Blog 3, Berlin/Dresden/Duderstadt
Berlin is a particularly important city to Germany and to the world. It is the site probably most noticeably affected by the Cold War. For instance, it is the only place where Soviet and American forces ever faced off against each other. Although this small altercation ended without a shot being fired, the effects of the Cold War can still be seen there today. Pieces of the wall remain, although they are few and far between now. To highlight the importance of many of these remnants of the Cold War and World War 2, we began on Monday with a walking city tour. We visited obvious sites such as the Brandenburg Gate, but we also went to less famous but arguably more meaningful sites such as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Although this memorial is very abstract, and completely unlabeled as to what it even is, it has its desired effect. The layout is several thousand large grey concrete blocks of varying heights, that get higher near the middle and lower around the outsides. Walking through is a moving experience that brings forth many emotions. Besides the obvious feelings of being trapped and feeling like things are slowly getting out of control, I also noticed things like uniformity and a sense of powerlessness. As it is a very abstract memorial, each person is able to draw whatever they want to from it, and I think this is very appropriate. Later in the city tour we visited Hitler’s bunker, libraries, castles, cathedrals, and churches. Once the tour was over, we visited the Otto Bock Berlin facility. Otto Bock is one of the leading medical prosthetics manufacturers in the world, and this facility had many interactive activities to get people acquainted with some of the different products that are offered by the company.
A day trip to Dresden was the Tuesday activity. Dresden is a town about 2 hours from Berlin that is often known for being heavily fire bombed during the end of World War 2. This was very apparent from the visit to the city. About 90% of the buildings had to rebuilt, and some of them are still being rebuilt today. One of the most famous buildings rebuilt is the Lutheran cathedral. Unlike typical Lutheran churches, this cathedral spares no expense. It is very large and has a giant altar at the front adorned with gold, statues, and paintings. Other important sites of note in Dresden are the government buildings and the palaces. Many of the palaces there belonged to a famous king called Augustus the Strong. They are all very extravagant, but some were badly damaged during the bombing of the city and are still being rebuilt or renovated. The German Hygiene Museum was another important stop in Dresden. The name of this museum is sort of misleading. It’s not so much about hygiene as general health and how the body works. The group split into small groups and had to pick out things of note from a certain assigned room. My group was assigned the beauty room, which wasn’t exactly the most interesting one, but we made the best of it by showing off an interactive exhibit with a powerful microscope for viewing the differences between hair colors. All the groups’ presentations were interesting, with perhaps the most cool one being a game where two people are hooked up to EEG machines, and whoever has the least amount of brain activity begins to move a ball along a platform and wins if the ball gets to the opponent’s end.
Back in Berlin the next day, we visited the German History Museum and the Robert Koch institute. The German History Museum is very large and covers the entire history of Germany for the last 2000 years. It begins of course with the Roman times and then progresses through all of the different countries and empires that have owned the land that is now Germany. This is quite interesting since present day Germany has quite a past, with many different people ruling it. It is also historically important as the place where Martin Luther was able to gain support for the Lutheran faith and bring about the Protestant Reformation. My favorite exhibit was Napolean’s sword, hat, and spurs, although many of the things in the World Wars area were also very interesting. Robert Koch is most famous for his work on tuberculosis, although he also did research on other diseases and substances, such as anthrax. His institute is now world famous as a research institute, with millions of dollars for research in science and medical topics. Thursday we went to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. This is a camp that was built rather early under the Third Reich. It was built as a concentration camp, but many people were still killed or died there. For instance, along the tour, there is a room we saw where over 10,000 people were shot in just 10 weeks. One by one, they were asked to go in for a physical, lined up against a wall for their height to be taken, and then shot in the back of the head. Seeing a room like that is quite a unique experience. People are taken aback and horrified by a car accident that kills 5 people, and show it by sitting and watching along the highway. How are you supposed to feel when you see a place where 10,000 people died in one small room. The main portion of the visit was spent in the medical barracks of the camp. As we have focused some of our lectures on famous physicians, particularly during the 1930’s and 40’s, experiments and practices that took place in Nazi medical facilities are of particular interest. Some of the experiments are quite horrible, and most of the doctor’s claim to be innocent based on various defenses. These defenses and proceedings such as the Nuremburg doctor’s trial raise moral and ethical medical and scientific practice questions that are still relevant today.
On Friday, we left Berlin for a small town called Duderstadt. This town is home to the main facility for the company Otto Bock that we visited earlier in the week. The buildings are all very modern and it would be quite amazing to work there. We had a long guided tour of the whole facility. Of particular interest was of course the rooms where the famous “C leg” prosthetic is produced. A large portion of the assembly process is done by hand, and we got to see many of the people putting together the individual parts. During the tour, I talked with their representative about several important considerations, including materials and foot design. It’s quite amazing learning the different range of feet available and the considerations that must be taken in choosing one. The foam other pieces must be placed in different places to compensate for things like weight distribution, pronation, and gait. Later in the tour we saw the logistics center and warehouse. It’s very cool seeing the advanced computing and robotics systems used nowadays to keep logistics and distribution working smoothly. After the tour, we had a chance to walk around the display floor, where there were many of the prosthetics on display. They also have small exhibits, similar to their facility in Berlin, where you can do things like watch a clear plastic model of one of the feet through a camera that splits the light like a prism through the foot, showing the areas of stress as colorful and the areas of no stress as clear. This was interesting, as different foot models could be used to show how to best distribute the stress and the weight to keep the foot acting as much like a real foot as possible. The visit to this Otto Bock facility was definitely one of my favorite portions of the trip so far. Seeing biomechanics, materials, and other concepts that we’ve studied in school going towards production of practical devices that help people helps put everything into perspective. The time in Berlin was very fun, with a lot of diverse activities, and I’m excited for Copenhagen this weekend.
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