Final Day in Berlin (Sun June 22nd)

On our last day in Berlin we ate our last breakfast at the Albrechtshof hotel (where we stayed while in Berlin) and traveled by train outside Berlin to visit the Sachsenhausen Concentration camp. After World War II this same camp was used by the Communist East German government as a forced labor camp. We spent several hours here touring the grounds of this site. It was ironic to me as I walked around the camp that day on a Sunday that around the world many people were going to church to worship God. Yet, here I was seeing for the first time with my own eyes one location where thousands of people were killed simply because of who they were. It turned in to a sort of rememberance day for me as I thought about the atrocities that went on here.

After we left the concentration camp we took a train to the city of Dresden where we then tranferred by bus to our next stop, Freiburg Germany and surrounding area.

(picture 1 and 2) A picture of me standing outside the gate to the concentration camp. The second picture is of the gas chamber at the camp.

(picture 3) A few of the California teachers having a little crazy fun that evening in Freiburg at the Obermarkt in the center of town. This fountain is a monument to Otto the Strong, the founder of the city. He allowed citizens to mine in the silver mines in the community, but they had to pay a large portion of what they mined to him in taxes.