Photos from Auschwitz (Oświęcim, Poland)

One of my colleagues just defended her Ph.D. and moved to Kraków, Poland. While visiting, I had a chance to visit Auschwitz.

No commentary is necessary.

Trip to Berlin, Germany

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Germany as part of the EMBO Long-term Fellowship application process. Approximately half of the applicants are selected to participate in an on-site interview (mine was in Göttingen). Following the interview stage, about one-third of the interviewees receive the fellowship. Keep your fingers crossed, or "hold your thumbs" as the Swedes say, as only about 200 are awarded throughout the EU in a given year!

However, when booking the trip, I left 6 hours free on my second day in Germany. I figured that would be enough time to get from Hanover to Berlin and leave a few hours for seeing as much as possible. In the end, I only had about three hours in the city but I really wish that I had an entire weekend.

Overall, Berlin was an interesting mix of Eastern/Western philosophies and recent/historical architecture. I also think the "modern" history of the city makes it an interesting place to visit. Plus, beer and food was cheap.

Like most tourists, I wanted to see what was left of the Berlin Wall. Therefore, I took the ICE (Inter City Express) from Hanover to Berlin Ostbahnhof, which was East Berlin's Central Station. The largest remaining section of the Berlin Wall is directly outside of the station. The East Side Gallery is an impressive 1300m in length.





Next up was Checkpoint Charlie. I couldn't believe how commercialized the area was. On a building adjacent to the historical checkpoint, Mercedes-Benz had two very large billboards. Also, of note, the German government, removed the only remaining component of the East German blockade (a watchtower) to make room for office space and shops. Ironically, these shops now market exclusively to people who would've really enjoyed to see the original watchtower.







Due northwest of Checkpoint Charlie, was the site of Hitler's Bunker (Führerbunker). This was somewhat difficult to find because the only identifier is a metal-framed schematic diagram. The German government has been trying to avoid the site from turning into a Neo-Nazi shrine, therefore, it had no markings until June 2006 when they added this schematic plaque. The rest of the site remains very inconspicuous and serves as a parking lot.





Less than 400m away, lies the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It's an interesting concept, composed of over 2700 individual concrete slabs, and the relative "level" of the walking surface changes independently of the height of the concrete columns:





A little bit further up the street was a nice memorial that honored the people killed attempted to cross from East Germany to West Germany.



Brandenburg Gate



The Reichstag building. Talk about a building with some history. The German Republic was proclaimed from one of its windows. It was set ablaze which allowed Hitler to seize power in 1933. The reunification of Germany was enacted there in 1990.







Other nice modern architecture: The Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus (Bundestag office building) looked quite modern. In the final photo, notice the place for the crosses. They seem to match to the aforementioned ones.







The new impressive Berlin Central Train Station. This picture does NOT do the structure any justice.



In the pipe for future blog entries: Heatha's trip to the World Series and to the Dolphins-Pats game. Also, my trip to Krakow, Poland.