Ravensbrück, part I

Cindy arranged for us to take a tour of the women's concentration camp, Ravensbrück.  This camp is only 50 miles north of Berlin, but it took us about two hours to get there.  The direct line from Berlin to Fürstenberg/Havel was being repaired, so we had to find an alternative route.  When we got to the train station near our hotel (by the zoo), the clerk had trouble understanding where we wanted to go.  At one point, she was going to send us on a seven hour train ride.  Finally, Cindy asked her to show us a map and we were able to show her where we needed to go; we had a clear itinerary at last.  Unfortunately, we had  to make two changes--which was a bit intimidating.  We took the S-bahn to Berlin HbF and then a regular train to Birkenwerder.  From there, we had to catch a bus to Fürstenberg/Havel.  

Once at the "bus station" (really, it was more of a covered bus stop with a dirt floor), we had to figure out how to get to Ravensbrück.  We finally figured out that we weren't too far from the Fürstenberg/Havel train station.  We made our way there and noticed a taxi parked outside the station.  Entering the station was a bit like taking a trip back in time.  This place hadn't been updated in many, many decades.  The whole facility could do with a fresh paint job and updated furnishings.  It had a definite GDR-feel to it.

According to one of the online sites I reviewed, Himmler chose this site for the camp because it was both out-of-the-way and easy-to reach.  The area around Fürstenberg/Havel is lovely and wooded and Lake Schwedt separates the town and the camp.   

The Information Center at Ravensbrück is a modern building.  The women at the desk were very friendly and charming, and summoned our guide, Thomas.

Thomas gave us an overview of the camp using a 3D model.

We could see the homes of the commandants just up the hill from the Information Center.
 
And the houses where the guards lived are still in place.

Administrative offices are being re-purposed for the museum.

There are a number of other buildings on the periphery of the camp.

And yet no barracks remain at the camp site, only furrows in the ground.

Before the wall fell, the camp housed Soviet troops.  It was off limits for the west until reunification.
 
The first inmates at Ravensbrück when it opened in May of 1939 were German women characterized as anti-fascists.  The camp was designed for 2,000 prisoners, but toward the end of the war, following the evacuation of Auschwitz, 50,000 women were crowded into the camp (according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).  The women who passed through the camp came from 30 different countries, including (much to my surprise) some British prisoners.  There were more Polish women there than any other nationality group.

Ravensbrück has a wall of nations commemorating the nationalities of women imprisoned there.
Most of the inmates came from  Poland and the USSR, but also  included those who'd been declared "asocials,"such as the  Roma & Sinti, Jehovah's Witnesses and Jews.  

 

 Although none of the online sites I reviewed acknowledged this, lesbians were also sent to Ravensbrück because of their sexuality, or "deviance" as the Nazi state deemed it.  Our guide told us this was actually a controversy among the governors of the Ravensbrück museum.  While they recognize that lesbians were among the women imprisoned there, they claim that sexuality was not a rationale for arrest.  There is, however, evidence illustrating that this was indeed true in at least four instances.  One of the consequences of this failure to acknowledge the truth of lesbian imprisonment is that they are not recognized on the "wall of nations" as the Sinti, Roma and Communists are.

We learned that although this was considered a "women's" camp, there were barracks added for men, although in much smaller numbers.  There was also a youth camp.  Interestingly, many women who had been at Ravensbrück were unaware that men were there.  The men were assigned work at the crematorium, but were forced to sleep there sequestered from the women inmates and forbidden to reveal their secret work.  In 1945, the Germans built a gas chamber on the premises.  Over 2,000 women perished there--mostly Hungarian Jews, but also Russian and Polish women.  Their ashes rest in Lake Schwedt.

Ravensbrück supplied slave laborers who worked on the V1 and V2 rockets produced at the Sieman's factory near the camp.

