Karlhorst Exhibt

            I found the trip to Karlshorst to be very informative and also interesting because our guide had some views that were different from what I have heard or thought about. There were quite a few exhibits that shocked and moved me but one that stuck with me was this photo of a German family dead in the street, after a murder- suicide. As the guide explained, the man had taken his wife, son and daughter there and shot them and then killed himself, presumably because they feared the retaliation that was coming for them from the Red Army. (It is also possible that this is one of the families that Dr.Siemer mentioned, who could not imagine a world without Hitler.) To me this was particularly interesting because it showed that people did know the horrors that the Nazis were committing, enough to fear death less. The man must have believed that killing his own children would be less painful than whatever was coming. However, when Germany was taken over, very little (in comparison to what they had done in the Soviet Union) was done against them. This is not meant to down play the rapes, assault, etc. that occurred after the surrender, but instead to highlight the fact that it seems as though some Germans were expecting harsher actions.