Teachers Travel to Berlin

On March 26, 15 teachers left for one week to travel to Berlin to learn about the history of the city and to study the Holocaust. The trip was sponsored and organized by Museum Without Walls and the Holocaust Center.

Kim Spradlin, a teacher from Eastmont High School in East Wenatchee, traveled on the trip and shared her experiences.

Ghosts of Berlin
By Kim Spradlin
Teacher, Eastmont High School, East Wenatchee
May 2009

From the moment I decided to travel to Berlin with the Museum Without Walls & the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, the anticipation of seeing this particular city overwhelmed me. I could barely control my curiosity as I contemplated what it would mean to travel to a place that held such a long and proud, yet tragically bitter history. I honestly didn’t know what to expect; I had no preconceived notions of what the city would feel like or look like, but I knew that visiting Berlin would affect me in an indescribable way.

It wasn’t long after arriving on March 26, 2009 before I took the first glance back over my shoulder. I don’t know why I chose just then to look back, but I did. I was not near Checkpoint Charlie or the cobble stone demarcation line of The Wall or the old Gestapo headquarters or anywhere remotely connected to Berlin’s history. I was just on a street near the hotel, thinking about where to go for dinner. This was the first of countless furtive glances that I caught myself making. It was as if I could just catch, out of the corner of my eye, ghosts of all I’d been taught.
While I was growing up, Berlin, East Germany was the symbol of the Cold War, a deadly no-man’s land divided by The Berlin Wall; and later, as I learned about WWII, it came to represent the epicenter of Hitler’s odious Nazi policies. But now I was walking there, in the place that had always represented evil and inspired fear in me. The Berlin I found myself wandering through and learning about was obviously more than the events of WWII and the Cold War, but nonetheless I caught myself often, suddenly looking around, wondering who was there, who might be watching or listening, and as I toured the city, seeing sights and meeting courageous individuals, I felt those echoes and ghosts all around me.

One such echo was the Geisterbahnhofs. Roughly, this translates to Ghost Stations. After the Berlin Wall was erected, some U-bahn (subway) stops were closed. Trains would pass through them, but because they were in East Berlin, the West Berlin trains couldn’t stop. The trains would slow and passengers could see armed guards on the platforms, but during the Cold War there was no stopping. The stations at Potzdamer Platz, Oranienburgstrasse, Nord Bahnhof, & Unter Den Linden were there, but not there. Ghosts. After reunification, the Geisterbahnhof stations were opened again and now they are perfect time capsules of design from the 1930’s through the 1960’s. While waiting at the Nord Bahnhof station, a lingering coldness to the air made me pause and look around, as if that, too, is a reminder of what once defined this city. The beautiful tile work, station name signs, and obsolete ticketing areas are all from that other time, all echoing remnants of the past.

Another poignant reminder for me was the collection of Stolpersteine or ‘stumbling blocks’ located around Berlin. Over 13,000 of these small stones have been placed all around Europe and mark the last known residence of Jews who were deported and killed by the Nazis. The small brass stones are engraved with the name, year of birth and the fate: mostly the date of deportation and of death. In Berlin, there are over 1,400 to stumble upon and there was always a clutch in my heart as I read the names and saw the dates and destinations for deportation. Auschwitz. Plaszow. Dachau. Sachsenhausen. It wasn’t until the last day of our trip that I noticed two such stones outside our hotel door, right under my feet everyday. Stopped in my tracks, my heart sank for these unexpected ghosts, these terrible and somber reminders of a tragic Berlin and I quickly looked around to be sure I was still there and it was still 2009.
Our group visited many powerful sights of historic Berlin, all of which touched me in different ways. Wannsee, where the meeting to orchestrate the Final Solution was held in a beautiful villa overlooking a glassy lake. The Resistance Memorial at the Bendler Block where the leaders of an unsuccesful assassination attempt on Hitler’s life were executed. A walking tour of the old Jewish neighborhood where we saw the remnants of a once active and purposeful community. The Berlin Wall Documentation Center where we were lucky enough to listen to Mr. Neumann narrate his experience of fleeing East Berlin and then helping to rescue over 80 more people.

The New Synagogue, Checkpoint Charlie, the concentration camps of Ravensbruck and Sachenhausen, the Topography of Terror, the Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden; all of these sights, as well as many others, caused me to catch my breath. Some made me seethe with anger, others caused my heart to ache with sadness, while still others caused tears to run down my face as I took in their beauty. But no matter what my personal reaction was, all the sights caused me to re-examine everything I’d previously learned, to look at these historical places with new eyes.

Although there were many moments where I felt myself looking back to the ghosts of Berlin’s past, what I also remember seeing is a city full of life and hope for the future. Numerous green parks dot the metropolis as children from all different races play in the grass. Artists have decorated the remaining segments of the Berlin Wall as a way to show that creativity and individual expression can never be completely oppressed. My fellow teachers and I walked safely through lively, multi-cultural neighborhoods every night on our way back to our hotel. And every day as we traveled to numerous sights and museums we saw different phases of major construction efforts across the skyline. Berlin is a city that is growing, and changing; a city struggling to come to grips with its past as it moves bravely forward into the bright future of the 21st century. I can’t say that I fell in love with Berlin, but it sparked my interest and garnered my respect. It’s a city that is moving forward, creating a unique tapestry out of the rubble of its past.