Sunday 19th February

Continued…

We got to the station in good time and found our platform, after that it got confusing. We were trying to work out what carriage we needed to get on. Half of the train was going to Copenhagen (I think) and the other to Warsaw. We needed the Warsaw part of the train. 90% of the staff were not helpful at all, I was trying to locate our carriage and this hysterical woman kept shouting 'BERLIN' at everyone. In the end we got on the train and walk our way down to carriage 174 we managed to find it after asking a helpful member of staff. We had seats, these aren't comfortable at all. We stopped at several stations along the way, I think the German police came on to do a 'spot' check of the train. They didn't look friendly at all! But they didn't bother us so it was ok. We have set our alarm for 3:30am so we get plenty of time to get up and get off the train for Berlin.

The train stopped for 20 minutes or so at a random station, the conductor came round saying we should be moving in 20 minutes due to an accident at the cross road involving a car. Pretty bad it think it was. We shared a 6 seat berth carriage with a German father with his son. Stu pointed out that the son looked like the German boy from Charlie and the Chocolate factory! It was very amusing!

Monday 20th February

As we were delayed by only 30 minutes (puts a shame on British transport) we arrive in Berlin at 5am not 4:30am, not that it really made any difference from us! We lost our bearings, we came into the main station and it was pretty much dead. Even McDonalds wasn't open! We walked around trying to find where we needed to go, the hostel was a 45 minute walk away so we didn't want to go too wrong and have to turn around. We tried to find the bus that the hostel told us to get, but we couldn't find it either! In the end we asked a taxi driver who said it was only €10. We thought, screw this lets get it! Apparently we got a taxi at the 'drop off' which upset another taxi man at the 'pick up'. I had no idea what the difference was so we went with this second taxi man as he had stolen Stu's bag!

The hostel staff were amazing at let us crash in the lounge and have a shower! We decided we needed to fill the day so we wouldn't fall asleep! We joined the free tour of Berlin for 3.5 hours.

We meet the tour at the Brandenburg Gate; our tour guide was Jonny from Nottingham in the UK. He was pretty cool guy and made fun of the Germans and French, as we went along!

We started at the Brandenburg Gate; it has a woman, Victoria the goddess of Victory, carrying a spear riding a chariot. She originally held a wreath of oak leaves until the Germans stole her back from the French and they replaced the wreath of oak leaves with a new symbol of Prussian power, the Iron Cross. The square where the gate is called, Pariser, it is named after theFrenchcapitalParisin honour of the Allied occupation of Paris in 1814. So the gate means 'Victory on Paris' which is rather amusing as I don't think the Germans won much after that!

We walked through the gate and saw theReichstag building, this was built for the Parliament of Germany, but got damaged by fire in 1933 and became disused. Historians aren't quite sure the reasons why but think a man, Van der Lubbe,council communist started the fire, he was killed/hanged for this fire only to be pardon a couple of centuries later, which won't really make any difference to him.

This fire was used as evidence by theNazisthat theCommunistswere beginning a plot against the German government. Adolf Hitler, who had been sworn in asChancellor of Germanyfour weeks before, on 30 January, urged PresidentPaul von Hindenburgto pass an emergency decree to counter the "ruthless confrontation of the Communist Party of Germany".With civil liberties suspended, the government instituted mass arrests of Communists, including all of the Communist parliamentary delegates. With them gone and their seats empty, the Nazis went from being apluralityparty to themajority; subsequent elections confirmed this position and thus allowed Hitler to consolidate his power. (Sorry for the history lesson but it is quite interesting and I learnt a lot!).

After we walked the Holocaust Memorial, the memorial is hundreds of cube stones ranging in heights. Walking through it got darker and the stones got taller, the highest was about 4.5 meters roughly. It was very different from normal memorials, there were no signs or statues or anything like that. The designer wanted you to take you own interpretation of it. We walked over to a set of residential buildings across the street that looked kind of dull, these were for the Gestapo. After the war the Soviets found Hitler's bunker which is where the car park was. They tried to blow this up 3 times; apparently it was bomb proof…who would have guessed? The upper half of the bunker was destroyed, but the lower half isn't. This is where they found Hitler and his girlfriend bodies. The then burnt them across the street, but no one knows the exact location. I don't think there is any plans to 'open' this up to the public at all at the moment.

We walked to the Luftwaffe HQ which was the home of Hitler's air force, which Germany signed a treaty after the 1st world war saying they were not allowed an air force. However 'we' (the world I guess) let them have this air force to hopefully prevent another war as we had allowed them an air force (whose idea was that?!). This has been long out of action and is no possible the 2nd hated thing in Berlin…a tax office!!!

Across the street is the last remains of the Berlin wall. The reason it is still here is because behind the other side was the SS HQ, which you didn't want to go near. Jonny told us many escape stories regarding the wall. The wall consisted of 2 walls with a 10 meter gap in between where armed guards/dogs/tanks etc used to guard for escapes!

