Two Days in Kentucky

Six and a half hours after returning from Germany I was on the road again-- this time for a brief visit to Kentucky.  Our plan was to go on a tour of the Henry Clay estate on Sunday and then meet up with friends at the hotel.  Due to my late arrival from Germany, however, we got a late start to Kentucky and missed out on the Henry Clay estate.  On Monday we took a chocolate tour at Old Kentucky Candy.

Fair warning: you gain 5 pounds just by breathing in the fumes in the candy factory.  And of course they give you free samples, which add another 5 pounds. I suggest sampling the bourbon truffles, made with 100% Jim Bean Whiskey.  I liked the chocolate tour, because it means I have now seen every step in the process of making chocolate, from the time it leaves the cacao tree as a bean until it's packaged for shelving. So now, even more than horses, whiskey and blue grass, Kentucky means good chocolate candy. And sometimes you combine two of them and get a chocolate horse!

Final thoughts on Germany

I returned home early yesterday morning, even though I was due to be home Saturday night.  The weather in Atlanta did not permit that however.  With exactly three hours sleep, I had to get up again yesterday morning to go to Kentucky, but that will be more on that in tomorrow's entry.  There are many things I experienced and learned on this trip that I thought I'd share.

* This is an amazingly vibrant country with a rich history worth exploring. Two weeks is not enough to see everything I wanted to see, but it's just long enough to start to miss home.

* Germany is a fsacinating mix of old traditional culture and modern forward thinking.

* Like every other country Germany is struggling to deal with unpleasant aspects of its past, but it seems to be doing a better job of it than the U. S.

* I now understand why nearly everyone I know that has lived in Germany for a time says that they would like to go back and live there again
* This is not a type of trip that is suitable for everyone.  If you are the type who wants to stay comfortable and in a hotel room or spend your time googling information, rather than being out in the city discovering new things, this is not the experience for you.  Stay in America where you're comfortable.
* If you don't mind being out of your comfort zone, if you like trying new things, and exploring new places, this is definitely the type of trip for you. 
* Obey the red man or get run over.
* Stay off the red lane or get run over.
* Things Rosetta Stone will teach you: how to say " the girl is wearing a blue dress", "the people are walking".
* Things Rosetta Stone will not teach you: how to ask a question in German and understand the reply that comes in turbo speed German.
* Goethe Institut employs the BEST guides.  Thank you Edina, Karin, Nicolas, Martin and Rodrigo! I don't know if we would have survived without you.

Friday, July 19

Kreuzberg museum

Today we toured the area of Berlin known as Kreuzberg and visited a museum there.  2.5 million people of Turkish origin live in Germany. Most of them are here as a result of the guest worker program. The guest worker program began after the erection of the Berlin Wall when the government in West Berlin realize they had twice as many job openings as a available workers. Many of the guest workers came from southern and Eastern Europe. They were highly skilled but worked for low wages, thus they frequently settled in the low rent areas near the Wall.  The influx of so many people of different ethnic origins (The term we hear used frequently is "people of migration backgrounds") led to racial tensions in Berlin.  The Kreuzberg project was started by three girls who saw first hand the ethnic tensions that were plaguing Germany around the turn of the century. The goal of the project is to fight prejudice against people of migration backgrounds.  The Kreuzberg area was once encompassed on three sides by the Berlin Wall, and many people left because they didn't want to live near the wall.  But it was inhabited by artists and others and is now a trendy area with cafes and shopping. About 160,000 individuals live in Kreuzberg, 35% of them with migration backgrounds, most of those Turkish.  Recently there has been a lot of Roma migration into the area from other parts of the EU.  Because of prejudices against them, people with migration backgsrounds have not always been accorded full citizenship status.   It is only since 2000 that children born in Germany are automatically given German citizenship.  Germany does not recognize dual citizenship.  We had lunch at a Turkish restaurant in the area.  I actually liked this Turkish meal better than the first one we had a few nights ago.  After lunch, I took a train with a combined group of TOP 5 and TOP 4 Fellows to Potsdam.  Once there we took a bicycle tour of the town, including a self- guided audio tour of Schloss Cecelienhof, where the Potsdam Conference was held near the end of World War 2.  We ended in a Biergarten (doesn't everything here?) before biking back to the train station to return to Berlin for our last night in Germany.

