By Caelan Monkman
Today’s study trips took us through more of Berlin’s extensive Cold War history. Our first stop was at the Berlin Wall Memorial, which is located on both sides of Bernauer Strasse. Getting to the memorial was a journey through history in itself because it involved taking the S-Bahn to Nordbahnof station, which was sealed off during the time of the Berlin wall in an effort to prevent East Berliners from using the subway tunnels to escape.
At the Berlin Wall Memorial, we watched two short documentaries which explained the historical context of the wall, and what the wall’s security systems consisted of. They provided us with a great baseline understanding of the wall, which was then greatly expanded on through a tour given of the Memorial. It was really interesting to learn about the many ways people attempted to escape East Berlin, and the many people who lost their lives attempting to make it to freedom.
Our second stop of the day was at a Stasi prison, where we were given a tour by Hans Jochen Scheidler, a former political prisoner of the prison. The tour was incredibly interesting, though at times, it was quite hard to hear the harrowing stories of Scheidler’s time in prison. He spoke about still living quite close to the prison, and how he’d once met one of the former prison generals in a nearby supermarket. To me, this experience and his stories were very eye-opening. They acted as prime examples of how everyone has a story to tell, and the importance of journalism in ensuring that important history like this doesn’t get lost to time. I’ll end this blog post with the same message as Scheidler left us with at the end of the tour: Those who sleep in democracy will wake up in dictatorships.
