6 Juli- Day 12

Today’s class was our culture class. After talking a bit about the history of Berlin’s city wall, the 18? 16? 17? City gates that they had. (Brandenburger Dor included), we took a nice little break, and met for our second “Wednesday excursion.” Today’s trip was to Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous of the east-west border checkpoints. There we had an old man, who grew up in a concentration camp, give us a tour. Some of these escapes were completely unbelievable. Seeing the actual stuff was pretty crazy… it just shows how real these escapes were… and how tiny those spaces were. I can’t imagine being locked in a suitcase for hours, not knowing if I was going to be found out. So inventive. Some of these ideas were just amazing—I guess it’s true what they say… “necessity is the mother of invention.”

Literally invention. The one on the left is the water thing that a man created.

The one on the right is a modern day one.

Somebody got his entire family to escape with these things.

After their escape was discovered the next morning (all that was left was the cable), they DDR upped security.

The square bullets (designed to create more painful wounds or something) that the automatic machines at the border shot.

When the tour was over, we wandered around for a little bit. Then, we went to go find our mysterious homework assignment… “T4” Turns out that T4 stands for Tiergartenstrasse 4(literally “animal garden” street-- actually a huge section of park that used to be the Electors of Brandenburg’s hunting grounds. At 4 Animal garden street was the “Charitable Foundation for Cure and Institutional Care”… Which was basically the headquarters for the Euthanasia Program (Aktion T4) instituted during the third Reich.

Basically, people who were mentally or physically handicapped were killed by the thousands through medication, starvation, gas chambers, etc. They portrayed it as a mercy killing, and one that would save the nation money, essentially. It also was part of the start of the “racial hygiene” policy, that certain people were “bodily and mentally not sound” should not be able to pass those traits down to future generations. They killed at least 70,000 people there, and most likely tens of thousands more.

It’s an interesting monument. Or lack thereof. The building is long gone, but there’s no new buildings where it was. Instead, there’s a placque and an info sign there, telling what happened, as well as a metal sculpture.

The memorial plaque, and the sculpture in the background on the left.

It took us an impossibly long time to get there, and it was swelteringly hot. After not finding it, we went to the Sony Center, in Potsdamer Platz, which is one of the coolest buildings that I’ve entered, but not technically entered? There we ate ice cream.

"Inside" the Sony Center. This is the roof. Under it is a huge fountain, restaurants, trees etc.

Went back home to study for the quiz that you’re gonna hear about next.