Being in Berlin today is surreal. There is no other word to describe the experience. I know of no other city in the world that has been through what Berlin has, no other city that has hosted as many real-life dramas as the ones that have unfolded just in the past century.
Berlin was decimated after world war one, rebuilt and then broken down again when the stock market crashed in '29. It was controlled by and served as the center of government of (quite possibly) the most evil regime ever to walk the earth, and was re-decimated all over again throughout the second world war. When Hitler finally fell, there was a break in conflict for about 20 minutes before it changed from The Allies vs. Hitter to Democracy vs. Communism. The city was split in two politically, and then physically, as the Berlin Wall separated forms of government, ideals, and families and friends. The city turned violent again for 40 years as the wall claimed the lives of the many who tried to escape the East. Berlin was a microcosm of the whole world, west versus east packed into one tiny division in Northern Germany. When the wall came down, Berlin was free... Finally.
The rest of the story is being written day-to-day. Modern German is barely 20 years old, it is building itself for the umpteenth time... And its incredible. Berlin reminds us that history is ongoing, we are part of it. Where else in the world can you stand on one street corner and simultaneously see Hitler's old HQ, Stalin's old government building, remnants of The Wall and people walking cheerfully about. Berlin- because of its rocky history- is a success story. Of the countless people who tried to ruin it, they all have failed. It is beautiful, it is young, and it is free.
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We arrived 3 days ago and hit the ground running. According to everyone we talked to, we knew that there was more to do than there was time in the city.
That first day we set our sights on the first major milestone in the 20th century, the Holocaust. For each of the memorials or museums, i will split up my thoughts accordingly to make it easier to follow:
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe: from the outside of this massive memorial, you can see thousands of white pillars, each identical in length and width and differing only in their height. It's hard to explain what it looks like from afar, like a collection of rectangles that seem to flow up and down. As you enter the memorial, walking through the pillars, you realize that the ground begins to dip and the pillars rise. While the concrete barriers were only a few feet high on the edges of the square, when you are in the center the stone rises high above you, 10 feet or more. This feeling of insignificance in the presence of physical barriers is something that many of the memorials have in common (in Berlin and elsewhere in Europe as well). The architect of the memorial, an American Jew, has always refused to comment on what meaning the memorial can take on; instead he maintains that whatever it means to the individual is the correct meaning. I identified most with one possible explanation: the blocks represent a sort of measurement of anti-semitism. From the outsides they are low, sometimes peaking out from just below the surface. As you descend into the depths of the world war, the blocks rise in the same way that policies against Jews did- slow enough to almost ignore that they're rising at all. Before you know it, you are trapped in the middle, completely disoriented, lost, stuck, dominated by the stones and the intolerance of others.
Below the memorial is a small museum that personalized that holocaust. As told to us, Stalin once said "one death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic." it is very hard to internalize how man people perished in the holocaust, and this museum does a really good job of doing it. They present a select few individuals who died in concentration camps and present personal things, heirlooms, and most powerfully, last letters and notes. I got really choked up reading the last words of individuals, telling their children, parents and loved ones goodbye. I highly recommend a visit to this very moving exhibit.
Topography of Terror: a few blocks from the above memorial is the old headquarters of Hitler's SS and Gestapo. Because of the horrible things that happened inside the walls of the old building, the German government decided to leave the area as rubble after it was bombed during the war, and never rebuild it. On top of the rubble stands a brand new building housing an exhibit on the measures that Hitler and his various enforcers took in scaring the public into submission. My favorite part was a small exhibit on the trial of Adolf Eichman, which happened after the Israeli government tracked him down in hiding in South America.
That night we decided to get a recommendation of somewhere to go for dinner. Our extremely over-enthusiastic hostel receptionist absolutely insisted that we go to an authentic German restaurant, which I was less than excited for because I was already hungry and getting there involved a tram ride... But we eventually decided to try it out- and I'm very excited we did. The restaurant was quintessential Germany, a small dining room where guests of different parties dined together at small tables with a staff of about 4 or 5. After some amazing German beers at the bar, we were invited to take a seat with one older gentleman who had already been there a while. We obliged and found ourselves wedged at a tiny table with someone who probably spoke no English.
