Day 13, 14, and 15

Day 13
At sea, no sun, read books, ate Tiny Sandwiches.

Day 14
Woke up already docked in Amsterdam. After breakfast, we said goodbye to the Constellation and headed for the train station. We hopped a train for a short 20 minute ride, then caught another train to Berlin. We settled in as this ride would be over 6 hours. Relatively uneventful except for two suspicious dudes that I was keeping an eye on. When the ticket guy came into our train car, these guys got up and left. It was obvious they didn't have any tickets and were trying to elude the ticket taker. Guy thought he heard them speaking in Russian. So anyway, this one guy kept getting up and down and going to the bathroom (for a very long time) then go to his bag and dig around and then back to his seat.  Not five minutes later he was back his bag. This went on for about 2 hours. I watch too many movies, because I had him planting bombs and stuff on the train. One time after a very long bathroom break, he sat a bit closer to us. He started scratching his head and flakes of dandruff the size of Kansas were flying off. I noticed the skin on the back of his hands were peeling as well. I'm obviously repulsed. So he and his younger friend (maybe his son) happened to doze off and guess who nabbed him....the ticket lady (she was a rough mama, too). So she talks to the son and then flaky dude. Flaky dude opens his wallet and says credit card but they say a few words and she walks away. So I said to Guy "how can they let them stay?" and Guy says they are going to toss them off at the next stop. Sure enough, at the next stop 3 train employees (one that is obviously the bouncer) escorts them to the door. After they were gone I could relax a bit and we watched a movie and dozed a bit. I felt bad for the pretty young blonde who sat in the seat where flaky dude shed 16% of his body.

After we got to Berlin and settled into our hoted (Westin Grand Berlin - very nice) we walked around the corner to an outside cafe that served Italian food. I had one of my favorites, gnocchi sorrentino, and Guy had a pizza. We were tired and felt kinda gross from the train day, so we opted for a quick meal and the chance to actually sit and surf the internet without the "clock" ticking like on the boat. Germany was playing soccer on TV and there was a party in the Garden area where our balcony opens up to. The TV downstairs was about 3 seconds behind the one in our room. We could predict the celebrating. :)  The pillows on the bed are fabulous and in hopes of a good night's sleep, we were having a tough time getting the room cool. Guy overheard that until they have outside temps over 18 degrees C, they maybe don't turn the air on. We'd keep the balcony doors open all night, but the pigeons are not shy.

Day 15 Berlin
Good morning Berlin. 7:30 wake up call was not necessary as we were already awake. We got ready and headed out to meet our tour because we weren't 100% for sure where to go. We passed a bakery and popped in for some danishes and water, which we ate on the way. We found the train station pretty easily (not the one we came in on) and found our meeting spot. We had time to spare so I walked around the market that was just opening up. They had everything from underwear to crepes. Will explore more tomorrow when we go back to meet for our walking tour.

Our group for the English speaking tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was about 22. We wished we had the nice ear pieces and remotes we had on our other tours as we struggled to hear Pen (our tour guide - short for Penelope) but we managed ok. We hopped our train to the town of Oranienburg where the camp lies between it and the next town. In the time of the camp, it was in a wooded area, but was not secret as the main road between the two towns went directly by it. Pen says of course people knew it was a prison, but if they really knew what was going on inside is not known. Today houses have sprung up all around the camp, but was not the case when it was occupied.

As we entered the camp, it was overwhelmingly huge. The buildings are mostly gone and markers on the ground show the layout of where things stood. Some buildings were recreated with original materials, but some places, like the pathology/mortuary, walls, and guard towers still stand. There was a map of the layout of the camp which Pen showed us what all was there at that time. The prisoners were only in a small part as the rest of the camp had SS officer training, a factory, barracks for the SS officers among other things. She says it was never reported that anyone ever escaped the camp. Too many obstacles between them and freedom. This prison camp was not the first concentration camp, but was the first architecturally designed camp. The architect was later fired because they wanted a camp that the prisoner area was expandable and after it was built, they were basically stuck with what they had. Why they couldn't see that in the plans I have no idea.

As we walked around the camp, Pen explained what all the areas were. Only toward the last few years of the war were Jews put in this camp, but it was holding political prisoners, homosexuals, disabled Germans, etc. Later came Jews, but they built them a separate area.  In the buildings that were supposed to hold 150 prisoners, toward the end were holding 400 men, often 3 to a tiny bed. I won't go into the details of everything, but I just have to say that in the mornings they gave them 30 minutes to get outside for roll call. So 400 men had to share only 8 toilets.  If they were not out in time they were punished.  They also had to drag the dead out so the count would not be short. At this place they used the prisoners as workers, logging trees and for other things like testing shoes they were designing for German soldiers. Pen said they gave them shoes that were often to small and were forced to run and walk in them all day long (up to 40 kilometers a day). This on starvation rations.

