Poor But Sexy

Travelling to Berlin for the first time was truly an amazing experience. Everywhere you walked there was some historical event that happened there and because of Germany's history, it was usually something unpleasant. It was amazing to me how many memorial sites they had in the city. Each memorial served as a reminder to the people in Berlin about what occurred during WWII and the Holocaust. The city itself was not all that beautiful, and at first this surprised me considering that it is once again the capital of Germany. However, I had to understand that Germany was reunified only 26 years ago. This may seem like a long time, but the city is in a state of reconstruction because of the destruction that occurred during the war and the inability of Russia to rebuild and maintain East Berlin. I also got the opportunity to visit my first concentration camp which was one of many somber places we visited on our trip here. It is still unfathomable to me how someone could do what the Nazi regime did to the Jews, homosexuals, disabled, and gypsies. We learn about the holocaust in our history classes but because we learn in the US we don't get the opportunity to actually visit a camp. Visiting Sachsenhausen was a sobering experience. I stood on the same ground as thousands of people who had been persecuted and made to suffer. I walked on the foundation of the crematorium where people were systematically murdered and burned. I learned about the different ways guards in this certain camp treated the victims and just how terrible the situation was. Learning about it is one thing, but to actually go to a place where these atrocities occurred is something that I will never forget.