According to the Virtual Jewish Library, the camp was a primary depository for confiscated clothing.  The inmates were employed at a factory where they reworked leather and textiles.  They made the striped "uniforms" for prisoners and fur coats for Waffen-SS  and Wehrmacht.  They were also employed in making carpets, as well as road construction and work for the officers.

The camp had to be enlarged four times to accommodate the growing population of inmates.  The women imprisoned there had to provide labor for those construction projects.

 

Thomas told us a story about the commandant's young son who, when he saw one of the prisoners assigned to work in his family's garden, said, "Get back to work or I'll have my father punish you."  Thomas noted that the guards at Ravensbrück were young and cruel.  One of the most despicable was a young woman named Dorothea Binz who started working at the camp when she was 19.  

Binz moved rapidly up the ranks as a guard.  She often tortured prisoners herself, rather than passing them on to other guards to do the job.  She also sent women who refused to go to the sick ward on to locked bunkers before being subjected to medical experiments.

Thomas told us that the guards' behavior was quite capricious.   At times they were benign, at others, unspeakably cruel.

When I first heard about Ravensbrück, I was a little confused about the presence of Jewish women at the camp.  Apparently, the Jewish women who were there initially were exterminated through a program called Operation Reinhard in 1942, a.k.a., the implementation of the Final Solution.  The women were sent to the death camps.   More Jewish women were sent to Ravensbrück by the end of the war.

There's so much to reflect on with respect to Ravensbrück, I've decided to finish my discussion in a second post.

 

Willkommen in Berlin

The last time I was in Berlin, I was 18 years old--that was over 40 years ago.  The city was divided by the Wall into East and West, and Checkpoint Charlie stations were posted along the wall. When my family and I visited East Berlin, it was like taking a trip through a time machine.  The area near the checkpoint site was littered with piles of rubble.  It looked like the war had just ended instead of 28 years earlier.

Flashforward 40 years, and ... I didn't recognize the city.

The Hotel Ansbach where we were staying was located near the embassy area of the city

near the Berlin Zoo

and the famous Tiergarten. 

On our first day there we really didn't have an agenda, so we just set off walking.  We made our way to the Victory Tower.  We walked along Klingelhoferstrasse alongside a number of the aforementioned embassies.  One of the first sights we encountered was this guy:

I learned that  the word "Berlin" derives "traditionally by folk-etymology from German Bär 'bear,' but likely from a Slavic source, cf. old Polabian berl-, birl- 'swamp,' in reference to the old city's location on low, marshy ground along the River Spree".  Regardless, someone decided the bear would be the symbol of Berlin, just as the flying pig is the symbol of Cincinnati and the Peanuts characters are the symbols of the Twin Cities.

The weather was drizzly, but we were reasonably comfortable.  We made it to the Victory Column and took a leisurely turn around the tower, taking photos of the Column itself, as well as the numerous statues of Prussian generals.

The German name is Siegessäule. The monument is 230 feet high and commemorates Prussia’s victory over France in 1871. The golden statue of goddess Victoria on top of the column is referred to as Goldelse ("Golden Elsi").  The Nazis moved the Victory Column from its original location in what is now the Platz der Republik to this venue, the Grosser Stern (Great Star).  If the column had remained in its original place it would have been destroyed by the American air raids.

On one side of the area surrounding the Siegessäule you can see a number of statues honoring Prussian dignitaries. 

This statue is of Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke,  a German Field Marshal and chief of staff of the Prussian Army for t30 years. 

The grandest statue (also listed on one website as Hideousbismarckmemorial.JPG) was of Otto van Bismarck.

Beneath the great man himself, from left to right:  Sibyl reading the book of history; Kneeling Atlas; Germania suppressing discord and rebellion.

The third statue is of Albrecht Theodor Emil Graf von Roon who, together with Bismarck and Moltke, made up the three great Prussiain generals of the 19th century.

We looked up after taking our photos and saw an "on/off" bus.  Since, as previously mentioned, we didn't really have an agenda, we made a dash for it and got on board--and just in time.  The rain started and didn't seem likely to stop any time in the near future.  This bus was enclosed (in contrast to the open-bus we rode in London) and offered a recorded tour.  We actually covered a lot of ground.

