(belated) Beelitz

Zack: "Hey, would you want to go explore an old, abandoned hospital?"

Me: (blank state, insulted beyond all reason he would even ask me if I was interested in such a thing.) "Is the sky blue?"

Obviously when Zack first told me of Beelitz Heilstätten Sanitorium, I was hooked. If you know me at all, you know I have a borderline freakish obsession with abandoned buildings. So the prospect of getting to explore an old German hospital was almost too much for my little heart to bear.

 It worked out perfectly, as Beelitz is only about 45 minutes outside of Berlin, smack-dab in the middle of our Spring Break path. We stopped around 3PM, thinking it'd be a quick pop in & out. 

How wrong we were. We quickly found out Beelitz is a complex comprised of 60 buildings. The majority of the buildings were in great condition, except for one- the women's ward. It was bombed extensively during WWII, and was basically just a shell- dim and heavy with silence . Compounded exponentially by the fact that I found out later it was the building in which the "Beast of Beelitz" (an area serial killer in the 90's) took his victims. Had I known that, I'm not sure I would have tramped around so blissfully. (Who am I kidding? Of course I would have.) 

The women's ward was also the building that gave me the most uncomfortable feeling. You'd think one would feel uncomfortable in most all of the old hospital, but I was not only at ease during our explorations, but high with excitement. The bombed out building had a different feel though, a saturated ache that seemed to weigh the walls down and a sadness that floated around each corner. I'm not sure if it was actually occupied with women (and babies..) during the WWII bombing, or the Nazis had completely taken over the complex at that point. Regardless, I felt strange while listening to my boots echo the halls. My voice sounded small and too high when I called out for Zack, nervous because I was alone. The fact that I found a room filled with burned down candles in a circle, and a huge pentagram drawn on the wall did little to quell the tightness that was beginning to constrict my throat. 

 

 

 

 Fortunately, all of the other buildings were much more fun to explore and we did just that until the sun began to set, and we lost our light. (Stupidly, we did not bring flashlights.) It was so much fun trying to figure out what each building was used for, as well as the different instruments and objects we saw in them. I know I probably annoyed Zack to the point of madness with all of my inquiries. "What do you think this room was for?" "Why is there a table in the middle of this room?" "Where do you think the emergency room was?" (As if he would know any better than I.) 

If you're as much of a freak about this kind of thing as I am, you can read far more about Beelitz here and here. (Seriously- even if you're a normal person, this is fascinating stuff.)