Horst and Gale's Trip thus far and the Bergen-Belsen Memorial

Horst and Gale are about halfway through their trip and it seems like their visit is just flying by! Since they arrived last Friday, they have been able to see 2 of Kevin's games. It is pretty rare for him to have 2 home games in one weekend, so that was great for them! I ended up getting sick again and missed my first of Kev's home games. I think all the flu and sickness is almost behind us now in this apartment! Good news though, the Freezers have won the past 2 games since returning from the break! They are in Augsburg on Friday, and Horst and Gale will be driving down to watch that game as well!

Since the weekend was filled with games, Horst and Gale didn't get to explore much of Hamburg until Monday. I was back to work on Monday, but Kevin had the day off so he went down town with them and took a bus tour of Hamburg. Now, we already did one bus tour during Horst's first visit, but this was a different bus line with a different route and they said it was fantastic. They got to see some different beautiful residential side streets that we didn't get to see on the other tour. The Christmas markets are up and running now! They started those on Monday, so hopefully we will go see them all lit up tonight!

Yesterday, Kev didn't have practice until the afternoon so we got up early planned to get up early and drive towards Hannover to go to the Bergen-Belsen Memorial. We overslept by about an hour (oops!) but were still able to go and check out a bit of the memorial.

The Bergen-Belsen Memorial started out in WWII as a POW camp operated by the German army. The 20,000 prisoners that died were mostly from the Soviet Union and were buried in a cemetery about one kilometer from the camp. In 1943, Bergen-Belsen was established as a concentration camp. At least 52,000 men, women, and children died at this camp. British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen in April of 1945. When they came, they found thousands of unburied bodies and many other prisoners on the verge of death. The victims of this camp were buried in mass graves and the memorial currently has these mass graves, and monuments and memorial stones commemorating the victims' suffering and death. There are only a few structural traces left of the camp. After the British troops came and liberated the camp, it was then set up as a displaced persons camp. It was the largest Jewish displaced persons camp in Germany, holding up to 12,000 people until 1950.

Backside of the memorial in the picture to the right: Russia

The exhibit of this memorial was set up to be able to walk through the entire time period of the camp, beginning with a prologue of interviews of the survivors before their time at the camp. There were interviews throughout of the survivors telling everything they had gone through while being at the concentration camp to being a part of the displaced persons camp. It was very difficult to even look at the photos they had of all the prisoners that were unfed. It is impossible to explain everything that this exhibit had between letters from the camp guards and prisoners, to drawings the children did that stayed at the displaced persons camp. In order to get a full feel of everything that went on, we would have needed a few more hours to spend looking at and reading everything the exhibit had to offer. It's completely impossible to feel and understand what these people went through, but reading all of the survivor and guard's experiences was totally disheartening and seeing the photos made me feel so disgusted about what these people experienced.

After we left the exhibit, we took a stroll through the outdoor memorial. There were graves stones everywhere that were not actual graves, but symbols of the victims of the camp. They even had a grave stone for Anne Frank and her mother, because she was at this camp. In addition to the memorial stones, there were mass graves everywere with engravings showing how many people were buried there. Some said they held 800 and others over 1,000 people buried.

One of the many mass graves in the camp memorial

The commemorative grave stone of Anne Frank

These grave stones served as symbols of the victims

We left pretty early in the afternoon to get Kevin back in time for his afternoon practice (and interview!). He was interviewed by one of the newspapers in town, so we will have an eye out for that one in the next couple of days. Gale and I went on quite the search last night for our Thanksgiving meal tomorrow, and man oh man, was that stressful! And up until today, we still were turkey-less! However, thanks to Bea, we have a nice fresh turkey to pick up from a local poultry store! Anyway, this post is getting long so I'll put an end to it! We have a busy rest of the day so I will have lots to write about in the next few days!  Tschüss! And Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family at home! GO PACKERS!

Your first Hamburg History lesson!

Europe, Germany, and Hamburg itself is full of history! Yesterday Kev and I took a little "lift" ride to the steeple of the Mahnmal St. Nikolai (St. Nicholas Memorial). Although there are a few different historical churches/chapels in Hamburg, St. Nikolai is the tallest. When it was built back in 1874, it was considered the world's highest sacral building. The point of the steeple is 483 feet high. This church burnt down in the "Great Fire of 1842," and the citizens rebuilt between 1845 and 1874.


St. Nikolai



View of town hall from St. Nikolai steeple



St. Nikolai served as a landmark for the bomber pilots during World War II air raids in 1943. Hamburg was one of the most destructed cities during the war. Over the course of three days and nights, Allied airplanes attacked Hamburg in what was called "Operation Gomorrha." This operation is the most extreme in the history of international air war. Bombs put the city up in flames and caused a "fire storm." Over 35,000 people died during this while temperatures were pushed over 2000 degrees (C). Over 250,000 homes are destroyed along with St. Nikolai.



View of the ports from St. Nikolai steeple



The only remains of St. Nikolai after the air raids of the war were the steeple and parts of the walls. After this destruction, it was decided that St. Nikoai would not be rebuilt and it the ruins were declared a historic monument in 1960. Between 1973 and now, the St. Nikolai has been reconstructed into a memorial. Even while Kevin and I visited St. Nikolai, they were completing further construction on maintaining the church. We were amazed at the detailed architecture of this church, it is by far the most beautiful church I have ever seen.

We were also able to go into a small exhibit while we were here. The exhibit had old artifacts from the church's remains, but the most touching part of the exhibit were the pictures they had. There lines and lines of photos of areas of Hamburg after the air raids. We were able to visualize the destruction and get a tiny glimpse of what the people of Hamburg had gone through. They also had an area with pictures of parts of the city before the air raids, during the war, and present day photos. You can see one of those photos below.



St. Nikolai after the air raids



before/after photo

On a different note, we have visitors coming tomorrow! Kevin's brother Mike and two of his buddies arrive early tomorrow morning. It is going to be a riot around this household in the next few days! Have a great weekend everyone! Tschüss!