I woke up this morning at 9am, which made a difference from the usual 7.30am wake up call. I wasn’t feeling particularly well, as I came down with symptoms of hay fever and flu. Although there is the temptation to stay in bed for the whole day, I thought to myself, how many times am I ever going to have the chance to go to an amazing city like Berlin, and have this experience with college?

Breakfast was made by the boys, which was quite surprising. Until everyone sat down and realised it was the same menu we’ve been eating for the past couple of days.

We left to catch a train around 11.45am, and this consisted of taking two trains to reach our destination, Sachsenhausen, which was a Nazi concentration camp in the town of Oranienburg.
When we arrived there were these gates that had the words, “Arbeit Macht Frei” on them. This is a German phrase meaning “work makes you free”. This slogan was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz.

Once we walked through the gates, there were large patches of grass where the prisoners and Jewish people would have to stand waiting for hours until their name was called from the register, despite the weather. 
It was a really cold day to being with, but I can’t imagine how they were able to go through with it, seeing as I was pretty cold, and I was wearing at least 4 layers, and those people would be wearing a small amount of very thin clothing.

While walking around, I could see stone walls which were up to three meters high. There was also a space in-between, which was patrolled by guards and dogs. The wall was bordered on the inside by a lethal electric fence; inside that was a gravel "death strip" forbidden to the prisoners. All of this made me realise how militant the security must have been, especially when the guards without warning would shoot any prisoner venturing onto the “death strip”. Several of the buildings and structures we saw had been reconstructed. However the guard towers, the camp entrance and some of the camp barracks were original buildings. Some of the things which made this experience more realistic to me was when I saw the uniforms the prisoners had to wear when we visited one of the barracks. Barrack 38 and 39 were part of the “small camp” and it was there that the SS incarcerated Jewish prisoners. Barrack 39 taught me a lot about the everyday life of a prisoner in Sachsenhausen.

One thing that I spent a lot of time looking at was the execution trench. It was weird to picture people shot and killed in an area that you could turn around in every direction and to think at least one person died right underneath your footsteps.
Although visiting the Sachsenhausen was quite emotional, I’m really glad we went, as I feel I learnt so much compared to when I first came on this trip. It helped me to visually understand as well as mentally.

After we left the concentration camp, we caught a train to Kreuzberg to eat out. We ended up eating at an Indian restaurant. The food was enjoyable and overall it was a good day, but what topped the night off was the view of Berlin at night over the River Spree.

Sharin