One site identifies the Charlottenburg Palace as the most magnificent palace in Berlin.  This would be a site I'd like to visit upon my return to Berlin.

The Kaufhaus des Westens (English "Department Store of the West"), is the second-largest department store in Europe; trumped only by Harrods in London.  This is not at the top of my list.  I'm not much of a shopper, and I've taken a vow of being tschotske free.

There were many interesting sculptures throughout the city which seemed very modern.

 When we saw Checkpoint Charlie, we decided to get off the bus and check out the museum.

The museum reminded me of Schindler's Factory.  It was jam-packed with exhibits.  The lower level had a display on Raoul Wallenberg, the great Swedish statesman who worked so hard to rescue Hungarian Jews.  The display recounted the mystery behind Wallenberg's detainment by, and death at the hands of, the Soviets.  Wallenberg is someone I'd like to focus on in a future Holocaust commemoration.  Most of the exhibits dealt with escapes from the east to the west.  There were so many exhibits with stories showing trunks, suitcases, and other means of leaving the east, it became a bit repetitious.

We had hoped to meet up with a friend from Duluth at the end of the afternoon, but we weren't able to connect with him.  We walked over to the Jewish museum, and then realized it was too much museum for the time we had available.  We ended up getting back on the on/off bus, which we rode until it quit, near the Brandenburg Gate.

The Brandenburg Gate was a former city gate, rebuilt in the 18th century in the neoclassical style. 

It is on the western side of the city very near the Tiergarten.  As we approached, we encountered two young men dressed in the uniforms of the Soviet Union and the U.S. selling photo ops.  We saw similar set-ups throughout the city, particularly by segments of the "Wall".  We had a couple of snaps with them and then proceeded through the park. 

Looking at the map we collected from our on/off bus tour, it seemed like a manageable walk to our hotel.  However, as is evident in the shot above, it was dark.  We didn't get too far in to the park before we realized that it was a little too dark, and more than a little scary.  We started looking for a way out of the park to a busier street.  Unfortunately, we hit a few dead ends.  Finally, we found a path by a busy street and started breathing a little easier.

Along the way, we saw the Richard Wagner monument in the Tiergarten.

By the time we made it back to our hotel, Cindy's "dogs" were barking!  She made it very clear that she was NOT interested in walking any distance for dinner.  Fortunately for us, there was a Thai restaurant right next to our hotel. 

We noticed that there were a great many "locals" coming in to the restaurant, so we saw that as a good sign.  The food was beautifully presented and very tasty.
It was nice to be able to head just next door after we finished.

Unfortunately, I got sooooooo sick about 90 minutes after we finished.  I had managed to stay pretty healthy through most of my time in Europe (two bad colds notwithstanding), but I had managed to avoid stomach distress until this moment.  I had forgotten the sage advice of my Worcester friend Luciana, who had warned me not to eat prawns on the continent.  Believe me, I should have LISTENED!

Schindler's Factory

As we prepared to leave Krakow, we found ourselves regretful that we hadn't planned more time in this lovely city.  I've characterized the "look" of the city as "shabby chic".  In the parts of the city we visited, there's still an element of the "olive drab" demeanor I associate with  the Communist era (rightly or wrongly).  Still, there was a definite charm that exuded from the buildings but, more importantly, from the people.  Obviously, I'm generalizing.  We found the people of Prague to be much more taciturn.  It seemed to us that the people of Krakow were more solicitous and pleasant.

The night we returned from Auschwitz, we decided to take a walk around the Old City.  We hadn't really had anything to eat all day, so we went looking for a good restaurant (particularly since our first meal in Krakow was so disappointing).  Cindy had a taste for pierogis, so we looked for a Polish-centric restaurant.  We found a lovely place right on the square of the Old City Center.  Cindy ordered cheese pierogis; I ordered sausage and mushroom.  They were delicious.  We plowed through them in no time whatsoever.  The restaurant itself was charming, so we spent  time looking at their Christmas decorations. 