I think one of the saddest stories was one she told of them at roll call. They did this twice a day, morning and night. One night for some reason they wanted to punish them as a group and made them stand at attention all night. This was in February where the temperatures are often below zero. All they had on were their cotton "pajamas". Many died that night. In the morning they made them go to work as usual. The stories....my heart was breaking.

This camp was regularly visited by the Red Cross and the Media to report back on how the prisoners were being treated. So they had things set up to make it not look so bad. For instance, there were several buildings used as hospitals. They kept one for "show" that looked like the prisoners had good care. The other three buildings they had were full of prisoners they were experimenting on (in all kinds of horrid ways)

Since this was not a death camp, but a concentration camp, they didn't have a gas chamber until near the end of the war. It was small and was an add-on. Most of the prisoners they wanted to exterminate were shot or trucked out. Around the camp, memorial stones were set on places that were mass graves, often just ashes as they did have a way to cremate the bodies there.

They also had an area where "Special" high-profile prisoners were kept. One of them being Stalin's oldest son who had be captured. They tried to trade him for a German official the Russians had, but apparently Stalin was ashamed of his son because he allowed himself to be captured (he was supposed to have committed suicide first). So Stalin refused to trade, he said he had lots of other sons. His son died there a few weeks later.

The camp was liberated by the Russians, but the majority of the prisoners were ordered out on a death march as the Allies approached. Many died before they saw freedom. Most of the ones they found were the prisoners in those experimental hospitals who were apparently forgotten as they were in a hurry to get out. Next to the hospital was the building where pathology was done. They were supposed to have given each prisoner a death certificate and autopsy upon their deaths (to cover their booties and to have something to show the Red Cross). They had several guys in there that were not doctors and they taught them where to make the cuts, for an appearance of an autopsy, and gave them a long list of reasons for death and they could just pick one.

Next to the mortuary was a brothel. This is a little known fact about concentration camps. These were for the prisoners. In this camp, they were expected to work. As the years passed and the prisoners got weaker and weaker, the production went down. As a reward they gave them points that they could use for more food, luxuries and of course the brothel. These women were young prisoners as well who were promised release after 6 months of prostitution. This of course was a lie. Even well known camps like Auschwitz had one. This is a new topic for holocaust scholars as more and more information is discovered on these brothels.

We had less than 4 hours in this camp. To see it all would have taken days. Guy thought is was sad that such a place was such a busy tourist attraction. True, but we agreed that it is important not to forget these events and in a way pay respects to those who suffered so greatly. It is almost too much to comprehend how many people died in places like this. We've all heard the stories, but to see it in person makes it more real.

On our train ride back we had a bit of a delay. There was a medical emergency in a train ahead of us and we couldn't go anywhere just yet. We sat for awhile but Pen gathered us all up and says when this happens (basically someone had a heart attack on the train ahead of us and they had to wait for the paramedics to work on them) it takes at least 20 minutes or longer. So we headed out of the train station and walked to the town where we caught a trolly that took us to the next train station. We then hopped that train to head home from another direction. Pen walked around to each person to see where their final destination would be and helped each of us find our way back home. We opted to get off early and walk back (ok, maybe it had something to do with the market I saw outside) but it was a nice walk back to the hotel.

Earlier we had asked Pen about a good authentic German restaurant we could go to and she wrote down a few names for us. I Googled them back in the room and we chose the one with the best reviews. We cleaned up, then hopped a cab to the restaurant. It was packed. We sat at a table with to open seats, but already had 3 people sitting at it. Not only did they put us with other people, but they said they had a reservation for our seats at 8pm and we had to be gone by then. Lucky for us we are fast eaters and we were done in plenty of time before the other guests arrived.  This is even ordering dessert. Our food was indeed fabulous and looked to be pretty authentic. I had smoked porkchops with potatoes and sauerkraut. Guy had perch and mashed potatoes. Mine was better I think. We finished off this perfect meal with an amazing apple strudel and vanilla ice cream.

After dinner we decided to walk back. It was a beautiful evening and to walk off some of that food was a good idea. We quickly found a familiar street and window shopped all the way back to the hotel (which ended up easily being walking distance). Time to shower and get some rest for tomorrow, which will be a 4 hour walking tour and maybe boat tour after that. The weather was overcast today and pretty chilly. But tomorrow promises to be sunny and warmer. We shall see!

Notes of the day...construction going on everywhere and the price of taking a cab is very reasonable.

xoxoxoxox