Ravensbruck

Ravensbruck is a former concentration camp used mostly for women during the Nazi regime. It was taken over by the soviet army after the war.  The guard houses are now used as a youth hostel and the staff here educates the attendees on the Holocaust and the history of Ravensbruck.

Survivors are invited to stay at Ravensbruck in the guard's houses whenever they come to the area, but understandably many of them find that difficult to do. Ravensbruck is the first concentration camp built in Germany that confronts the issue of the people who perpetrated these horrific acts against others.  The Ravensbruck camp was preceded by the Lichtenberg camp which wasn't big enough to hold all the prisoners. The original Ravensbruck camp could hold 3000, but was expanded in 1940 to accommodate up to 35000.  Still the camp became very overcrowded. Barracks that were built to hold 300 prisoners would hold up to 1000. There was also a much smaller men's camp and a small camp for girls that was located nearby. The girls camp was originally for German girls who were seen as antisocial and the camp was used for their "re-education".  There were about 40 satellite camps of Ravensbruck in Germany and occupied territories. These included the nearby Siemens camp, a slave labor camp which made munitions for the SS and had up to 4500 workers.  While Ravensbruck was not made to be an extermination camp a lot of people died here from starvation, overcrowding and mass shootings.

Towards the end of the war one of the barracks was turned  into a gas chamber and about 2000 people were killed between January and April of 1945. In total over 120000 women were imprisoned in Ravensbruck. Our guide through the camp shares with us personal stories of people he actually knows or has met that were imprisoned in ravensbruck.

He speaks of how the SS officers and the female guards stationed here dehumanized the jews in order to justify their behavior towards the women prisoners.  For some of them it was difficult to process the fact that it was women who were perpetrating these vile acts against them.  The female guards who came here would sometimes find it difficult in the beginning but within weeks would act like all the other guards towards the prisoners.  He also tells us how the Nazis forced pregnant prisoners to have abortions, first secretly in a local hospital, and later in the camp itself. When babies were born to prisoners they were often murdered soon after birth. Babies who were allowed to live were separated from their mothers and put in orphan houses. Mothers were infrequently allowed to see their children and would often watch them starve to death because the mothers were so malnutritioned they couldn't produce milk to feed the babies. This visit is both deeply moving and deeply disturbing.  We are given half an hour to wander the grounds of the former camp and while walking through the former prison complex in the camp I am overwhelmed by some of the displays that represent  the various countries who were victims of Nazi atrocities. I am reduced to tears  again upon visiting the creamatorium on the grounds. I will end this post by quoting a friend who on yesterday visited a different concentration camp: "I love teaching history, but way too often I am horrified by it."

Boitzenburg and Prenzlau

I always knew I was a princess!  We stayed the last two days at the Schlosshotel Boitzenburg.  We arrived on Monday, and on Tuesday recieved a tour of the castle.  There is not a bad angle to the place, and the views of the surrounding countryside from the rooftop are stunning!  The main section of Schloss Boitzenburg was originally built in the 13^th century.  The newer addition was made in the 1500s by a wealthy Irish family who purchased the house.

During World War II, part of the castle was used as the Japanese embassy.  Later it was used to house refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army.  This was during the winter, and many of the castle furnishings were burned for firewood.  After the castle was abandoned it was looted by the local populace, so none of the original furnishings remain.  Years after the war it was used as a typhus clinic, which kept the army disinterested in the property. Later it was utilized by the GDR army, but after reunification it was abandoned again. 