From dinner, we wandered just a bit further and found a lovely place to have dessert.  It was the kind of place that reminded me of the Konditorei I used to frequent when I lived in Stuttgart.  We each ordered different things.  It was glorious.  Unfortunately, I didn't get good photos of what these beautiful desserts looked like, but you can click on the highlighted word "konditorei" above and see for yourself the kind of thing I'm referencing.  It. Was. Heaven!

We waddled  back to our digs and settled in for the evening. 

Our last day in Krakow was a little stressful.  We decided to check out Schindler's Factory, so we found a tourist office to get directions.  We took a streetcar and got off at an intersection deeper in to the city.  Frankly, we were a bit turned around.  We probably took too long to get there, but we did eventually find our destination.

I think I was expecting a simpler set up that what we found.  The exterior of the factory including photos of Schindler's people. 

 I looked for a photo of someone I remembered from the film, and then I saw this one of Helena Hirsz.

The clerks at the factory were more like the Czechs than the other Poles we met.  We paid for our tickets and then took off, each on our own ways. 

The tour started with a film which included testimony of people who had worked at the factory.  This film was actually quite long, and I didn't feel I could stay for the whole thing.  At this point my inner control freak took over and I reminded Cindy that we couldn't stay all that long. 

The factory was really more about Krakow under the Nazis than it was an homage to Schindler's factory and his mission to save Jews.  This was interesting and well documented. 

My concern with this site was how densely packed it was.  There was so much at every station, it was hard to comprehend its totality.  It wasn't until we reached the end of the tour on the top floor of the factory that we saw references to Krakow's Jews (beyond the film), or for that matter, to Schindler.  Visitors to the factory, walk through a re-creation of ghetto living quarters.  There were plaster statues of people crowded in to those ghetto rooms.  From there, visitors find their way in to Schindler's office.  Across from Schindler's desk is a display of the enamelware crammed into a plexiglass cube. 

I had tried to time  my tour through the factory at what I thought was a fairly quick pace.  I came out on the ground-level, looking for Cindy.  I walked around for a while, and then finally I hear, "Where WERE you?"  Cindy popped out from nowhere.  She indicated she had been waiting for about an hour.  I felt so guilty having prodded her to make quick work of the tour.  It was curious to think that we had to follow essentially the same path, but we never saw each other until that moment.

We made it back to the trolley with much greater ease than we had getting to our initial destination.  We hightailed it to our hotel and then trotted off to the train station.  The clerk told me that my tickets were wrong--they had the incorrect departure time listed.  Fortunately, the correct departure time was later than the stated time. 

Our train to Berlin headed first to Warsaw.  It was nice to leave while it was still light because we could see the countryside.  We shared the compartment with an interesting couple.  The man was from Cyprus, and probably in his mid-40s.  His companion was a young woman (early 20s) from either Russia or the Ukraine.  The man was very solicitous and assisted us on quite a few occasions.  He bought Cindy a coffee, and helped us with our bags.  He was a real mensch. 

We had to leave at the first Warsaw station.  We had a moment of confusion thinking we should stay on the same track, but fortunately there was a Polish man who was also headed to Berlin and realized that we needed to be on the next platform.  We made it with ease, which was a relief. 

Our next travel companion was a pleasant young woman.  She gave us her card and told us some interesting facts about her life and left us well before we made it to the German border.

We decided to have dinner on the train.  We decided to have pierogis again, and we weren't disappointed.  Our train arrived in Berlin before midnight.  We caught a cab without difficulty and headed to our hotel.

It all worked out great.

Summer Vacay Part II

Driving I-90 proved to be a surprising experience.  The snow gates in South Dakota were bleak reminders of the winter to come, but they took on an even more threatening quality once we hit Wyoming.  The signs read:  "Turn back and return to Gillette when lights are flashing.  Do not proceed."  OMINOUS!  Obviously, it would be quite the inconvenience anywhere, but in Wyoming it's so desolate, the thought of being stranded on a highway in northeastern Wyoming would be a tad terrifying.

