Week 2 in Bonn

To say that we learned a lot this week would be an understatement. Class consisted of 6 German classes, a chronological history of medicine from Paleolithic times to the Middle Ages, and an overview of the role of doctors in Nazi Germany. German with Hilde was not as bad as I thought it was going to be and I feel like I have a little bit more of an understanding for how the language is setup and have a few more vocabulary words under my belt. Dr. Wasser’s lectures were really interesting and covered a lot of information in a short amount of time. I found the doctors in Nazi Germany lecture to be the most interesting as it is hard to imagine the atrocities that happened in this country full of very helpful, welcoming and nice people.

            Our week was also filled with excursions. We visited the House of History, Beethoven’s House and Koln. My favorite was definitely the tour in the House of History.  There is just so much to learn about from the post-war time period and the museum really covered it all. Beethoven’s House was a little disappointing seeing as he only lived there for 3 years and it was also really hot. The tour guide was very knowledgeable though. My favorite part of the Koln visit was the tour of the Gestapo prison. The markings left in the cells from the prisoners that were kept there makes the story more real and personal and less of a set of statistics that is hard to comprehend. In visiting the places where the history we are learning about took place, I feel that I am more educated on the subject than I would be in a whole semester long course back home.