Karps On Tour

Welcome to Part 3 of our final Berlin adventure! It was another poignant time in Berlin but something I have wanted to do for many years and that is visit my Uncle Ken's grave at the Berlin War Cemetery and pay my respects. He was my Mum's brother. Uncle Ken had enlisted in the RAAF and was later posted as Flying Officer on a Lancaster Bomber squadron in the UK which was involved in the Battle of Berlin. I remember Mum saying her brother had difficulty with the fact that they would be dropping bombs that would cause terrible destruction and death. Many airmen must have felt the same way.  They had several missions but on the night of the 21st January, 1944 they went on operations to Magdeburg, a large industrial city. Their plane never returned and their bodies were never found. It was not until nearly five years later that Mum and her parents received news that Ken's plane had crashed near Eickendorf in Germany as a result of enemy action. It was reported that their bodies...

Welcome to Part 2 on our Berlin adventure. In contrast to the Christmas Day festivities in Australia, Germans refer to the 25th of December as 'Erster Feiertag,' translating to the 'first celebration day.' While gift-giving typically occurs on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day remains a significant time for families to come together and cherish well-deserved respite from work. Additionally, it presents an opportunity to capitalise on the public holiday by venturing out for the day. Given our limited four-day window to spend with our lovely German family, we aimed to maximise our time by exploring destinations from our itinerary. With a shared interest in visiting a concentration camp, we embarked on a journey to Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. This was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners throughout World War I...