Round the corner was Check Point Charlie, it's called this as it was check point C and in the phonetic alphabet the 3rd letter is C, Charlie. It has since been restored from the war to what it would originally look like. On the night of the fall of the Berlin wall, there was only 2 guards they had orders to shoot if any one tries to escape, however a mob of 1000's with only 10 bullets between them had no choice but to open the gates!

We stopped for lunch shortly which was good as it was a little chilly out and I decided to wear stupid shoes!!

We carried on to visit the Nazi Book Burning Memorial (it looks nothing like Indian Jones, which was upsetting!). It is in front of the University that Einstein used to teach at, but left before the Nazi's came. The memorial is under ground with a little window to look through. It was a room filled with empty white bookcases, enough space for the 30,000 books that were burnt here. Rather interesting!

We walked around the corner to look at 2 cathedrals located at Gendarmenmarkt square. The first one, the French one was built first to invite more people to Berlin as they had built a cathedral for the French. The Germans complained as wanted one built, this was built opposite the French cathedral to mirror image the French. However the Germans built theirs higher than the French cathedral. Our last stop for Museum Island, which is what it says on the tin (Germans aren't really original in their names). There are several museums here, the old museum, the new museum (which was built as the old museum ran out of space!) the old national gallery, Bode Museum and Pergamon Museum, which houses the gates for the hanging gardens of Babylon.

Jonny explained more about the fall of the Berlin Wall which explains is pretty well here:

"Günter Schabowski, the party boss in East Berlin and the spokesman for the SED Politburo, had the task of announcing this; however he had not been involved in the discussions about the new regulations and had not been fully updated.Shortly before a press conference on 9 November, he was handed a note announcing the changes, but given no further instructions on how to handle the information. These regulations had only been completed a few hours earlier and were to take effect the following day, so as to allow time to inform the border guards—however, nobody had informed Schabowski. He read the note out loud at the end of the conference. One of the reporters—by most accounts,NBC'sTom Brokaw--asked when the regulations would take effect. After a few seconds' hesitation, Schabowski assumed it would be the same day based on the wording of the note and replied, "As far as I know effective immediately, without delay". After further questions from journalists he confirmed that the regulations included the border crossings towards West Berlin, which he had not mentioned until then."

This press conference led to the East Germans gathering at the wall and at the six checkpoints between East and West, demanding that border guards immediately open the gates.The surprised and overwhelmed guards made many hectic telephone calls to their superiors about the problem. At first, they were ordered to find the "more aggressive" people gathered at the gates and stamp their passports with a special stamp that barred them from returning to East Germany—in effect, revoking their citizenship. However, this still left thousands of people demanding to be let through "as Schabowski said we can." It soon became clear that no one among the East German authorities would take personal responsibility for issuing orders to use lethal force, so the vastly outnumbered soldiers had no way to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens. Finally, at 10:45 pm, the guards finally yielded, opening the checkpoints and allowing people through with little or no identity checking.

There you go, Berlin's brief history! I hope it all makes sense, it's still buzzing around my head!

We went to a local pub with Jonny called 'Pub'; this has to be possibly the best pub I have been to. You sit down and the bar staff hand you empty glasses as the beer taps are right on your table. You serve your own beer!!!! It calculates how much beer you have poured so you can pay for it at the bar. You can also order food and other drinks with this amazing computer device! Possible the coolest thing I have seen!

We wanted to go to the TV tower, but apparently it is closed this week for repairs! Could they not have waited? We decided to go back to the hostel to actually check in and get to our room. We tried to use the underground, but got a bit confused as we weren't sure what to do. So we walked, and walked, and walked. Berlin is pretty big, unlike Paris the sights aren't cantered in one area; it is all over the place! We managed to get back and check in! There are no bunk beds here, which is fantastic! The beds are ultra-comfortable! We ventured out for some food and settled for this pizza restaurant. It cost us €19 for starters, main and drinks. Bargain! I was literally freezing cold, a mixture between tiredness and being exhausted from the day's activities. I got into bed, talked with our roommates, a guy from Argentina and a girl from Alaska. I passed out at 8pm. I had the best night sleep ever!!

Tuesday 21st February

We woke up at 9am; I went to look outside to see what the weather looked like. At first I thought the window had misted over from condensation, but no. it was actually snowing, not pathetic 'British' snow but really chunky snow! It looked amazing! Our Argentinean roommate was also amazed as where he is from they don't get snow only the south.

