Student Reflection from Berlin

Hello Everyone. This is Sarah Teetsel with the first description of our activities from Berlin. After arriving in Berlin this morning, we met our guides – the last members of our March Leadership Team. We went first to a suburb of Berlin, to the Wahnsee River, where we enjoyed lunch outside before visiting the Liebermann-Villa and the  Villa.

Afterwards, we traveled back into the city to bear witness to the Grunewald Memorial and the Bayerische Platz Memorial. After dinner Anya, a German citizen and former March participant from HWS, shared some of her thoughts on remembrance, and we reflected on everything that had happened in our small groups. As we might have guessed, even the first day gave us much to think about, especially after our long journey to get here. For me, one way to process what we have experienced thus far was to write a poem, uniting the themes and ideas from the whole day. Colored words are reference to specific sites, but the sites are not in chronological order as we experience them throughout the day. This offers one perspective of our first day on The March. Thank you for being with us as we continue this life-changing journey.

THE FIRST DAY

I take a walk in the woods.

Green is all around me.

I hear the soft rustle

Of my footsteps.

The shadows of the trees

Loom all around,

Silently marching

With those that have come before.

Slowly, the grass fades

Into stones.

The ground becomes imprisoned,

Lashed by wood and metal.

It continues on for what seems like forever,

So I begin to count,

To see if I can reach an end to the madness.

I look closer at the bright,

Brilliant, bronze and iron.

Upon closer inspection,

I see only the rust,

Surely stemming

From the tears of

Beings who came before.

Soon I come to a house,

Gilded with jewels and finery,

Scented with perfume,

Yet none of it can mask

The odor of deceit,

Beguiling as it may be,

There is something rotten

With the uniformity,

The anonymity.

No mount of wealth

Can hide the scars

That are left behind

From the procedure,

The clinical atmosphere

Produced harm

Instead of giving life.

I look for a sign,

Something to tell me

Where the hell I am.

But there is nothing,

Those voices are silent.