documentation center, which continues the timeline until beyond 1945 – from the start of the war, the “shamings” and public humiliation of remaining Jews, SS officers retreats, persecution of prisoners and Hitler’s opponents, to the trials of the leaders.

The grounds are landscaped with trees and a large pathway, which makes it easy to stop for a second and remember the terrible events that happened on that very location.

The pathway leads around all of the grounds and finally makes its way back to the documentation center.  Information on the Gestapo and SS offices are just a few of the examples of history that is around the pathway.

The center also includes a library, open from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.; guided one-hour tours are also available. No admission fee is charged, and the site operates from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. daily.  Staff members start closing the documentation center at 7:45 p.m. It is all wheelchair accessible.

According to its website, 900,000 people visited the “Topography of Terror” in 2012, making the documentation center one of the most frequently visited places of remembrance in Berlin.

Stay in the east or flee to the west?

Checkpoint Charlie Museum

Checkpoint Charlie Museum

by Katie Pflug

Checkpoint Charlie was once a main crossing point between East and West Berlin and the Berlin Wall, but today it is a main historical attraction in Berlin, Germany.

The Checkpoint Charlie Museum may look like an old-fashioned home, but it is filled to the brim with historical remembrance of East and West Berlin.

Located near Potsdamer Platz, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum was erected in 1962 by freedom-fighter founder and director Dr. Rainer Hildebrandt. The museum started as a two and a half room apartment display that held history about the Berlin Wall. On June 14, 1962, the museum reopened in Friedrichstrasse in what used to be a block of flats, at the Checkpoint Charlie border crossing. Today it displays objects that helped escapees flee the East, exhibits to learn more about the history of the Berlin Wall and stories of escapees, according to its website.

Today the museum is run by Hildebrandt’s widow, Alexandra Hildebrandt, who, since the death of her husband in 2004, has expanded the museum to include more exhibitions about human rights and freedom.

The  permanent exhibition dates back to the museum’s first days, just after the building of the Berlin Wall, and charts the lifespan of the world’s supposedly most secure border system, according to its website. Here visitors can see original boards created by Hildebrandt in the 1960s, who worked with journalists, escape organizers and protesters to put together a compact and clear outline of the background to the wall’s creation, as well as other key events in East Germany’s history, such as the June 17, 1953, uprisings.

Katie Pflug and Michelle Graessle stop for a photo of the American sector exit sign.

Katie Pflug and Michelle Graessle stop for a photo of the American sector exit sign.
(photo by Connor Mulvaney)

After viewing the first room, visitors walk up a staircase that has children’s paintings all the way up to the top of the stairs. Each of the paintings explains the separation between East and West Germany and how children wish they could all be friends.  The paintings and drawings add a child’s perceptive to the museum, which gives visitors another great way to think about how the Berlin Wall affected so many people’s lives.

Throughout the whole museum there are many displays that shows objects that helped East Berliners escape to the west. From suitcases and heaters to escape cars, hot air balloons, homemade mini-submarines and deceptively hollow surfboards are just a few of the items that people used to escape. Reading the stories left many visitors looking shocked.

The museum displays a homemade airplane that was used as an escape method. The only part of the plane that was not homemade was the engine, which was taken out of a car.

The museum also has on exhibit other work describing human rights violations around the world and a permanent NATO exhibition.

Point Park students found the Checkpoint Charlie Museum a great way to learn more about what was happening while the wall was up in Berlin. The museum is heavy on reading, student visitors said, but each and every display is worth taking the time to read and understand.

The museum is open every day of the year from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m., including festivals such as Christmas and Easter and other bank holidays. Admission charges are 12.50 euros for adults, 8.50 euros for groups of 20 or more, and 9.50 for students and 6.50 for ages 7-18. Children up to 6 are free. Guided tours are available.

DAY 7 – Dachau

Jewish memorial in the Dachau concentration camp

Jewish memorial in the Dachau concentration camp

Today we visited the Dachau concentration camp memorial. It was the most chilling thing I have ever experienced.

Throughout our lives during education we, as Americans, are taught what happened in the Holocaust not only because it is history, but also because it is important to recognize genocide so it doesn’t happen again. Besides the history classes and research projects, I also have seen the movie Schindler’s list. I thought I had a full picture in my mind of World War II and especially the Holocaust. I was wrong. Dachau, was the first concentration camp and was initially a prison for political opposition. It was an example for the other camps. It was also famous for the medical experiments that were performed on the prisoners, which often resulted in death.

It put me right there where I could touch the trees the prisoners touched, walk the road they walked and see the barracks they slept in. Nothing could be more up close and personal then the incredible memorial we toured.

Having Arnoud as a tour guide was also very enlightening. He told me something very touching that I will use in my story – he never ceases to be emotional whenever he visits the camp, even though he has visited more than one hundred times. He was also very adamant about taking photos so that it can never, ever happen again. But yet fascism still exists in our world and that is depressing.

Touring the barracks and walking the main drag were great introductions to the religious memorials. It refreshed my mind so I could truly immerse myself in their symbolism. Arnoud gave us some very interesting side notes about life in the barracks while we were there, such as if there was so much as a coffee stain on the floor the whole barrack would be punished. It was hot in the summer and freezing in the winter, not to mention extremely overcrowded.

The most fascinating religious memorial was the Jewish one. The architecture created such a chilling effect. It is very difficult to explain the structure, but what I felt was darkness and cold all around me, closing in on me until finally when I came across a solemn beam of light leading to hope

The Jews were hopeless for much of their time at the camp. Many committed suicide by running into barbed wire. There is a structure in front of the main tourist building that is made up of skeletons contorted together to look like barbed wire as a memorial to those who chose to end their suffering.

Everyone was quiet and avoided eye contact when we toured gas chamber and crematorium. I felt so uncomfortable because what I had heard and what I had seen in movies was real. It was here. Death occurred right where I was standing. But Dachau didn’t use the gas chambers to execute mass murders because it didn’t have the power and according to Arnoud, prisoners heard what was happening in Auswitch and started to break what was used in the chambers.

We also watched an older movie on concentration camps in the tourist building. It tied everything together, and was especially powerful because of the real video and photos they used of what the Americans saw when they came to liberate the camps.

I wish we had hours to read the rest of what was available in the building because it was all so much. I love reading about the lives of the people who were involved, what brought them there as well as their stories. I tried looking for the names of my relatives who lived in Poland at the time in a big book of prisoners’ names. I found a few, so I took pictures, and I plan on showing them to my grandma to see if she can recognize any of them.

I know from now on I will be even more sensitive to genocide – because I know it occurs in many areas of the world, especially Africa. It is not much different from the torture these people went through. It was a solemn day, but it was a necessary day. I just wish that the world could see what I saw.