The Syrian civil war has cost an estimated 100,000 lives or more to date. According to United Nations estimates, there are nearly two million refugees seeking protection in neighboring countries. All of them have had terrible experiences, and many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Doctors from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the joint medical school of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität, are now scheduled to travel to the Jordanian capital, Amman, to train ten Arabic-speaking psychologists and psychiatrists on how to treat the results of trauma so that they can treat Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. An interview with Professor Malek Bajbouj of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Benjamin Franklin Campus, who is in charge of coordinating the “CharitéHelp4Syria” project.

An ice-age archaeological site at the Jänschwalde surface mining complex, near the city of Cottbus, has yielded the oldest evidence of human life in the state of Brandenburg. The excavations were organized by the Brandenburg State Office of Historical Preservation and the State Archaeological Museum, in cooperation with Freie Universität Berlin and the energy company Vattenfall. In strata of soil about 20 meters deep, geologically dated to the end of the second-to-last ice age – during the Wolstonian Stage – archaeologists from the Brandenburg State Office of Historical Preservation and paleontologists from Freie Universität found bones from various animals, including wolf, horse, moose, and bison. As a result, they were initially able to form an impression of the environment in which prehistoric humans lived.

Wolfgang Wittrock would like to lay one myth to rest: The proceeds from sales of “degenerate” art did not significantly add to the Nazi regime’s war chest. “They couldn’t have bought more than two tanks with it,” says Wittrock, the founder of the “Degenerate Art” Research Center at Freie Universität Berlin.