Berlin. A city so dense with history it worried most of us. How were we to take in all of the information that was about to be presented?
In a short period of four days we would learn more about the Nazi era, Cold War Germany, and Reunification than we thought we ever could. The nature of our trip to Berlin was based on independence. Rather than sit in a class room and listen to a professor drone on and on about seemingly the same thing it was on us to go out and learn something. Thankfully, the AIB gave us the tools we needed to get the best possible learning experience.
There were many wonderful pieces to our Berlin excursion, but the keystone day was our individual cultural learning days. We divided into four groups and were given a location, a person, and a time. We just had to get there. The four categories all combine to create a portrait of Berlin. The first was a multicultural tour. Here students met with a Turkish guide who lent her knowledge of immigration to Germany and the issues surrounding the influx of Turkish and other Arabic men, women and children. Next was the Cold War and the division of Germany after the second World War. One group had the opportunity to learn about Berlin street art and how influential those pieces are in the culture not only of the present but of the past. However, the group I was a part of was tasked with finding out about what life was like in the GDR. Our instructions were few: find place, visit place, meet guide, present what we learned.
Ultimately, it was on us to rally our minds and focus on what we were witnessing because each of the places we visited and each of the guides we talked with had very important places in German history.
Fast forward past the bus and public transport mishaps and you find us staring up at the daunting sign “You are now leaving the American Sector.” This imposing symbol marks the border of West Berlin to East Berlin where various United States and Allied guards, diplomats, and of course a strapping John F. Kennedy were all received into East Germany. The remains of the actual checkpoint are few. McDonalds, department stores, and Pommes stands dot the site where Allied and Soviet tanks met at a standstill. Some Germans dressed as Americans posed with tourists in front of the lone checkpoint. That was a little strange. Our day was beginning to look like a tourist’s dream, until we met Rolf.
A wild-eyed toothless man waddles up to our group of four. Startling us with his enthusiasm, he ushers inside, assuring us that we are about to get the inside tour. Little did we know... Rolf began by giving us an explanation of the GDR and the history of the division of Germany; largely information we already knew. His speech begins to turn into a ran about current German politics. Oh brother. How long will this last? Fortunately, he casually throws in a bit of information that throws off the group.
“I smuggled 129 East Germans into West Germany.”
Woah, woah, Rolf. Hold on a second. Our group of four simultaneously dropped our jaws. We ask him to repeat that. And sure enough, he leads us to his photo inside the museum confirming exactly what he had just said. Following that, he talks about how he was imprisoned by the secret police, the Stasi. For nine years, they beat him and interrogated him. His teeth now made perfect sense. Rolf explains that his wife always asks him to fix up his mouth. But he refuses. His gums are a symbol for the trials of East Germans. He was sentenced to fifteen years, but fortunately for him and everyone the wall came down sooner rather than later.
The tour went on, and Rolf continued to wow us with the amount of political heroes he knew and his seemingly endless knowledge of not just the GDR, but the whole of Germany and its history.
Our time with Rolf sped by. But, I can say with a cross on my heart, that I have never learned more at a museum that day. We were forced to engage and learn. We were given the hammer, all that was left was hitting the nail on the head.
By Nick Logsdon
