After sitting in solitude and then wandering around the gardens in front and the backyard (pictured above), situated right on the Wannsee, it became clear to me how and where Liebermann received his inspiration! Such a beautiful place!
Still swooning over Herr Cafe-meister. But the Franzbrötchen (croissant with cinnamon and, apparently, marzipan) and milk-coffee were great, too. :-P
After spending about an hour-and-a-half at the Max Liebermann Haus & Museum, we then walked down the street in order to reach the Wannsee-konferenz Haus. Please take a look at my last post, if you haven't already, and click on the Wikipedia links I put in there regarding both Liebermann and the Wannsee House/Conference.
As beautiful as the Liebermann House was, the Wannsee House was my "favorite" part of the day. It's hard to say it was my favorite because the house holds such a horrific history. But the sheer magnitude of the evil that was plotted out there is just so incomprehensible, so mind-boggling, it's hard not to become fascinated in the subject. The more I see here in Germany regarding the War, the more museums I visit, the more memorials I come across, the more intensely this question begs to be answered: "How could it happen?"
The entrance gate to the Wannsee House, with the placard written in German, English, and Hebrew.
View of the house from the front.
Just part of one of the rooms in the house, which is, of course, now filled with historical facts, videos, pictures, letters, etc.
View out the window of the dining room in which the Wannsee Conference was actually held.
Something that was really unsettling was the fact that, as stunningly beautiful as Liebermann's house and gardens were, I actually found the Wannsee house and gardens more beautiful. There is such irony there--and the question intensifies: "How, especially when surrounded by such beauty and liveliness, could a group of men be filled with such hate and draw such unthinkable conclusions?"
View from the backyard. Peace, serenity, and the reality of the Holocaust. It just doesn't fit.
After a rather somber afternoon, our class sat to discuss what we had seen and what we were feeling. We were all pretty much speechless, and as I mentioned in our discussion (auf Deutsch), I had no words in any language to express my sense of bewilderment. In two weeks, our class will go on an excursion to Sachsenhausen, a former Nazi concentration camp and then Soviet prison camp. Then, a week or so after, I'm going on the larger FUBiS trip to Weimar, where we will visit the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald. If this is how I--and others--feel after just visiting a house with such a haunted history, I can't imagine what I/we will be feeling after visiting those camps.
But now, onto the lighter part of the day...
Me, Rami, Birch, and Junyi on the bus, just leaving from the Wannsee House.
Andreas, Mike, Joey, and Megan.
And our Lehrerin ("teacher"), Hyoun-A!
Today was quite a good day. And as if this trip to Wannsee weren't a great enough experience, I got back to the apartment about 3:30, then had an hour before the Vandy group had a dinner date with our professor, the famous Peggy. We met up at this awesome, traditional Bavarian restaurant in Hackescher Markt, called Weihenstephan.
Wherever the main Weihenstephan brewery is, it claims (at least as the menus and the beer glasses say) to be the oldest brewery in the world. Anyway, the food was amazing...
Six Würstchens mit Senf, Sauerkraut, Brot, und ein Weihenstephan Traditional Bier!
And so was our waiter... :-D
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