 

In the 1990s the abandoned castle was purchased by an investor for one Deutschmark.  Four years and 33 million Euro went into the renovation of the castle, turning it into a kinder and youth hotel.  The renovation was completed in 2004 and the hotel now hosts about 350 children and youth each summer who participate in a variety of water and craft activities.  This afternoon we went to Prenzlau, to Naturerlebnis Uckermark, an educational ecological station.  This place helps to educate children on sustainable practices and ecological conservation. 

They invite teachers and their students here and teach them about the environment and how to protect it, by giving them alternatives to current socio-environmental practices.  They also do experiments with nature. The director showed us to many parts of the preserve.  They have several gardens, including raised beds, and local schools are invited to grow their own produce here.  In the gardens are varieties of wheat and tomatoes that are nearly extinct in some parts of Germany, so the preserve is actually re-teaching people how to grow these crops.  A lot of the buildings here have green roofs, including the chicken coop, which allows the children to see each step in the process of how an egg becomes a chicken.  They take us to the butterfly garden and explain that they teach local people how to plant certain flowers to attract butterflies.  There is a water garden here so that students can study water habitats, and erosion boxes which allow them to do soil experiments.   Of course there are animal habitats of all kinds, including a petting zoo. 

There are also some very exotic animals such as ostriches and peacocks, and a Spanish breed of goat that was introduced to America when Columbus first came over.  Part of the property contains a lake that was created when the last Ice Age ended and the ice caps melted.    The last part of the preserve we visit is the energy station where they conduct experiments and teach visitors about the different methods of producing energy using solar, wind, and water power. Late afternoon we split into three groups.  I was with the group that visited a youth center and learned about how the center helps to provide a place for kids to go to after school and in the summers, and provides tutoring for those who need it.  After reuniting with the rest of the group at a local lake, we went to dinner in a lovely little restaurant in Boitzenburg that is located on the grounds of a former monastery. 




The ceiling of the hunting room.

 


The Grounds of Schloss Boitzenburg




The central staircase at the Schloss



Zempow

Today we went to Zempow to talk with the Laubenthals, a couple who spearheaded a peace movemnet in the 1990s. Zempow is located in the Northern part of Germany in the state of Brandenburg. This area was intended to become a bombodrome. The German military wanted to use this area as a testing site. Here we learned about the civilian resistance to the military plans. Beginning In the 1950s this area was used by the Russian Air Force for military purposes.  Located between Wittstock and Neuruppin it is 120 sq. kilometers in a former forest set up  between 14 villages. The area has fifty thousand inhabitants and thrives on tourism. The bombodrome area was set up during the Stalin era after several slash and burn events. In the 1990s after the Soviets left, they left behind a damaged landscape and lots of ammunition-- some of which is live. In 1992 the German  army presented a plan to continue using the area as an air to ground firing range.  They also wanted to use the area for nuclear training. The idea was to allow all NATO countries to use the area as a training ground.  Upon learning of the  military's plans in 1992, the citizens initiative FREIe HEIDe ( Free Heath) was formed. They had lot of local support and support from all of the affected communities. They lobbied against the plans in the government and filed court cases to keep the military from  going forward with their plans. There were more than 100 protest walks, some involving as many as 10,000 participants. There were also some acts of civil disobedience with citizens illegally going into the military area.  The court eventually ruled against the military in all 27 cases. Rather than appealing to a higher court the military gave up their efforts to use the area in 2009. The area now has national heritage recognition and can no longer be used as a possible test site. We then had a lovely lunch of organically grown food, before departing for Schlosshotel Boitzenburg.

Berlin, Sunday, July 14

Today was our first full day in Berlin.  In the morning I went with a few of the other fellows and Mary, our tour leader, to St. Hedwig’s Cathedral for 8 o’clock mass.

