2 down 3 to go in a country still dealing with WW2.

Monday, December 8

I had two finals today which ended up being harder than I thought. Luckily, I studied alot for them (which I hadn't planned on doing) so they weren't bad at all. It was nice to finally have them over with and to be that much closer to home.

Afterward I went to the Neue Synagoge which is only about a block from IES. I have been meaning to for a while now but have never gotten around to it. And seeing as how I'm running out of time I thought I should stop by. I did a presentation and a calendar page on it for my Germans and Jews class and I at least wanted to see it...

It turned out to be pretty cool. Like most things in Berlin its morphed into a museum but there temporary exhibit "War hier eine Synagoge?" (Was there a synagogue here?) was really cool. A polish man went around Poland taking pictures of old synagoges and showing what they had become today. Many of them were abandoned while others had been turned into grocery stores, bars, and homes. Weird to think and see but really really interesting. The permanant exhibit was all about the history of the synagogue and the Jewish Gemeinde (there's not really a good translation, think parish). It's amazing what the synangoue and the people of the area went through and really neat to see some of the things they were able to recover after it was set to fire and bombed.

This carpet is outside the entrance of the synagogue. It reads "Morality is of the highest important for us, not for God."

I then decided to do some shopping since I'm starting to get stressed about all that I have to accomplish in NO TIME! So I knocked some things off the list which was really nice. When exiting the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof I noticed the new memorial they set up. It's for the Kindertransport to England during WW2. I'm not sure what the english name for it was when England accepted alot of German Jewish children to get them out of Germany. It's hard to believe that they are still putting statues and memorials up but its alot of history to deal with and I think this is just one great example of how far Germany still has to go.

The new Kindertransport Memorial.

But I came back and watched 4 hours of Amazing Race (now before you judge, I watched one 42 minute episode. It just a 4 hour process trying to get the STUPID internet to load - I can't wait for fast internet!!)

My host and her son got back from a trip to see grandma which they said was great. I had a great conversation with Max tonight and I think I've finally gotten the hang of his mumbling 10 year old accent. :) I also got the chance to talk to my host mom about the last 4 months. I'm not going to get sappy here or anything (I'll leave that for later) but it was fun to talk to her (and to hear that I've been one of her favorite students).