Oct. 9, 2010

This morning Hannah D. and I went to the Saturday market to get some fresh croissants. The sun was rising and the light hit the clouds at such an angle that it created such brilliant and vibrant colors! It looked as if the sky was on fire. It is amazing how God’s glory can be displayed in every sunset! I bought two croissants when we found out where the bakery both was. I bought a chocolate croissant and a marzipan croissant. Each costing a euro, and oh was it worth it. We got back in time for breakfast and then we were on the road for Flossenburg. 

We stopped in the town of Flossenburg to visit the memorial of the concentration camp and see where Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged. Personally I wished that we could have been there longer, for perhaps another hour. I felt rushed and didn’t have enough time to really see everything. I did however get to see where Bonhoeffer’s last earthly steps were taken. There was a plague put up on the wall right where the execution would have taken place and inscribed (all that I could make out) was the verse 2 Timothy 1:7 which reads; “For God did not give us the spirit of timidity, but the spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” It was really cool to see scripture at a holocaust memorial. 

This was the third concentration camp that I have visited in my life time (the others being Dachau and Buchenwald) and it was also the smallest. Before Germany made it a memorial they were in a way sweeping it under the rug, in that housing was being built over some of the land of the camp. This can now be seen if you look to the right and left of the camp. I couldn’t believe it when I saw a road that cut right through the back of the camp’s entrance gate. It led straight up to the houses that were on the left! Not many can say that their back yard view is that of the Flossenburg Concentration camp. I cannot believe that someone even had to put their foot down to stop the building! Who would just go over the land where thousands (approximately 30,000) of people died and even more were tortured!? Over the camps lifetime there were approximately 100,000 encamped there. 30,000 of them did not survive. 

When we came into the camp, there was a film being shot (about the camp, I am assuming). All of us got to see a survivor by the name of Jack Terry. He barley a teenager when he was imprisoned. However now being in his late 70s he has risen above the hurt of his past and works in New York as a Psychologist. He specializes in the treatment of other Holocaust survivors. That was an amazing thing to hear. I really have an appreciation for him. I myself am a psychology major. 

We had to keep pressing on in our journey to Dresden. I really enjoyed Dresden. The first night we were there I got toattend a concert at the Protestant church of Dresden (which is now mainly a concert hall and a place where any religion can worship. Looking at the interior of the church, you could see that it was not the original of its time (since that was fire bombed in WWII), but it was a beautiful replication. The concert (which played Tchaikovsky and Ravel) has to be my favorite thing on my trip so far. I love classical so much!  

Another thing that I enjoyed about Dresden was simply how beautiful it was. Germany, in my opinion is a very quaint country of cute little houses and cookie cutter villages. But Dresden really displayed beauty! There was a high influence of Baroque culture and design by the King Augustus the Strong. We visited one of the most important art museums in Europe (not as important as the Louvre in my opinion) and I was privileged to see some works by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Rafael. But there was one piece that really caught my attention. It was a piece by Rubens displaying what appeared to be bestiality. The piece was titled Leda mit dem Schwan (Leda with the Swan in English). Michelangelo painted the same piece and so did many other artists. I thought it very interesting that an artist would chose to paint such a grotesque subject as this. But that just proves the importance of art, the artists paint things for a reason, whether to show beauty or corruption. There is always meaning in art. The longer you scrutinize the more you discover. The story of Leda and the Swan is an ancient Greek myth of a god that fell in love with a woman that was on earth. He decided to come to earth as a swan and make her fall in love with him. And she did. So it is important to understand the background of this piece, otherwise it appears to be bestiality. There was so much more that I loved it in Dresden. I’ll have to go back someday!