Last Day

Today the students split up into two groups. One group (the largest) went to Sachsenhausen. The other group (three students and the professors) went to Lutherstadt Wittenburg. Lutherstadt Wittenburg is the birthplace of the protestant reformation. The small group visited Martin Luther’s house. It was very interesting. It had lots of information about Martin Luther’s life, focusing on his contributions to the protestant reformation, and how the Catholic church reacted to his teachings/writings. There were also exhibitions of Luther’s writings and Bibles from the period. The group had an awesome lunch near the city hall, and then tried to go to the Church where Luther preached. Unfortunately, it was under restoration and closed to the public. The group then went to the house of a student of Martin Luther. The way it was presented was not the best, and there was much less information there than at Martin Luther’s house. There were however some interesting flags and books from that time period. After that house, the group went back to the train station and from there to the hotel in Berlin. The group that went to Sachsenhausen was able to compare this Concentration Camp to the Dachau Concentration Camp, which the entire group went to in Munich. Sachsenhausen was very different and yet similar to Dachau. For example, Sachsenhausen’s museum seemed to be more vivid and blunt in their descriptions of what went on in the concentration camp than Dauchau. Both concentration camps were in large areas and at one point had many buildings for many purposes, but today only a couple of the original buildings were still up. Both entrance gates said, “Work brings freedom” and both provided visual and descriptive information about this time period. Since today was the last day in Germany, the entire group (including the professors) went to dinner at a very typical German restaurant. The food was great, but the best part was hearing the professors tell us that our group was the best one they have ever taken to Germany. Also, we all went around the table and shared what we learned while studying abroad and it was really cool to hear what everyone took out of this trip! Auf wiedersehen!!