After church our entire tour group took a bus tour of Berlin with our new guides, Martin and Rodrigo. They met us at the train station when we arrived yesterday. Berlin is a city- state in northern Germany that is completely encompassed within the state of Brandenburg.  Berlin has existed for 750 years.  Germany as a country has only existed for 150 years.  It was formed from many different regions and dukedoms. The area that is now Berlin used to be part of Prussia.  There is a lot of regionalism in Germany. National pride is not as prevalent. Berlin has several city centers due to the nature of how the city developed.  The first area we exited the bus to explore was the Berlin Wall.

It's hard to describe my emotions upon seeing and touching it. The Berlin Wall was built to keep citizens from leaving East Germany. The wall was constructed in one night in 1961. It was West Berlin that was walled in, not East Berlin. The Berlin Wall was actually two walls- one inside the other. So if you made it past one wall you would then find yourself trapped in between the two walls. The only section that wasn't "double walled" was the area backed by the river.   of Berlin after World War 2. The graffiti has been preserve as a piece  of history.  It has been sealed so that it cannot be removed.  The Bundestag library contains over 1.3 million volumes and is linked to the Reichstag by a long tunnel- like hallway structure. The offices of the members are housed in a third building that is also linked by a long hallway.  Parliamentary meetings, committee meetings, and roll call votes are mandatory. Any member who does not attend will be fined.  After leaving the Reichstag we went on a walking tour of some German memorials and monuments.  First we stopped by the memorial to the Sinti and Roma who were murdered during the Holocaust. It is both hauntingly beautiful and simple. This poem, written by a Roma poet, surrounds the memorial:

 Next we went to the Brandenburg Gate.  The Brandenburg gate was originally constructed during the but has been damaged several times. It was last rebuilt during the 1800s after its destruction during the Franco-Prussian war.  The sculpture on the top was brought from Paris in 1840.

Next was the memorial to the murdered Jews, which opened in 2004.  This is by far the largest of the memorials depicting Nazi era terrorism, covering an entire city block.  It is made of hundreds of free-standing stela of various heights. Lastly we went to the memorial to the murdered homosexuals, which was erected in 2008.  Accessible by a delineated dirt path and partially obscured by a clump of trees, it is symbolic of the persecution felt by homosexuals during the Nazi regime.  We later visited Checkpoint Charlie before heading to lunch.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews

Checkpoint Charlie

July 12

On Friday we visited Villeroy and Boch, the famous German pottery.

We had a guided tour of the grounds and the museum, but visitors aren’t allowed to go into the factory for safety reasons. Located in Mettlach, Germany the pottery is very close to the borders of France and Luxembourg. The company was founded in 1758, by a Frenchman and a German. The families eventually intermarried and there has always been a family member at the head of the company. It is housed in a Benedictine abbey that was built in the 18th century. The abbey was once used as a family residence and was partially destroyed during World War 2. Interesting side note: This company produced the tiles that decorated The Titanic. Some of the tiles from the same batch are decorate the entrance into the main building.

The company made four different styles of tiles for The Titanic. Some of the tiles from the wreck have been recovered and are in the museum. In the afternoon we went to the Franco- German University, which technically isn’t a college campus. It contains administrative offices that coordinate between a network of 170 universities in France and Germany. Students study in both countries and earn a dual degree from two universities. Schools in the network must pass a rigorous evaluation of their programs (this is done every four years) or they will be removed from the network. The school has been in existence for 15 years and has grown from 1500 students to 5500 students. Half of their time is spent in Germany and half in France. Instruction is in both languages. They must speak both languages as well as be fluent in English before being accepted into the program. When students are completing the portion of their studies that requires them to go to school outside of their home country, they are paid a small stipend by the university. The university fosters and promotes dual degree programs between France and Germany. A third of the students are not from France and Germany, but from Southern or Eastern Europe or countries where French and German are the native languages. Saarbrucken was chosen as the headquarters of the administrative offices because it is so close to the French border. The university receives financing from both governments but they act independently of both governments. There are some difficulties with the dual degree track. Students must adjust to different teaching styles and expectations—mainly based on cultural differences-- during their time in the two countries. There are also some administrative issues: the languages required for admission in the program are not necessarily the first foreign language taught in schools. (Traditionally, only about 15% of French students are taught German in school, and vice versa.) Also the current financial crisis has impeded upon education funding, and the school is now having to seek private funding.

