The Berliner Mauerweg

Where was the Berlin Wall? Most of it is completely gone, but there's a cycling trail that traces its route. This video documents my two-day journey around the Berliner Mauerweg.

The Sachsenhausen Model

Today I visited the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp with our class. It was a gorgeous and clear day – one of the best since arriving in Berlin – and there was an interesting beauty to this place, which was a bit unnerving. I took a lot of photos of the walls and towers, with the trees in the background, and even a few of the barracks.

Going into a concentration camp, I had this expectation for how I should feel. I’ve read books and seen many documentaries about these camps, and I always left them with the same feelings of surprise that this could have happened so recently, a heaviness from the stories and the scale of the death and torture, and a very deep sadness for the victims. From the moment I got to Sachsenhausen, I didn’t feel any of these things. This lack of emotion troubled me until I saw a little cigar box in the Jewish barracks. Inside this box, Etienne van Ploeg, a prisoner of Sachsenhausen from 1942 until its liberation in 1945, had built a hand-crafted model of the main camp.

I’ve built quite a few models, but never one from scratch. Recently, I got a 1:350 scale model of the USS Enterprise. It is estimated that, with this full kit, it will take an experienced model builder around 600 - 1,000 hours to complete it. To build something like this cigar-box model from scratch? That would have to take even longer.

When making a model, a critical decision is that of color. Almost single-handedly, the color choices made will determine the setting, the feeling, and the emotions of the final piece.

So, needless to say, the first thing I noticed was his choice of color. He has used a rich, lively green for the barracks and the forest; a fresh, new-house white for the wall and guard buildings; and the sandy ground is painted a warm and sunny beach tan. The neutral zone – the barbed wire coils, the imposing concave fence, and the dark stone ground leading up to it – are recreated very much like a modern day farm. It and the ground below it are painted a bright white.

There's an interesting element to the housing for the model. It's inside a cigar box, with a latch and closures. Is there meaning to this? I’m reminded of a line from a book. It’s a terrible book, but even the worst literature can produce the occasional nugget of wisdom:

“Forbidden to remember, terrified to forget; it’s a hard line to walk.”

Scale Model of Sachsenhausen

18-6-15

            I was anxious to witness the object Professor Chaouli described before our trip to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.  The object was in one of the two remaining Jewish barracks of the former Nazi concentration camp.  I walked up to the display of the object and found that it was a scale model of the camp facilities and its perimeter.  I was astonished to find how similar his scale model was to the one by the information center.  The triangular shape of the model seemed to be identical to the one I had seen upon arrival, and the thin pieces of wood (like Popsicle sticks) he used for fences were placed with such precision.  I snapped a quick photo and then began looking at the object.  I was struck by all of the color, especially green.  Actually, green seemed to be the color that dominated the entire scale model except the red of the guard towers and tan that represented the soil.  The roofs of the barracks and all the vegetation surrounding the facility, (which was made from foam from a sofa or bed and dotted with paint), were green. I was aware that the artist had been a prisoner at the camp, so I was confused as to why he would represent such an eerie and dreadful place in this way.  In fact, his model actually reminded me of a painting of my family farm back home, which brings to mind warm and pleasant feelings. On the train ride back to the hotel, I was thinking of the green color that dominated the model. The color green and vegetation may symbolize life. Why would the artist use this color that represents life to portray a place that is synonymous with death? The only explanation I could come up with is that even though Sachsenhausen was a place of misery and death, plenty of life was still within and beyond its walls.  This was a way for the artist to say I persevered, I survived.

The bunker left by WWII

After a several days in Berlin, the old buildings here really left deep impression on me, especially the Sammlung Boros, which is one of the spots of my treasure hunting. It is located on the corner of Albrechtstraße and Reinhardtstraße. The first time I saw it was in the process of treasure hunting. Tiny windows are arranged trimly on each side of the building. The bunker is generally in a cube-shape which looks really huge, especially when I looked at the photo of the bunker and me in comparison, it might be 7 or 8 times taller than the height of me. The light gray wall makes people get intense feeling of the past at the first glance, especially when looked in the sun, a special sense of feeling crowds directly into my mind that the building must have experienced so much through the WWII till now. It’s also easy to notice a huge rock outside one of the iron gates, which are all in the shape of arcuation. I’m not sure whether it is left from the WWII or it’s placed by designer in order to make it looks more artistic since it is now an art gallery.  
However, it might be hard to realize that such an art gallery which is surrounded by two modern hotels with all those big glassy wall as well as an estate office today can be a bunker left by World War II as tourists just quickly walked by, but when realize it, the feeling is just like to find treasure by chance. We happened to pass by the bunker on our way to the Reichstag, Marilyn and Erica was so surprise to hear that the grey old building near them was actually a bunker left by the war. This is the way how Berlin treats its’ tourists, which I loved so much. Always to surprise people in an unexpected way, sometimes you may see a normal building which looks a bit old, but you may not see how much it experienced through its’ life since when it was built.