Today was another busy day for our trip and started off nice and early! At 8:00 am, we started off with a complimentary breakfast at the hotel. From there we fueled up and went on to our walking tour of Berlin. Accompanied by our wonderful tour guide Manfred, we traveled back in time to look at famous sites during Germany in the Third Reich (1933-1945). Some of the places that we visited were the Reichstag (German Parliament), Brandenberg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall, the Neue Synagogue, Humboldt University (where the book burning took place) and many other sites! The kids learned a lot about what Germany was like under the control of the Nazi Party and snapped some beautiful pictures of all the different places that we went to. After some reflecting on the different types of landmarks we saw on the trip, Emre Ergüder talked about one site that he found awesome, Checkpoint Charlie. "While on the tour, we walked by checkpoint Charlie which was very interesting. Checkpoint Charlie was very cool considering it was a place where World War III almost started between the United States and Soviet Union. The walking tour allowed all of us to walk around the wonderful city of Berlin and see so many important historical sites!
After the tour we stopped for lunch at the Augustiner am Gendarmenmarkt where we had some authentic German cuisine. We all had our fill of soft pretzels and mustard, sausages, and veal schnitzel. Everyone was a happy camper with the meals they had and the atmosphere of the restaurant. Dan Sawyer was super impressed by his lunch, "Also, after our factual filled tour, we had a very relaxed and nice late lunch, as some people got very famous grilled sausages, and other people enjoyed the fried Schnitzel veal that was off the charts!" After we filled our stomachs we went off to our next tour at the Topographie of Terror where the students looked at the exhibit of the Gestapo (state police) and the SS. The exhibit had a lot of great information and documents on atrocities carried out by both of the Nazi groups. After a long day out of the hotel and walking around Berlin, our night had just begun. To kick off the night we had dinner at the Barcelona restaurant, which is a tapas restaurant right by Checkpoint Charlie. The kids ate very well with a meal of either steak and chicken with potatoes and vegetables! To end the night we made a stop to the Berliner Fernsehturm, which is a TV tower located in the center of Berlin. The tv tower is 368 m high and we got to travel to the observation area of the tower. We got to see Berlin at night which was really cool to see! As we made our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the supermarket right across the street from where we are staying. We picked up some quick snacks for the train ride to Warsaw, Poland tomorrow. We are ready and excited to continue to the second section of our trip as we have a 6 hour train ride to Warsaw! Check out the "Photos" section for more pictures of our 2nd day in Berlin!!
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Today was a long day for everyone on this trip. We departed from Forman at 12:30 fro Bradley International Airport. From there we started our ten hour journey to Berlin. Two flights later we finally arrived in Berlin, where the weather has been sunny and in the mid 50s! After landing at around 10:45, we jumped into taxis from the airport and headed to the Schultz Hotel to drop our bags off and get settled in. While at the hotel, the group had a quick lunch and got to our first tour of the trip. We traveled to the Memorial of Murdered Jews in Europe where we had our private tour guide give us the background on the memorial and engaged in conservations with our kids. Students learned about the history of the National Socialist party and the treatment of Jews in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. Not only did we experience the unique beauty of the monument with its thousands concrete blocks, some reaching up to 13 feet, but also we got the chance to see some exhibits in the downstairs area of the memorial. Luke Fitzpatrick talked about what the outside of the memorial was like: "I really liked the way that the memorial was built because it wasn’t really like any memorial that I have been to before. I thought that the memorial was really cool because it had these stone slabs that were all the same shape but different heights. I didn’t appreciate the beauty of the memorial until you walked through it.
In the exhibit the students had the chance to read letters sent from people in concentration camps to their families, hear stories about the growing violence against Jews, and look at different memorials around the world for victims of the Holocaust. Travis Zuckerman talked about what it was like for him going through the memorial: "After seeing the memorial in the outside area, we decided to go inside to check the rest out. The inside really showed a lot as it talked about what Nazi Germany really did to the Jews. It even showed actual letters from Jewish people who were in concentration camps writing to their family what was happening to them. The letters really impacted me, because it was crazy reading them, and even crazier what was going on that the people were seeing from the soldiers. The inside part of the memorial was a huge part of today, as it showed a lot of history" After spending a great deal of time at the Memorial, it was time for the kids to have some down time after such a long day of traveling. We finally got back to the hotel and some laid down and napped, while others hopefully called their parents to update them! We capped off the night by going to Play Off for dinner, which is an American Sports Bar that is right outside of our hotel. The long day for most of the students is finally over! Now time to get ready for an exciting day tomorrow!! Check out the "Photos" section for more pictures of our first day in Berlin!! Hello all and welcome to our blog for the Winterim 2019 trip: the Holocaust in Europe. This blog will be updated daily by the trip leaders (Michael Grassi, Caitlin LaSota, and John Strawson), as well as the students who are traveling with us. This historical trip is taking our students on a journey through Europe to visit important sites during one of the worst events in human history. Along our trip we will be going to Berlin, Warsaw, Auchwitz-Birkenau and Dachau concentration camps, the Oskar Schindler museum, and many more historical sites. This site will be posting daily updates and photos about our trip and what the students have been doing. Below is our destination list.
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