We were surprised to see so many hitchhikers right on the freeway, but the most startling sight was the hitchhiker outside Missoula, Montana stretched out perpendicular to the road. There were more hitchhikers outside Missoula than any of the other places we visited.  We even recognized one guy we had seen in Missoula coming off the freeway when we stopped for dinner in Idaho.  I always thought that hitchhikers were restricted to the on-ramp, but if that's the case the law's not being enforced.  Hitchhiking was very common when I was young.  In fact, my husband had done quite a lot of hitchhiking when he was in his early twenties (Minneapolis to San Francisco, Tucson to Minneapolis, etc.).  I, myself, hitchhiked only once in my life and it was in Germany, of all places.  Needless to say, there is no way we would have allowed (or perhaps more appropriately, approved) our kids hitchhiking.

Our trip out of Montana was noteworthy for another reason beyond hitchhiking.  Moving through the Bitterroot Forest from Missoula to Spokane we encountered extensive road construction slowing our progress, but also a forest fire!  As we approached,  I  noticed what I thought was a thick cloud, but then I saw a woman stopped alongside of the road taking a photograph.  At that point I realized she was snapping a shot of thick smoke. As we moved along the road, we saw that the helicopters were dipping buckets in the river and pouring their watery contents on the fire. Fortunately, the fire was located deep enough in the forest that we were able to pass through the danger zone without incident.  Still, we were able to see flames.

The route from Missoula to Couer d'Alene is some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen.  Unfortunately, I was behind the wheel the whole way so I couldn't take any pictures.  The pass on the western side of Montana/eastern side of the Idaho panhandle is spectacular.

By the time we got to Couer d'Alene we were ready for supper.  We found a place that was usually open for breakfast and lunch, but as luck would have it, had started serving burgers and beers for dinner Wednesdays through Saturdays during July.  I'm not a big burger person, but this was a great burger.  I wish I had taken a photo of the place so I could recommend it.

After driving I-90 through Spokane, we started looking for lodging.  The motels alongside I-90 in Spokane itself had no vacancies, so we ended up going five miles east off the highway to Cheney (pronounced Chee-knee), Washington.  The Holiday Inn Express was by far, the best place we stayed.  What a difference from the cheapo Comfort Inn in Brandon, SD (holes in the curtains) and wayyyy overpriced Super 8 in Gillette!  One key difference between HIE and the other two hotels could be felt in the quality of bedding and towels.  HIE had higher thread count sheets and plush towels.  Super 8 had ridiculously thin  and rough wash cloths and towels the size of postage stamps.  On the other hand, Super 8 was generally $20-$60 cheaper than the competition in most communities.  We had been filling up the tank at least twice a day, to the tune of $3.85 to $4.05 per gallon, so cheaper motel rates were helpful.  Ultimately, rough, thin washcloths and holey curtains weren't that big a deal.


The trip through eastern Washington was pretty blank.  Our goal was to enter eastern Oregon by way of I-82 at Umatilla.  It was all rather desert-like until we hit The Dalles (it's an inland port city in Northern Oregon, but the word "dalles" means rapids).  At that point, we could see Mt. Hood in the distance.

There was a lovely day spa at The Dalles which proved to be a great stop for lunch. 

At that point, we thought we were pretty close to our ultimate destination.  Such was not the case.  We managed to hit I-5 South just in time for Thursday afternoon rush hour. 

Finally, we made it to Jake and Alison's house.

They have since left this abode for another apartment.

We checked in to our motel (yet another Super 8) and then headed down the path by the Willamette River behind the motel on our way to one of the micro-breweries in Corvallis.

We ended the evening with a wonderful Indian dinner at one of Jacob and Alison's favorite restaurant.  It was a long, but lovely day.