Week 1

It is still difficult to comprehend that I am now studying in Berlin. A city in which history is visable around every corner and a city that has even more history buried underneath its surface. The first week in Berlin has been one that I will not forget. I feel that all my expectations for a city and school courses have been realized in the very first week. I have very high optimisms for growing as an individual through the combination of cultural and academic growth that can only be provided in a study abroad program.
The first week of classes have mostly been centred on discussing the future of the courses and becoming acclimated with the professors. The readings relate directly to the city that surrounds us, which provides me with constant internal discussion of the readings as I wonder the streets of Berlin. Discussing about the Palace that once stood on the other side of Under den Linden made me realize how the memory of this city is incorporated with daily life for Berliners. Memory is more than a photograph or a story to the people of this city, memory must be something tangible so that future generations will not forget or distort its past.
We watched a film in class by Daniel Isenberg called The Displaced Person, this film provoked my thought process for my own film. The film showed a mysterious character later to be known as Hitler moving around Paris. It used old film footage and reels to show how Paris reacted when Hitler arrived. The reception shown in the film is one of delight and fascination with the powerful leader. The film then spliced in many images of people being deported to concentration camps on trains. The powerful image of a single helpless woman leaving in a train car is juxtaposed with the all powerful Hitler arriving in his train car.
These strong images made me think of the helpless people that became victims of the Holocaust due to the Nazi regime. I also pondered if it was my duty to speak out as a Jew in Berlin for those who did not have a voice. Should my film be based on the Jewish tragedy just because I myself am a Jew? I had a lot of questions to ask myself about the direction and focus of my film.
On Friday I got to meet Thorsten Wagner. Professor Ames told the class that we were fortunate to have such a prolific scholar teaching us this quarter and I could now see it for myself as we reviewed the syllabus. This is the class I wanted when I first thought of studying abroad. I want to take to the streets and become apart of the history. This class touches on the history of the surrounding environment while at the same time questioning the history and forces us to think of what the future holds for this city. I am very excited to go on our first excursion and to see if my optimism will be fulfilled.