Tom`s travels: Fürstenberg & Gransee (30/09/2020)

On an abnormally warm end of September day, I decided to take a trip north of Berlin. I took an early train and reached the town of Fürstenberg; once there I then decided to walk through its small city center first. It didn't feature anything particularly interesting apart from the central main church, rebuilt during the 19th century, and the Fürstenberg Palace, a Baroque and Rococo building built during the 19th century right next to the old town. Right in front of the palace was a nice city park opening out towards the Schwedtsee, one of the three lakes that surround the town which formed by the Havel river flowing through. As I walked along the lakeside I admired the view on that nice sunny day, noticing some inhabitants taking advantage of the last warm weather by heading out with their boats or floating houses. After walking around the lake I then reached the other end of it where the infamous Ravensbrück concentration camp is located. This camp was considered the largest women's concentration camp and was in function since its construction from 1939 to 1945 when the war ended. It is estimated that around 132,000 women, 20,000 men, and 1,000 adolescent and young girls were held here. Prisoners of about 40 nations were held in the camp, with the majority coming from Poland, but also the Soviet Union, Germany, and many other countries. 80% were political prisoners, while 20% were Jewish. After the war ended and the camp was closed, the grounds were then used by the Soviet military as one of their many facilities in Eastern Germany and was eventually closed and abandoned after the fall of the Wall of Berlin. Nowadays it is a memorial site and museum to remember those whose lives were lost in this dreadful place. As I went through the camp I felt a sense of unease despite the sunny and peaceful area. I then went through the former SS headquarters of the camp which has been turned into a museum and which featured detailed information on the conditions of the prisoners and their different backgrounds. The rooms were divided into topics, chronological order, and nationality. In the section on the Italian prisoners, I read that about 1,000 women were deported from Italy after the armistice of 1943, and that about 170 of them did not survive the end of the war perishing in that dreadful place. Their names were listed on a long strip of cloth and many of their photographs were hanging on the walls, some of them remember by their descendants. The most touching and shocking part of the camp was to see the crematorium built by the prisoners themselves and used by the SS to reduce the bodies of those who perished there to ash. Once I left the concentration camp, I then headed back towards the town and from there to the train station where I took a ride to the next town, Gransee. Its old town is quite large and features a medieval wall fully encircling it and built during the 14th century. At its center stands the imposing St Mary's Church, built during the 14th century in a Brick Gothic style. The interior, mostly remade in a Neogothic style during the 19th century featured a nice triumphal cross from the 1500s. After the visit to the church, I then continued on throughout the city center and reached the northern side where the former Franciscan Monastery is set, right by the town walls. Of the once-grand monastery, only the eastern wing survives to this day, part of which was used as a school until the 1960s. Nowadays it used for occasional exhibitions, and apparently, I was lucky that day as it was open. A lady was sitting right next to the entrance and allowed me to enter to see the building. Built in Gothic brick it still featured some rooms with the typical vaulted ceilings, while the rest was either remade during the following centuries or completely altered. From there I then continued on and reached the western end of the town where the Ruppiner Tor, the last remaining city gate of the medieval walls still stands. The section of walls continuing on from that spot is probably the most picturesque and I took the opportunity to take several pictures. After walking the whole perimeter of the old town it was then time to head out on foot towards the nearby village of Meseberg. To reach it, I followed a country road that winded its way through pretty fields dotted with sheep and a thick oak forest. The weather was warm enough for me to walk around which just a short sleeve t-shirt, and it nearly felt like it was still summertime. After about one hour walking I finally reached Meseberg and its elegant Baroque Schloss. Unfortunately, I only figured out once I arrived that the place could not be visited as it is the retreat of the Chancellor of Germany and the official state guest house of the German Federal Government. Thus it is surrounded by a wall and high gates and no visitor is allowed inside. Nonetheless, I still managed to admire it from the outside, by walking around its secure perimeter. The complex consists of a central manor house built in 1739 and a well-kept baroque garden around it. I then headed on to the nearby lake, the Huwenowsee, from where I could admire the palace from an even better perspective, without any walls in the way and the lake as an added scenery. It was then time for me to get going as I still had another hour's walk ahead of me to head back to Gransee. Finally, once there I reached the train station and from there took a train back to Berlin.