We geared up with our winter woollies and quick marched (we were slightly late) to meet our tour at the Brandenburg Gate. We were joining the tour for the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. On our way we saw the traffic literally coming to an almost stand still. I don't really blame the cars as when we walked across the roads it was an ice rink. The snow had already been compacted so much it was icy. There were several BMW with their rear wheeled drive skidding all over the place. One of the 'bendy buses' had jack knifed down one of the roads. We were beginning to think we were going to miss the tour due to the weather slowing us down, but we secretly hoped they were running late. We were in luck! We had Jonny as our tour guide again today.

We took the underground, which kind of looks very similar to the London underground. We brought a zone A, B + C ticket, which allows you travel on all trains, trams and buses till 3am!

Sachsenhausen is roughly 40 minute train ride away, as we left the centre of Berlin the snow had stopped, which was a relief! We arrived at the train stopped and had a short walk down the road to get to the concentration camp. I was kind of shocked to see that the camp was literally 20 meters away from residential homes. I don't think I could live that close.

The route we walked through the town from the station to the camp would have been the same route for all the prisoners going into the camp. People of the town were encouraged to throw rotten food and stones. I don't think the residents in the town knew what went on in the camp. The people who went into the camp were told they needed to be 'corrected' and would take a process of 16 weeks to become 'better people'. They were told this 'course' would involve work, fun, games and lessons. They soon realised this was not the case.

The camp was not a death camp like Auschwitz in Poland, this was mainly used to train the SS (secret service) and hold political prisoners and enemies of Hitler, the camp was mainly male but towards the end women and children were sent here. Most of the people sent to these camps came through Sachsenhausen to be processed and sent to other camps. Most of the Jews weren't sent here but straight to Auschwitz.

We walked through the main gate which had 'Arbeit Macht Frei' written on the gate which went 'work = freedom'. The tower also had a clock which states 11:07, which is the time that the soviets liberated the camp.

The camp itself only had a few buildings; most had been destroyed by the Soviets. Most of the buildings are re-constructions but under the ground these are the original foundations. Looking at a map of what the camp looked like previous to it being destroyed it had several buildings, most of them to hold the prisoners. It was all set up in a formation of a triangle so the guards in the main tower could see everything that was going on. They extended the camp to add a 'Jewish' section. They had two of the buildings re-built in the Jewish section of what the living conditions were like, most of this building was re-built from the memories of the survivors of these camps. The bedroom consisted of about 50 three high bunk beds. These were filled with 2/3 people in each bed, especially when they had overfilled the camp. The prisoners were woken up at 4:30am in the summer and 5:30am in the winter for roll call, which was performed twice a day. This was to see who had died during the night, what work detail they did etc. They had 30 minutes to get washed, dressed, fed and clean their beds before roll call. Up to 250 men had to be ready in 30 minutes. The shed they lived in was tiny; I couldn't imagine 250 people in the room trying to get washed and everything. This early wakeup call gave the guards the opportunity to start humiliating the prisoners. Sometimes they would hold their head in the wash basin to drown them etc, pretty horrible stories to be honest. We walked around the other half of the room which had been set up with people's accounts and some 'famous' incidents.

During role call every single prisoner at the camp had to be signed in as such, while they were doing this, everyone had to stand to attention. Sometimes roll call lasted for 3 hours. One time it was freezing cold, like it was today, they had just their one thin uniform to wear and were made to stand attention for 15 hours. A lot of people suffered from pneumonia and died. I was moaning being stood outside for 10 minutes let along 15 hours.

We headed out to the kitchen shed, Jonny pointed out that between the wall of the camp and the path was 'no man's land'. Basically if you stood in this 'no man's land' they assumed you were trying to escape and were shot. One guard stole a hat from a man and threw it on the barbed wire and demanded the prisoner to get it, as he stood on this land he was shot dead. I can't think what went through this guards mind when he did this.

The kitchen building had been set up as a museum to show and explain everything that happened in the camp. There was some extremely vile stories, something I could not relate to. There is also a book called the 'death book', it describes everyone's name that had died at the camp. Even though this wasn't a death camp it still saw roughly 22,000 people had died. Historians aren't 100% sure if this is correct as they are still filing through evidence of the camp but that is the latest figures.

Each prisoner had a work detail; basically they were worked to death most of the time. Hitler wanted to re-build Berlin, so most of the work was making bricks for this at the camp. The worst work detail Jonny told us was the prisoners that had to test boots for the army. This involved 12 hours of walking backwards and forwards. They then had to carry sand bags roughly 20kgs, it they wanted a break they had to stand still and hold the bag over the top of their heads. They got 30 minute lunch break and that's all. The average life expectancy for people doing this work details was only 12 days.

