Submitted by Natalie Kaucic on the 2018 spring semester program in Rome, Italy…
Over this spring break, I visited Berlin. What I saw when I got there was not what I was expecting. The whole city was utterly haunting to an extent where I felt uncomfortable in the city because of its history. As you all well know, Nazi Germany’s center was Berlin. While I knew this was true, I was not prepared for what I saw in Berlin. The big thing that very much unsettled me was the Nazi architecture that can be found in the city. The Nazi Ministry of Aviation is still entirely intact from the war and looking at this thundering structure gave me chills. I could see where the Nazi flags were hung, I could picture the swastikas and it made me feel as cold as the cinder block structure I was looking at. To stand in the nondescript parking lot that now sits above Hitler’s bunker where he killed himself, to see the golden stones on the sidewalks in front of the homes of Jews that were killed by the Nazi Regime was a chilling reminder of the horrendous reality that humans are capable of such atrocities and blind rage. Not to mention, the dozens of monuments representing the different groups that were persecuted during this time. It was also baffling to learn that so much of Berlin was destroyed in the bombings. While Berlin isn’t the most picturesque of cities, I urge everyone to go and be humbled by the history that lies in that city. It will be a city I will never forget and a city that should never be.
