Today was a day for authentic sites – where stuff actually happened, not just a museum about something that happened somewhere else.
First we went to the Olympic Stadium where Germany hosted the 1936 Olympics. This was the new Germany’s “coming out party.” It was quite the festival, as it is in all cities and nations that host the Olympics.
But, the Nazi’s had a lot of cleaning up to do before they were ready for the world stage. All anti-Semitic posters and signs had to be taken out and many of the concentration camp inmates (mostly political prisoners at this point) were released. But, as soon as the Olympics were over – everything changed back.
Unfortunately, the stadium itself was closed today so we were only able to go into the outer courtyard and go up the rebuilt bell tower (the British blew it up at the end of WWII) to look around.
1936 Olympic Stadium
There was a great video in the visitor’s center on the power of Nazi propaganda – especially the idea of self-sacrifice to the nation’s youth. There is even a shrine at the stadium to those German soldiers who died in WWI – with earth from one military cemetery. Nobody knew about the shrine at the time, but Hitler and a special detachment of SS went there and had a little ceremony before the opening of the Olympic games.
And, of course you all know about Jesse Owens, the African-American athlete who won 4 gold medals at the Olympics. There is even a street near the stadium named after him today (it was changed after WWII – certainly not while Hitler was around!)
Our next stop was the Wannsee Villa. This is where the decision to murder all the Jews of Europe – “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question” – was organized and began to be implemented. There had already been mass murders of Jews (approx. 1 million) but now things were going to speed up significantly.
Wannsee Villa
They were originally scheduled to meet on Dec. 8, 1941, but with the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, they decided to postpone until January 20, 1942. The meeting was organized by Reinhard Heydrich and attended by 14 others. The meeting was simple and direct. They met for 2 hours and basically did math. They figured out how many Jews were still living in Europe (their figures added up to 11 million) and then began to figure out the logistics of murdering them. Adolf Eichmann figured out how many trains would be needed, etc.
Fascinating Fact: I learned today that the transport of Jews (the Holocaust) and other victims of Nazi brutality by train accounted for less than 1/1000th of the train traffic in occupied Europe. Hard to believe – I had always assumed that massive quantities of resources were used to murder the victims. I guess the Nazi’s were even more efficient than I had thought.
It was a short meeting, but so important in history. Here we see “middle managers” completely buy in to the awful goals of their superiors and cheerfully go about carrying it out.
Today’s lunch was pretty fun. I ate a “Donor Kabob.” It sounds really gross because it doesn’t translate well, but it’s a Turkish sandwich with shaved lamb (roasted on a large vertical rotisserie), onions, cabbage, lettuce, and hot sauce – all in pita bread. It was quite good.
Donor Kabob - got this one off the internet. I forgot to get a pic of my sandwich!
I think my favorite site of the day was Platform 17. This is the railroad platform near the outskirts of Berlin where some 50,000 Jews were “deported” to Theresienstadt. It’s a great memorial with one large metal platform that represents each known deportation from Berlin from this station. There are even three blank ones to represent any that may not be known. It is a very powerful memorial.
Platform 17
Metal plate commemorating this transport of 1002 Jews who were sent to the Lodz ghetto in Poland
We then went on a little walking tour of “Jewish Berlin” to see major sites connected to the Jewish history of the city. We went to the first place the Jews were allowed to build a synagogue in the city. The synagogue was torn down during the Communist days of the ‘60’s because there were only 300 Jews left in East Berlin, but there is a nice memorial there now.
Jewish memorial at the site of the first synagogue in Berlin
Part of the memorial deals with the demonstrations of Christian wives and mothers. What happened was Jewish men who had married Christian women before Hitler came to power were not treated as harshly as other Jews. However, many of them were eventually arrested. When this happened, their wives went down to police headquarters and protested for three weeks! Then their husbands and sons were released. Later, it was learned that they were not going to be deported anyway, but still the bravery of these women is amazing. This is one of the few open demonstrations by German civilians during the war.
A few years ago I attended a conference at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. I met a survivor who was in that group of men arrested. His father was Jewish and his mother was Christian. He and his father were picked up and put into jail and his mother joined the other women on the street protesting. It was special for me to hear more specific information about that event and to stand where it happened to build a stronger “link” to that survivor’s experience.
We also saw some brass "cobblestones" in the streets in Berlin. These are placed in the street to commemorate a specific Berlin Jew who was deported and murdered. over 27,000 have been placed in Berlin.
Our last site visited was the one with the greatest story of the day. We visited the brush-making shop of Otto Weidt. He was a blind man who employed mostly other blind people in making brushes (shoe brushes, brushes to polish metal, etc.) to the German army. He also employed several Jews in his shop. When times became difficult he hid the Jews he employed in a secret room in his shop.
Otto
However, the Jewish employees were doing such a good job making brushes that there were too many piling up in his shop. If the German Army found out, they would revoke the special permits his Jewish employees had and they would be deported and murdered. So, one of his employees, Alice Licht, came up with a brilliant idea – they would take the extra brushes and sell them on the black market. It worked great and Otto became very wealthy as a result.
Alice
Then, disaster. Alice was arrested and scheduled for deportation to a concentration camp. Otto used some of the fortune he had amassed to bribe an SS man to make sure she was sent to Theresienstadt camp. This camp was supposed to be the best in terms of living conditions. He even sent over 200 food packages to her in the camp while she was there. This was very dangerous because he had to buy food on the black market and ship it there. Others had to be involved not to be suspicious.
Then, unexpectedly Alice was sent to Auschwitz. She was able to get ahold of a postcard and wrote what was happening to her and threw the card out the small window of the train car as it was moving. She had also written a little note asking whoever found the card to please mail it to Otto Weidt and he would pay the postage.
Unbelievably, someone found the postcard and mailed it. When Otto learned of Alice’s transfer, he traveled to Auschwitz under the guise of selling brushes to the guards there and checked on Alice. She was still alive and had been sent to the part of the camp that sorts through the belongings of murdered Jews and sends the items back to Germany.
Otto uses more of his fortune to bribe officials to get her out of the camp and he brings her back to Berlin where he hides her with his family for the remainder of the war. She survived the war. Amazing. . . . .
It just goes to show you how much good one person can do in the life of another. Wow.
Well, that’s about it for today. Tomorrow will be another amazing day of authentic sites. We visit two concentration camps – Ravensbruck and Sachenhausen. I’m sure I’ll have much to write about tomorrow.
Till then. J
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