July 11, Saarbrucken

I took a walk around Saarbrucken today to explore the place where we will be staying for the next few days. I'm not as enamored with This city as I have been with the last two. The buildings are much more modern; there's not as much traditional German character in the architecture here. We took an hour long bus ride to Gershiem to the Spohns Ecological Training Center. This school encourages sustainability and green principles in daily life. Students and their teachers come there for a week to learn how to make better choices for our environment and become conscientious consumers. The school consists of three buildings, including the work space and the dormitory. We take part in a lecture and a question and answer session with the instructor who is in charge of the training program. We have lunch in their lunchroom, indulging in locally grown seasonal produce. The food here is delicious. As part of their green beliefs, they purchase mostly free trade and organically grown products. They also have their own garden and compost pile! In the afternoon we visit EURES to learn about cross border mobility in the European Union. We attend a presentation hosted by two advisors of EURES who explain both the benefits and difficulties involved with commuters who live in one country and work in another. EURES is a free service that will provide you with advice and assistance to help you find a job in another EU member country. There is free movement of labor in the 28 EU countries as well as the European colonies. Citizens of EU member countries have the right to live in the country where they work. The Saar- Lor- Lux region consists of six regions in four countries: Germany, France, Luxembourg and Belgium, and involves about 213,000 commuter workers. After we returned to Saarbrucken, I walked with a small group to the schloss. It wasn't quite as impressive as Schloss Heidelberg. We went to Spicheren, France and had dinner in the French countryside. I have never had this much wine to drink before in my life! I freely admit that I was a little past tipsy, but since there is no video or photo evidence, I will always have plausible deniability. (I wish I could remember the name of that wine, though. It was fantastic!) We were supposed to have dinner with a member of the European Parliament, but at the last minute she was unable to make it. For dinner I had blanc de poulet, creme et champignons- which is chicken with mushrooms in a white sauce, and creme brûlée for dessert. I also tried frog legs, which I know is a southern thing, not just a French thing, but I had never tried them before. I wasn't quite brave enough to attempt the escargot, however. Everything was delicious. In between dinner and dessert we took a short walk among the historical monuments in the countryside. I was thrilled to discover a left over bunker that was part of the Maginot Line tucked off among some trees.


Dinner at Woll Restaurant in Spicheren, France

  
 


Portion of the Maginot Line

  

Spohn's Ecological Training Center



Dormitory at Spohn's

   



Strasbourg, France

We spent today in Strasbourg, France. We left Heidelberg very early, and after two lovely train rides (one of which we spent in first class on a very fast train) we arrived in Strasbourg. There we met up with our new Goethe guide, Nicholas. In the morning we visited the European Parliament, learning about the structure of the organization and how they operate. It was very interesting. I think I may have gotten a lesson idea from the visit. And trust, me I asked a LOT of questions.

We then went to lunch before touring the Notre Dame Cathedrale of Strasbourg and the lovely historic area called La Petit France. We had a very knowledgable tour guide for this part of the tour. The cathedral took over 260 years to build and was completed in 1439. Parts of it were damaged by American and English bombs during World War 2, but they were reconstructed during the 1980s. Apparently the site was once the site of the Roman military, due to it being the highest point in the area. Once the Germans took over, they gave it the name Strasbourg (or rather the German version of Strasbourg. The cathedral was orginially supposed to have two towers like Notre Dame in Paris, but the foundation, which was built in the 11th century, couldn't support the weight of two towers. Our day ended after a two hour bus ride to Saarbrucken, Germany, where we will be spending the next three days.