1936 Berlin Olympics recalled
Senior History students from St Colman’s College, Fermoy recently undertook a busy school trip to Berlin, Germany. Over four days in the city, the students enjoyed a variety of cultural, historical and culinary experiences.
A walking tour of the German capital gave students a history of the city and the chance to see some of the most important sights such as the Reichstag building and the Brandenburg gate.
The trip included visits to sites of relevance to the history of World War II, such as the Topography of Terror Museum and the Soviet Memorial, as well as an insight into life in a divided Berlin after the war, at the DDR museum and the Berlin Wall Memorial.
The students’ trip was not restrained to the 20th century, witnessing the full breadth of German history at the Deutches Historiches Museum and archaeological finds from ancient Persia and Greece at the Pergemmon Museum.
While a visit to the Natural History museum gave students the opportunity to see Europe’s most impressive dinosaur fossils as well as an exhibit on the recent European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission.
Student also got to enjoy German culinary delights, dining on Berliner dish currywurst and roast pork knuckle, a Bavarian delicacy.
The successful and exhausting trip (over 50km of walking!) ended with a visit to the Olympic Stadium, where Jesse Owens famously refuted Hitler’s racial theories at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
