Ten days and four countries later the NZ THIMUN delegation arrived in Berlin on the evening of the 20th. Potential disaster with a delayed Easyjet flight was averted by the comfortable lounges and cheap internet that kept all the delegates social networking right up until we boarded the plane. When we arrived in Berlin we had a brief S-Bahn ride to our hostel – Singer 109. The bitter cold and marginal difficulty in wheeling our luggage over cobbled, rustic streets was replaced by what every person agrees is BY FAR OUR BEST ACCOMODATION. Internet is free, computers are provided and our rooms are enormous – 4 people in a 6-person room! This excitement meant sleep did not come easily to us as we relaxed in each other’s rooms and socialized.
A typical German breakfast welcomed our bleary eyes (at least one room of boys slept in!) before our fantastic tour guide Chris (AKA Christian Longgermanicname Longgermanicname) and his warm bus picked us up at 9am. Our destination of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was approximately an hour north of Berlin and enroute Chris’s insightful anecdotes kept us all entertained. I don’t think anyone will be able to look at a major German attraction again without thinking of all the nicknames Chris gave us! The weather was overcast, grey and -1 degrees. It was the perfect setting for our tour of one of the most brutal concentration camps and heinous crimes ever perpetrated by the Nazi regime.
We had the opportunity to see this for ourselves, both on the bus ride and in a chilling (both figuratively and literally) two hour tour of the camp. Drab accommodation conditions blended holistically with traditional monuments that will never let the world forget the atrocities committed here. I think it’s fair to say that we were all tearful when we abided by the traditional Jewish custom of placing stones on a gravestone to remember the fallen.
After two hours in sub zero conditions the warmth of the bus was gratefully embraced by all. A trip to the Olympiastadion, the site of Jesse Owen’s conquest of Hitler (and not forgetting the Zidane headbutt!) was followed by the customary German meal of Currywurst with chips.
One of the most appealing aspects of Berlin city is its compact nature; the Brandenburg Gate, National Art Academy, Reichstag, Hitler’s bunker and the boulevard with the Victory Column. It took the group about 30 minutes to do this on foot, along the way taking the opportunity to get our passport stamped with relics of the Berlin Wall and a group photo.
Unfortunately our time in Berlin was limited to one day, so the delegation made the most of the night walking around Alexanderplatz before a quiet dinner in our hostel. Socialising in people’s rooms combined with packing took up the evening. Everyone was mindful of our early flight to Basel, and it was with a mood of anticipation, knowing that our conference is drawing inexorably closer, that our time in Berlin drew to a close.
