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Latest NewsPermanent Representative of the Mission of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay to the U.N. in GenevaOn May 31, 2010, the Geneva School of Diplomacy received a visit from Her Excellency, Ambassador Laura Dupuy Lasserre, Permanent Representative of the Mission of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay to the U.N. in Geneva. International Conference in Bern, SwitzerlandDr. Alfred de Zayas, GSD Professor of International Law and former senior UN official, was a speaker at a press conference held by the Commission for Commemorating the Armenian Genocide. |
2009 Study Trip to Berlin18th October 2009From 12 to 16 October over 30 students of the Geneva School of Diplomacy went to Berlin on the school’s annual study trip. The first evening was used to unwind and prepare for the days ahead. On the first day the group made their way 35km north of Berlin to the town of Oranienburg which was once home to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp complex which today has been converted to a museum and memorial. Here the students were shown how life in the concentration camp was, including the barracks, the “Appellplatz” (Parade Ground), the punishment cells, the execution chambers, the crematorium and the Medical Laboratory. The memorial was not only moving, but also very interesting, leaving us with a sense of the extent of human cruelty.
On the second day we took two walking tours. The first, in the morning, took us to several places of interest in the center of Berlin. During this tour we visited several sites including the Memorial to the Victims of War and Tyranny, The Memorial to the Nazi Book Burning, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Humboldt University, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the remains of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was different, in as much as the fact that its ambiguity left a lot to the perceiver and thus was symbolically varied to different people.
The Second Tour traced the famous sites of the Third Reich starting with the site of Goebbel’s Propoganda Ministry tracing the former headquarters of the Luftwaffe and the sites of the SS and the Gestapo and ending at the site of Hitler’s Fuhrehrbunker. For students who had a specific interest in this period of history, it was fascinating to see some of these locations up close. The final day of planned activities involved visiting the Freie Universitaet, just outside Berlin. Here the University had organized a guest lecture for us on The Constitutional Court’s ruling on the matter of Germany’s accession to the Lisbon Treaty. As the lecture was in German, one of our students, Adam Schwarz translated the lecture simultaneously. Inspite of the several tours and visits that were organized by the school, the program gave the students ample time to do explore Berlin on their own.
This time was visiting other historical and contemporary sites such as the German Reichstag or the Soviet memorial, museums such as the Pergamon and the DDR museum, and of course exploring Berlin’s nightlife.
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