Day 25 – July 23: Sachenhausen morning, Berlin afternoon

Enter at  Tower A

Today we started with a daytrip to Sachenhausen Concentration Camp which takes about an hour on the S-Bahn plus time on the bus from the station out to the camp. So, we started pretty early this morning but still didn’t get to the camp until noonish.  Sachenhausen was a special camp in its proximity to the capital and used as a testing ground for many other camps. It was more of a labor camp than a death camp, though 50,000 died there.  We walked through the camp listening to the detailed audio guide.  This is where the large Nazi counterfeiting operation happened.  There was a prison next to the camp where Joseph Stalin’s kid was held (and killed when his dad wouldn’t barter for him). They have a couple of barracks that you can go in to see the conditions people lived (and died) in and used one half of the barracks for museum exhibits about the people. We saw the crematorium and gas chambers where they tested the poison that was used more frequently in other camps.  Here they preferred to shoot people in the back of the head through a hole in the wall while they thought they were getting measured for height. It was all very depressing.  And, as seems to be the case in most museums here, there is more information than you can possibly absorb in one visit.  As the war was ending the guards took the 35,000 remaining prisoners on a death march through the forest with no rations for 7 days.  On the 8^th day they left the ones who were still alive in the woods, free. After the war, Sachenhausen was used as a Soviet camp for many years.  In 1961 (to divert attention from the Wall they were building) Sachenhausen became the first camp to be turned into a memorial, at first celebrating the Russian liberators as much as or more than honoring the Jewish victims.

1961 Memorial honoring the Soviets

Exit at Station Z - Nazi humor

Commemorating the Vicitms

We got back to Berlin with a few hours left to take advantage of the fact that many of the museums stay open til 8 pm on Thursday nights.  We went directly to the Neues Museum and I sat outside reading while the girls (who are free at most museums in town) ran in to see Queen Nefertiti.  (I called Ritter Sport to see if their ice cream machine was operating today and sadly it wasn’t – at least I didn’t waste a trip!)  

Long-necked beauties!

Though we had seen lots of art on this trip, we took the bus down to the Gemaldegalerie (The Painting Gallery) to see Germany’s best collection of European paintings form the 13^th-18^th centuries.  It was fun to see which of the Vermeer, Hals, and Rembrandts are housed in this museum.  We also knew there was a Pieter Brueghel there and when we found it just as the museum was getting ready to close, we were delighted to see it was the wonderful “Netherlandish Proverbs”.  Rachel was in heaven and stayed studying it until she was told it was time to go. 

A topsy-turvy world

A Vermeer in Berlin

Our food situation today had been pretty pitiful – just grabbing bread at train stations and yogurts at a grocery store.  So we were pretty hungry when we arrived at our last stop of the day – Street Food Thursday – an event Rachel had read about.  It is our top food recommendation of the month!  Rows of vendors selling yummy food in a great environment.  First we sampled a delicious pasta arrabiatta we could watch them making, and an equally good egg/spaghetti sandwich with eggplant.  Now not starving, we could walk around and look at the other choices, many of which were selling out for the day. I waited in the long line for the paneer naan wrap and when he counted out how many more he could make I was the last to get one. We enjoyed that along with the fries the girls bought.  When we walked in we noticed a man selling Jones Ice Cream – homemade in Berlin - out of a bus, so that was an obvious stop for dessert.  I ordered a lemon blueberry cone that was easily in the top five lifetime ice creams.  (I can’t think of any better now but I’ve had a lot of great ice cream in my time, so don’t want to overstate – but this one was perfection.)  You would think we could stop at the perfect ice cream, and might have if we hadn’t walked past a man selling “muffles” -  a cross between a waffle and a muffin, topped with powdered sugar and whipped cream. You can see that we had no choice!  Plan your trip to Berlin around a Thursday!

a muffle!

Jones' Ice Cream