About 2 hours later, we had discussed absolutely everything with this very nice man, a German from the south who had many opinions on everything from Hitler to the new Libyan conflict. He was able to put a german perspective on so many things that I had never considered. He was extremely candid and warm with us, not hesitating to give us his true opinion. Through him we learned about the German political system- a unique structure based on the failings of WWII- as well as politics in Germany today. It was a wonderful conversation. At the end of it, our new friend Yergan made the ultimate gesture and picked up our check. It was remarkable, considering he had just met us. When he got up and left, the 3 of us just smiled for about 5 minutes before finally getting up and leaving. One of the reasons I truly love traveling.
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On the second day, we made 4 new friends. It was the first day of the jewish holiday Passover, and we decided to try and find a Seder that we could attend. We found one: an Israeli woman named Keren was hosting a big seder in the southwest part of the city that night. While we were discussing details in the lobby of our hostel, 4 girls asked us if we were talking about Passover and if they too could attend the seder.
During the day before the Seder we did a free walking tour of the city with a great guide named Taylor. He was entertaining and knowledgeable about the city and its history and we were able to learn about tons of sights downtown. The tour lasted over 3 hours and by the end of it I felt like I had a much better timeline of historical events that happened in Berlin.
We returned to the hostel later, found some Kosher (we thought) wine and headed to the Heidelberger Platz subway station to get on with the Seder. The event was held in a big building that had been donated for use for Jewish events. The Seder was big, probably 75 people, a mix of a lot of Israeli ex-pats and traveling English-speaking Jews such as ourselves. It was very informal- even compared to my family's Seders- and we were eating within about an hour of getting there. During the dinner, we met two Americans, Max and Becca, who were studying abroad in Berlin as well as Suzy, a professor from the University of Delaware on a 4-month teaching stint in Berlin.
The Seder was great, and it again felt surreal to participate in an ancient jewish tradition celebrating the liberation from oppression... in Berlin! The capital of Jewish oppression since slavery in Egypt a few thousand years ago. I kept thinking, "if we had a seder here 60 years ago, we could have been killed, and now look at us."
That night we returned to central Berlin, got some drinks on the trendy Oranienberger Strasse, and then finally headed to bed.
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Our last day was spent at the Mauer Berlin Wall park and the Jewish museum.
Mauer: this was a park near us that recreated the conditions of Soviet entrapment via the Berlin Wall. The wall was only the most visible part of a long, thoughtful plan to keep East Berliners trapped in socialism. In reality, the system involved two walls and a large area in between, known as the "death strip," where guards shot-to-kill anyone caught trying to escape. The park, still under construction, goes to great lengths to show you what it looked like to be in East Berlin throughout that time period and was, in my opinion, very effective. Two short movies put a very human touch on the whole situation and educated us about the soviet measures.
The Jewish Museum: this museum, that daringly attempts to cover jewish history since the dawn of time, was pretty interesting. It was designed by the same guy who is designing the 9/11 memorial in NYC, and he makes pretty imaginative use of architecture to evoke lots of emotions. The building is a giant zig-zag with big open spaces, called "voids", that represent the holes in German Jewish society caused because of The Shoah. Most evocative with me was the Holocaust room, a massive stone room that was unheated and lit only by natural light coming in from a diagonal slit in the top corner of the room. Standing in there, the ceiling towering above me, I felt as Jews must have: trapped. The museum, while interesting, covered things very familiar to us (like what Shabbat is) and in that sense it was a bit redundant.
For our final night, we thought outside of the box, and hired a 6-person circular bike and pedaled around the lit city. With a backpack full of beers, we obviously were quite a sight as onlookers called out, cars honked, and cameras flashed at us rolling through town. Our onboard captain Olaf was standing atop the wall the day it came down, so he was pretty qualified to share with us Berlin historical anecdotes as we scooted along.
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At the end of the day, this is the picture I will always think about when I remember Berlin: three girls lounging happily in front of The Berlin Wall.
It failed. The Nazis tried to oppress and they were defeated. The Soviets tried to choke West Berlin into submission, and they failed. The wall was constructed to keep people in, and just look at it now.
Berliners are busy re constructing their city- again- and from here on it should serve as a living testament of the triumph of good over evil. Every person who goes to Berlin, goes out and smiles, plays hackie sack, goes to a museum or just gets some drinks with friends is, in my opinion, throwing salt on the wounds of failure of Nazis and communism.
Just feet from where Hitler once paraded through the Brandenburg gate, now there is an evil empire of an entirely different kind: Starbucks. For Berlin, it's an improvement :-)
Greg
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