^^Title quote from 1984 by George Orwell Chapter 6 made me mad. It wasn’t just the forced labour, the hellish conditions for the Ostarbeiter, or the fact that I can count myself as part of one of the nationalities kidnapped and enslaved (as I am of French ancestry). It’s the fact that nobody ever teaches these things…
First Few Weeks of School
I have finished my third week of school and have been so busy and distracted that I almost forgot to write this blog post! I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing or how but slowly I’m starting to create a routine for myself and for that I am excited. Taking four classes in German is…
That’s Amore
Capri and Sorrento When one usually thinks of Italy Rome, and the stunning Amalfi coast, are most likely the two pictures that come to mind. Even though I believe I could spend the rest of my life in Roma I was longing to get to the coast as well. So, our program packed up our…
Welcome to Salvador!
About two weeks ago I arrived in the colorful city of Salvador and so far it is all I was waiting for. Before visiting a place I always Google it and to some extent create a physical expectation from the pictures I see. However, when I got to the places for which Salvador is known,…
Exploring País Vasco
As the fourth month comes to an end, it is really starting to hit me that my time here is getting shorter and shorter. I have made the most amazing friends that have made my experience even more memorable. I joined the Erasmus group while being here, which is the program in which European students…
Expansionssüchtig
The title of this blog post is one of the vocabulary words we learned in German 491 this semester. It is a compound word, constructed using ‘expansion’ and ‘süchtig’, the latter meaning ‘addicted’. The word was used to describe Adolf Hitler, and after reading Chapter 5 of Berlin at War, I now completely understand why. It strikes…
Slaves to Hitler
Chapter 6 has provided me with the most information so far from this book. Before reading this I really did not know that labor and that people were forced into slavery during the late 1930’s early 1940’s. I really just through people got send to camps and worked there or got killed. Not only that…
The Holocaust
Reading about the measures the Nazi regime took against Jews and others they considered ‘undesirable’ is always hard. There’s multiple things people are taught, people know, about these measures. Some of the largest include: deportation to ghettos, relocation to concentration camps, the Final Solution, exclusion from society, etc. I was a little shocked while reading Berlin at…
Architecture during the war
A particular name really stood out to me during these readings, Albert Speer, was a fascinating and controversial figure during the late 1930s and early 1940s. I found it very interesting to read about him and his ability to sort of reshape how Berlin’s city looked in what I thought was a very quick period…