Sarah Seifred
October 12, 2023
Hi everyone.
It’s sad to say that our TAB experiences have nearly come to an end already. The past month and a half has truly been the best, eye opening and most significant learning opportunity of my life. I love that I have taken the opportunity to come here and learn more. I am very passionate about social studies, and learning more about Nazi Germany, so on a long weekend, I travelled to Oswiecim, Poland, and did an eight-hour tour of the Auschwitz~Birkenau concentration camp with a private tour guide for the day. “You know the facts but you need to know the stories” is something she said to me that day, and she was right. Although, as a social studies teacher, I know many facts about the Holocaust, hearing the stories behind the facts gave me a more profound appreciation and respect for the victims and the survivors. Standing in a gas chamber, seeing the barracks, the clothing the prisoners wore, the suitcases they arrived with, with their names on them (they didn’t know they were there for hard labour or to be killed), and the identification photos of the prisoners was truly an opportunity I will forever be grateful to have. As I walked around the camp, I felt something that is hard to put into words. It was like shock, but in a very negative sense. I was shocked by the horrible stories that were engraved in stones throughout the camp. There are many stories I learned that day; many of them are too gruesome and horrific to repeat here. However, there was one story that was sad, but gave hope at the same time. In a warehouse, not too far from one of Auschwitz’s crematoria and had chambers, was an area of the camp the prisoners called “Kanada” (Canada). The prisoners called this area of the camp Canada as a nickname, because when the prisoners would arrive and have their belongings stripped from them, another prisoner, in the Kanada area of the camp would have the task of sorting through their luggage, sometimes finding valuable items such as bread, and Jewelry. The prisoners thought the country Canada hadGreat riches, and therefore, that’s how it got its nickname.
I also, most importantly, want to learn more about the German school system. As many of the students wrote English exams, I was able to help mark some of the tests. I learned that the German grading system is quite different to Canadas, it’s hard to explain. However, working with ESL students has been real eye opening as I now have more resources and knowledge to apply to my own practice when I return to Canada. From learning a bit of German and hearing my students learn English, I’ve realised that one good way to learn a new language is to just be around it constantly; in their English classes, after a particular grade, students cannot speak German in those classes. I’ve also learned there are so many little rules in English that I never knew were “rules” of grammar and mechanics because Iam used to it.
I also did some fun things on my own time! For example, Luke Combs was performing in Hamburg, so I managed to nab some tickets to see him at the last minute, and even though I went to the concert by myself, I’m still very glad that I went because it was a great experience and very fun. The next day I went to Berlin, where I went to the Jewish museum and that was very cool because I got to learn more about the history of the Jewish religion and it wasn’t solely focussed on the Holocaust. This focussed a lot on educating me about the religion,some of the customs of the religion and the history of the religion as well.However, I did learn one very important lesson on my first day in Berlin always check the reviews of the hotel before you go. I checked into a hotel and the hotel ended up being horrible and disgusting so I ended up leaving without getting a refund and staying in a different nicer and much cleaner, hotel.
Oh, my second and final day in Berlin I went to the east side gallery, which is an area where the Berlin wall still stands and artist from around the world, painted their perceptions on what the world would look like before during and after the Cold War. You can see some of the artwork on the east side gallery website. If you ever want to take a look at our work was very cool and it was all done in different styles and a lot of stories were told through the artwork. Also I went to the Berlin cathedral, which was very cool. The cathedral was absolutely beautiful, and I love looking at all cathedrals on the inside there is a staircase of over 280 steps to get to the top of the cathedral to overlook the city, and although the climb was horrible, the view was great. After I left the Berlin cathedral, I just walked around that area and I slowly made my way to the Brandenburg gate. It’s really cool to see such famous landmarks up close in person. I also found that Berlin has a lot of historical landmarks outside, which serves as free public museums to learn more about the holocaust and the Cold War, which I also found to be interesting. I think it’s really important for people to learn about history, and I think it’s amazing that they make learning about the history of the city so accessible for many people.
