Helen FieldsScience Writer

At the time I left for Germany last July, I owned three German dictionaries. One I got in 1990 when I took my first German class, one random paperback of unknown provenance, and a big desk dictionary I got a few years ago when I was taking another German class and learning big words. And I had access to another – my dad has a tiny pocket one from, oh, probably the 1960s or so.

Any of these would have been excellent choices to take along. So which of these dictionaries did I take with me for two months in a country where I only kind of speak the language and might benefit from having a dictionary to help me learn new vocabulary?

None of them. That’s right. Not one. I think I figured I would just use the online dictionary Leo. Because my fantasy version of Berlin apparently has free wi-fi raining from the sky and little elf helpers who walk around carrying your computer for you.

I got to Germany and quickly realized how dumb I was. Leo was indeed handy at home and at work, but was no darn use at any of the other places I might see or hear German words, like on billboards or in a biergarten or in a book I was reading on the bus. I could have paid for a data plan and used the mobile phone version of Leo, but…it was a lot cheaper to buy a new dictionary. Besides, I clearly don’t own enough dictionaries already.

Berlin is pretty much drowning in foreigners, so the big bookstore I went to had a large English section. Two of the many German-English dictionaries were pocket-sized: a Langenscheidt and an Oxford. (Actual pocket, not Oxford “pocket.”) I picked up the Langenscheidt and opened it to the last page of the K’s. The last entry was “KZ nt <-s, -s> abbr –> Konzentrationslager HIST concentration camp.” That was not an abbreviation I knew, and it seemed useful. I checked the Oxford. It didn’t have KZ, and my mind was made up.

A few weeks later, I took the dictionary along to a concentration camp. Sachsenhausen, just north of Berlin, opened on July 12, 1936. In the beginning it mostly held political prisoners and criminals; later, that expanded to include Jews, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others, many of whom were deported east to concentration camps or extermination camps in Poland. (Map.) Until I started visiting these places, I didn’t realize there was a difference between concentration camps and extermination camps. People died in concentration camps. There were executions, epidemics, medical experiments, starvation, torture. Countless prisoners were worked to death in factories. But the extermination camps like Treblinka and Belzec and Sobibor and Auschwitz-Birkenau were different. They were just for killing. (Auschwitz was actually a network of almost 50 camps; Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, had the big gas chambers.)

After the war, Sachsenhausen was in the Soviet occupation zone, and eventually East Germany. The Soviets kept political prisoners there until 1950. Later in the 50s, it was turned into a museum, but with a decidedly communist point of view. A larger-than-life memorial sculpture shows a Red Army soldier standing in solidarity with two prisoners he’s just freed. During the time when the countries were separate, this area was used as a backdrop for rallies. The East German government positioned itself as the true enemy of Nazis. They called the Berlin Wall the “Anti-Fascist Protection Wall.” Keeping those nasty West German fascists out, you see. A concentration camp must have seemed like a good place to talk about how much better they were than the other side.

Dictionary Stats: Langenscheidt Universal German Dictionary

date: 2002
publisher: Langenscheidt
length: 608 pages
dimensions: 4½ by 3¼ by 1¼ inches. Still kind of big for most pockets, but perfect for the purse.
guide words on pp. 196-197: Preiselbeere f cranberry; Pulverschnee m powder snow
obscenities: Yes! Interesting – the other Langenscheidt dictionary I’ve written about, this one, didn’t.  My mother asked why I include this in the dictionary stats, so here’s the reason: I think it’s interesting to see whether or not editors include “bad words.” Is the dictionary reflecting the full range of the language as spoken?