28 June '05 - + 16 - 19 Lüneburger Heide
This past weekend, we explored Germany a bit more. This time, we stayed closer to our home in Hamburg by exploring the
Lüneburger Heide.
This is a very flat area south of Hamburg with lots of farms, forests,
and heath. The Heide is known as a great place for hiking and
biking, but we stayed in a car this time, seeing much of its history
and several of its cute towns.
Our first stop, and largely the inspiration for renting a car and seeing the Heide, was the Nazi concentration camp of
Bergen-Belsen. I went to
Auschwitz
in 1997, and I was expecting something similar. However, the
actual grounds of the camp are very different than at Auschwitz.
At Auschwitz, many of the original brick buildings and some of the
original wooden barracks are still standing, and they generally
maintained the grounds and the fences. So, there one can really
get a feeling of what the camp looked like. At Bergen-Belsen,
they burned and demolished all the buildings shortly after the war to
prevent disease, and then they let nature take back over. So, for
much of the grounds, it feels no different than walking through forest
with 60 years of growth. While the 23-minute film showed horrific
images and video taken by the liberating Brits, the grounds themselves
convey the message much less.
Of course, parts of the grounds are powerful, with memorials to Jewish,
Polish, Soviet, and other victims, and with large mounds marked with
signs saying "5000 people rest here." Also, there's an ongoing
effort that has school groups excavate some of the ruins of the
barracks, reclaiming the memorial from the forest. Additionally,
they have started a new information center/museum, so I expect that a
trip to Bergen-Belsen in a few years would convey the horror more
completely than a trip does today.
The entrance memorial sign with remembrance stones
The Anne and Margot Frank memorial at Bergen-Belsen in front of the main memorial
After Bergen-Belsen, the rest of the weekend had much less emotional heft.
Our next stop was the town of
Celle.
Celle is an old ducal seat with a nice castle and lots of cute
half-timbered houses. Many of the houses have inspirational
messages painted on them, like "Work! No chatting, talking, or
gossiping!" or "With Gentle Hands, God Giveth and God Taketh
Away." The most memorable part of the city was probably my
dinner: the local specialty
Roher Roulade, a half-pound of
thinly-cut raw beef rolled with mustard and onions. It was tasty,
but I smelled of onions until the next morning.
Half-timbered houses and a fun fountain in Celle
The Castle in Celle
Messages on the Half-Timbered Houses
Church and old Rathaus in Celle
The next morning, we decided to hit a bunch of small towns in the area on the way back to Hamburg. First up was
Gifhorn.
We knew nothing about Gifhorn except a free tourist map had suggested
it. Nothing seemed unusual as we approached the city, driving
through asparagus farms. However, we turned a corner and were
visually assaulted with a collection of international windmills and an
authentic wooden Russian Orthodox church. We were very
confused. We got out of the car and walked around the windmills,
trying to figure out how to get to them and why they were there.
Finally, we figured it out: Gifhorn is home to the
International Wind- and Watermill Museum.
Why such an open-air museum also housed a Russian Orthodox church, we
never figured out. We decided we had spent enough time completely
walking around the museum, so we didn't bother to pay the 7€ apiece, and we continued on.
Windmills and a Russian church in Gifhorn
Next, we went to
Uelzen. There wasn't much worth visiting there except for the train station. Apparently, they let the Austrian architect
Hundertwasser
completely redecorate the train station, and he did his typical crazy
job with it. Every straight line was turned into a curve.
Red brick was replaced with colored tile. Columns were changed
into colorful flowerpots. Essentially, it looks like a train
station designed by Dr. Seuss, with environmentally friendly touches
here and there. Fun, but silly.
The Hundertwasser Train Station in Uelzen
The platform at the Hundertwasser Train Station in Uelzen
After Uelzen, we decided to see how East German cities compare to
what we'd already seen. We weren't far from the border, so we
went to
Salzwedel.
By all rights, Salzwedel shouldn't be that different from Celle (or
Lüneburg, which I'll describe later), but the influence of Communism
was pervasive. Both cities have brick German Gothic churches, but
Lüneburg's is well-maintained and Salzwedel's needs millions of Euros
to renovate. Both cities have many cute half-timbered houses, but
Salzwedel's are dingy, sometimes falling apart, and in need of
paint. If the border had been placed fifteen miles differently,
Salzwedel today would have a thriving tourism trade. Because of
the fifty years of economic stagnation, it instead has a long way to
catch up.
In its favor, it does have
Baumkuchen (tree cakes), perhaps the tastiest pastries I've had in Germany.
Baumkuchen
Finally, we headed to
Lüneburg, the capital of the region. Lüneburg is another impossibly-cute old
Hanseatic
city with half-timbered houses, an impressive town hall, and lots of
restaurants. One of the most interesting aspects of the town is
how many of the buildings are tipping over. There are old salt
mines under the city, and enough salt was mined that some blocks have
sunk several feet over the centuries. In some cases, the front of
the top floor of one building will be a few feet behind its
neighbor. It's a strange effect. Unfortunately, none of our
pictures showing the tilting buildings really turned out.
Lüneburg's Rathaus
Old warehouses turned into restaurants
A few of the tilting buildings (maybe you can tell)
So, it was a busy weekend seeing some of the nearby cities. We
had scary dinners and tasty treats. We saw reminders of the glory
of the Hanseatic days and reminders of the economic waste of
Communism. We saw beautiful churches and the horrors of the
Holocaust. All of that in less than a tank of gas. Europe
is amazing.
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