Berlin Museums and Sachsenhausen Memorial

by Thomas Pope

In Berlin we visited a few museums and memorials. The most interesting one of these, in my opinion, was the Pergamon Museum. This museum exhibited many of the ancient artifacts from Rome and Babylon. The museum was enourmous. There had to be close to 100 rooms, and we didn’t have enough time to see them all. One of the largest exhibits was Ishtar Tor, or the Ishtar gate. 

            Other exhibits included small artifacts such as gold jewelry, lots of pottery, and statue remnants that had been recovered. Many of them were in fragments, and had to be peiced together to the eye. There were also large stone lions that had to weigh a few tons apiece, and lots of other artwork and sculptures from the time period. The ancient Babylonian manuscripts were also particularly interesting, the writing, while impossible to read, looked really cool. There were also some inverted geometrical carvings which had been painted and smoothed with laquer. These were some of the most interesting things there.

 

            While in Berlin, we also visited the site of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was a very humbling experience. We saw barely a glimpse of the conditions that prisoners were forced to live in, but even so, it was emotional. We saw the large pillar memorial constructed in the center of the camp that seemed to loom over everything. We also saw the guard towers and a few of the living quarters.

            In the camp, we had the oppurtunity to read about some of the history of the camp. I’m glad we had the oppurtunity. There were many notes, flowers, and rocks placed on some of the memorials as a sign of respect. Some of the members of our group, including myself, placed small stones on some of the plaques.