We walked out back in to the bleak and disturbing camp to go to station Z. We first walked past a trench where prisoners would be walked down to be shot. The Germans realised the flaw in this plan, it was open and the other prisoners could see what was about to happen and maybe rebel against the guards. This is why they built station Z. The only thing remain was the foundations as Berlin is built on a swamp (and stinks too!) so the ground was giving way slightly. Station Z was the newly built 'execution' centre. Not on the same size or scale as the death camps. There was a gas chamber which they tested various gases and ventilation systems which was used at the other camps. The prisoners thought station Z was a processing centre and had people acting like doctors. One of the other ways these people were killed was they got lead into a room and asked to stand against the wall, which looked like a measuring chart. On the other side of the wall a guard sat ready to shot at the back of the head. The room was sound proof and they used small bullets which meant no exit wound so no mess which lead to an easier clean up. It also meant there was little error for the guard to mess up and they didn't have to look at the prisoner in the eye either. The bodies were then burnt in a furnace on site due to the fact one of the lorries that carried the bodies was involved in a collision and people began to find out what was going on.

The last building we saw was possibly the worst one of them all, the pathology lab. If you had a disease you were sent here to be experimented on. Basically the guards didn't want it to spread and effect the other prisoners or guards. They also tested people with pneumonia and low pressure which was used for ejection seats in planes. We looked downstairs in the basement, which is the original structure, and if you imagine the worst horror film and times it by 10 it still won't match it. It had the eeriest feel about it, knowing the horrible things these people went through. Towards the end of the war women and children as young as three were also experimented on. It was horrible. It honestly made you sick to the stomach. Some of the experiments has helped us today in medical science but done in a cruel way.

Most of the group were pretty sober including us. It was a weird day but was very informative. We both learnt a lot about what went on. I did enjoy the visit as Berlin has never covered up the fact what they did was wrong or try to hide it away. The facts and figures are displayed to you and you are left to make up your mind on how you thought about the whole experience, which I liked about the museums and monuments in Berlin. If you ever get the chance to visit a concentration camp I would defiantly recommend this. Even though it is a very sober and upsetting experience, it's there to remind us of cruel times so hopefully history will not repeat itself.

We returned back to the hostel after this to relax and get ready for tonight, we joined the bar crawl. We went to the first meet up point where you get a free shot. We were going to a total of 4 pubs and 1 club, each location you get a free shot. We were greeted by three Aussies, who all assumed I was from Australia too (this is the second time this has happened to me). There was bunch of French girls, who kept themselves to themselves, an American and a few people from Brazil. One of the guys was called Pedro and looked exactly the same as Pedro from the film Napoleon Dynamite which the Aussies pointed out to be! The first shot was nice, peach schnapps but this got worse and turned into Jagermeister, which I now cannot stand! Our guide informed us that this means in German hunter….!

We went round the pubs and ended up in this club called Matrix, it was pretty compacted and extremely busy. We meet some more Americans and other Aussies in the club which was pretty cool. Me and Stu left and grabbed a taxi as I had no idea where we were. I knew we weren't far as I could see the over ground train that runs right past our hostel, but at this time it wasn't running. The taxi guy was pretty cool and we spoke in broken English (Stu and me!). I said thank you in German and Stu said bye also in German which the taxi driver thought was extremely amusing! We crashed out completely!

Wednesday 22nd February

We both woke up feeling like crap; Stu blamed his hangover on being 'ill'. Admittedly he has been a bit under the weather but still! We had to leave our room by 11am was painful! I had to repack my whole bag as I had to overturn it to get something out of the bottom. We managed to check out and leave our bags in the save storage. Stu was so hungover he didn't eat breakfast, unheard of!! There was one last museum I wanted to see, Pergamon Museum, which had the gates to the hanging gardens of Babylon. It was pretty amazing. There were thousands of sculptures of Greek gods and stories carved out in stone. All very impressive, unfortunately we both were feeling bad and didn't really appreciate it all as it should have been. We made a quick stop off at the pub from the previous night, no not for a drink, but Stu left his ID behind and he forgot to pick it up…stupid boy! We also had the courage to eat food; we went for the unhealthiest thing we could find…McDonalds! It hit the spot!!

We returned back to the hostel to get our stuff ready for our next stop. We got a taxi to the train station as it was only €10. The one thing I noticed about German stations is that they are brilliant. They had signs showing where each carriage would stop, so this time we could get on the right carriage first time! I was majorly impressed, but not as good as the Canadians with their free Wi-Fi in the stations and on the trains! We are on to our 4 stop now; we should hopefully arrive into Prague just after 4:30pm.

Overall view on Berlin:

Berlin is a great city with a lot of history. Just walking around the city you can really appreciate how Berlin has not hidden the evidence of what really happened here. I have learnt a lot more about the world wars here than I did at school. Even with the dark past that Berlin has the locals are extremely friendly and will stop to ask if you need any help. The night life is fantastic and has a quirky side to it. I have always looked forward to Berlin and it has hit the mark. I would defiantly recommend this to anyone thinking of going.

Total miles from UK: 799

Transport taken:

Trains = 4

Our Photos:

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