Today we visited an art museum where we discussed how identity and culture are metaphysical. This viewpoint can be portrayed and seen through art and an example is the photograph of the painting below. The artist used cubism which makes it hard to detect a focal point. This is much different from previous art styles where the artist paints the scene in a way that draws the audience's eyes to a particular place. The paintings at the museum showed how art can be used to convey a certain message to the audience. This is why Hitler had a narrow and pessimistic view of art. He wanted to sensor the art in Germany to hide any self expression. He thought that art should be easy to understand and simple. Anything that was up to interpretation and unrealistic was burned and taken from museums and the public.
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Today we had an eye-opening discussion with refugees in Germany. One refugee told us about his gruesome journey to Germany and his battle to receive asylum status. We also had the opportunity to visit Rütli School and have a conversation with some of the students. We talked about stereotypes of Muslims in American and Americans in Germany. We also talked about the similarities in the political climate with the growth of right wing conservatism in both America and Germany. Thinking back to the movie Soul Kitchen a comparison can be seen because it shows how not all immigrants are the same. Zinos, in Soul Kitchen was more assimilating into German culture, unlike Umay in Die Fremde. This shows that Muslims are different from one another cannot be put into a box or categorized. They all have different experiences and have different ways of how they want to assimilate. This is why it is wrong to stereotype a group composed of so many different types of people.
Today we went to a beautiful Mosque. While we were there our tour guide spoke about how women who were hijabs were more likely to experience discrimination in the east than in the west. He also discussed how Germany brought in guest workers and how they were expected to leave. Many “guest” workers did not leave, because they started a life in Germany and brought their families with them. At the discussion we had later in the afternoon, the described how the language of muslims have changed over time from guest worker to foreigner to muslim. All of the guest worker conversation reminded me of the movie, Fear Eats the Soul. In the movie Ali was a guest worker and faced discrimination in Germany. Many people wouldn’t serve him because he didn’t speak perfect english and because he married a German woman.
Today we went on separate group excursions and my group went to the House of Wannsee Conference. Throughout the semester I researched ways in which Jewish property was expropriated and how Jewish people were purged from society. Going to the House of Wannsee Conference gave me concrete documents and charts that explain certain events and methods that were used. The list pictured below names some of the Decrees that were issued after a reorganization of National Socialist Jewish policy. Today’s excursion reminded me a lot of the documentary, Annihilation: the destruction of European Jews. This documentary described events that lead to the Holocaust and showed Hitler use of rhetoric to mobilize many people against the Jews.
Today we toured the Jewish Quarter of Berlin and leaned about how Jewish people were forcibly taken from their homes and sent to concentration camps. There homes were then given to Germans. We were also reminded of Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass, where many Jewish businesses and homes were broken into, destroyed, and burned down. This reminds me of Martin Luther's perspective on Jews in Germany. He, at first, believed that Jewish people would see the error in their ways and convert to Christianity with ease, but after the unresponsiveness of the Jews, Luther changed his prospective. It changed to a more aggressive and targeted approach of believing that Jews should not be tolerated and he advocated for cleansing them from society. He thought that the cleansing should include the torching of schools and synagogues as well and taking Jewish wealth. This rhetoric can be seen within Kristallnacht because many Jewish synagogues were torches and broken into.
Experiencing the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was a somber and eye opening experience. Walking the through the underground section of the museum and listening to and reading stories of Jewish people who were murdered was very emotional. The outside of the memorial was just as somber because of what the blocks represent. It very upsetting to see children running and playing, people drinking, and people jumping on the blocks. In Schneider, he discusses the ways in which the memorial was criticized and highlights the discussion around the specific behavior I saw being displayed. He writes that some believe the memorial is a German, and not a Jewish project, meaning that the memorial has more to do with the unification of Germany rather than the Holocaust itself. Many also think that it is good to have people sit and play at the memorial and I once considered these arguments, but after experiencing this behavior myself it seemed very disrespectful. Walking through the museum while mourning the victims and also seeing people run, play, drink, and jump on the blocks is very upsetting.
Touring the Mauer Memorial was a fascinating and unbelievable experience. We saw how West Berlin was separated from East Berlin by the wall. We were reminded how the wall was created in August of 1961 and the first version of the wall went up overnight. This was unbelievably tough for people who commuted back and forth. As we saw in The Lives Of Others, the Stasi were a very powerful and effective secret police force. The Stasi were very successful at finding conspirators and kept files on many people living in the east. Pictured below you can see the main wall with a secondary wall. In between the two of walls, there were many obstacles to get by which included spikes, soldiers and a watchtower, to name a few.
Today we took a bus tour around Berlin and saw some of its most famous and historical buildings including the Reichstag (pictured below) and statues of Sophia Charlotte and King Frederick I. The Reichstag is interesting because of the glass dome that was created after World War II. The reasoning behind this was to symbolic show the new found transparency of the German Government, which would prevent another holocaust from happening. In the Craig reading, he writes a lot about Sophia Charlotte’s importance to creation of the art and sciences movement. This can be seen by the about of statutes and buildings named after her. In the Schneider reading, “Cinderella Berlin”, he writes that Berlin does not have the same visual wow factor like other European cities, but it has a rich and unique history which brings in many tourists.
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