The trip overall  

[At the end of last term,] the Year 10 German and History students woke up in the early hours of the morning to get to school, where we took a coach to Heathrow Airport to fly to Berlin. At once, we made our way to the City Lights Hotel to put down our belongings before setting off.

Our days were filled with a multitude of activities, such as visiting key memorial sites and important locations such as Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall, and others, which provided us with a more vivid view of the Second World War and its happenings. None of this would have been possible without the meticulous thinking ahead and flawless execution by Ms Feeney for planning every U-Bahn journey, every site visit, and every tiny detail. Huge thanks to Ms Feeney and to Frau Pavlopoulos, Mr Pelton, Ms Kung, and Mr Raine for accompanying us and making sure everything ran smoothly and we all made it back in one piece, and to Mr Morgan!

Yasmin L

The CityLights Hotel (right opposite the last remaining Flak Tower in Berlin which Mr Raine led us to on an evening walk)
When we arrived at the City Light Hotel in Berlin, we dropped off our bags in our rooms. Every day after our activities, we went back to the hotel where we were able to relax and have free time. In the mornings for breakfast we had a delicious buffet which included a pancake machine and a butter dispenser. The hotel also had a communal downstairs hang out area where we could stay during our free time. Overall the CityLights hotel was a very nice and accommodating hotel, which definitely made the trip better.

Sloane R

The trip included visits to Checkpoint Charlie, The Reichstag and its Dome (in pouring rain!), the Brandenburger Tor and a pleasurable stroll Unter den Linden as well as a tour of the former concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
On the third day we visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It consists of 2711 concrete columns of different heights on an uneven ground. Walking though the memorial, we were struck by the sense of isolation and disorientation created by the tall columns, perhaps echoing the feelings of the victims before they died. The ground dipped up and down, making us feel like we were sinking into the ground. The concrete columns reminded us of headstones for graves, emphasising the loss of the millions of victims and the size of the memorial also showed the huge number of people who were killed by the Nazis. We thought the lack of names showed the countless lives that were lost and the anonymity of the people killed. Overall, we thought the memorial had an interesting design that could be interpreted in many ways and effectively commemorated the millions of people who lost their lives.

Lily A

Meeting Wolfgang Katschner and lunch with Herr and Frau Buehler
On the second day, the group split up between the German and the history students. While the history students visited Sachsenhausen, the German students visited Herr and Frau Buehler who had set up an interview over lunch with their friend, Wolfgang Katschner, a lutenist who had lived in the former communist East Berlin. We learnt about the hardships he had faced as a conscientious objector in East Germany, including scrutiny for pursuing music, for using a printing press to print flyers for a concert and the general tension there was in East Berlin.

Edlyn B 

We also learnt that Mr and Mrs Buehler had frequently travelled through the border for school trips and visiting family. They told us stories about how a student was rejected from the border due to forgetting her papers and how they had once smuggled a radio in to give to a relative. It was very interesting and gave us a chance to practice our German with many different people.

Yasmin L

Mozart at the State Opera
We had the opportunity to watch one of Mozart’s famous operas at the Berlin State Opera. We saw Die Entführung aus dem Serail or The Abduction From the Seraligo. The opera tells the story of a young woman called Konstanze who has been abducted by pirates together with her maid Blonde, and Pedrillo, valet to her fiance, Belmonte. They become servants to a wealthy man, Pasha Selim, who has fallen in love with Konstanze. Pedrillo the valet smuggles letters to Belmonte to try and plan their escape. The singing was so beautiful and we were lucky enough to have seats in the 12th row! One of the parts was played by a famous German comedian, who put a slightly confusing modern spin on the recitative, which left a few of us a bit confused. It was a very beautiful evening!

Rory M

East Side Gallery
During our exploration of the city of Berlin, we spent a memorable afternoon walking alongside the East side gallery. Even in the rain, the powerful murals and diverse art made for a really special experience. Walking along the whole stretch and seeing how all these different artists turned a piece of history into something so unique definitely made it one of the best parts of the trip.

Sofia T

The DDR Museum
One of the fascinating museums we visited was the DDR museum located in what once was East Berlin. It was a very interactive museum that immersed us in what it was like to live in East Berlin. The museum included a fully functioning replica of an apartment in the GDR, including a working TV and a simulator of a lift in an apartment block, which gave us all quite a shock! It was a surprisingly moving experience that really opened our eyes to what it was like to live a normal life during the time of a divided Germany.

Emma L and Aenea E 

We also had the opportunity to sit inside an iconic Trabi car, which was a very cheap, rapidly produced vehicle designed for ordinary workers in Germany. We simulated driving around an old German neighbourhood, and many of us only narrowly avoided crashing into lampposts and buildings. The museum, however, also didn’t shy away from darker themes, such as the Stasi surveillance methods, and the Berlin Wall.

Edlyn B

The Stasi Museum 
Perhaps the most grim reflection on the intrusion of the police state came from The Stasi Museum. Home of the GDR secret police, an unassuming complex of harsh brutalistic buildings, were the site of a systematic effort to control the population through fear and intimidation. Each floor of the museum showcased their weapons for creating a feared force that penetrated all aspects of a regular German citizen’s life. A wall of hidden cameras in bird boxes, car doors and even a flask, for me, was a profound image of the intrusion and violation of privacy that was pervasive during that time. Additionally, the museum showed us the stories and faces of the many informants that helped solidify the Stasi’s rule through intimidation and the belief that where anyone ventured, a Stasi agent was not that far away.

Lastly, I found the rooms explaining their tactics to intimidate their targets extremely interesting. The Stasi could enter any home and search through all personal belongings, to simply show that they were there. They would also leave their agents in view of their targets so the barrel of a camera could be seen following them around the street. Overall, whilst there were some disturbing exhibitions in this museum, I found it an extremely valuable experience to better understand the power and danger of a police state and also to better value the privacy we have and the price you pay as an individual when it is lost.

Lucy D