Note: for many more photos, please check out Instagram or Facebook. Today was the longest day ever. I had to wake up at 3 a.m. to catch an Uber to the airport at 3:30 a.m. But, I didn't go to bed super early because I did not want to miss out on fun times with my new friends. As a result, I got approximately three hours of sleep -- if that. When I got to the airport, the line was so long. I couldn't skip it either because for some reason (that I would soon discover), I could not check in via the app: it told me I needed to see a representative at the counter. I could tell that I was barely going to make my flight, and finally a Lufthansa rep called me to the front. I gave her my confirmation number, my name, my passport, my email, etc., and she said that while she could see my reservation in the system, there was not a ticket for me. She also said she couldn't do much to help me because I booked through a third-party site and not the airline directly. Note to self: don't ever do this again. Cue panic. Finally, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to miss my flight, sat down on the floor of the airport, attempted to contact the third party site, activated my Verizon travel pass so that I could call someone, and nearly started crying approximately 12,000 times. I was getting nowhere, so I went to a Lufthansa customer service counter and crossed my fingers that the rep there would be able to help. While I was waiting in that line with my laptop open atop my suitcase, the third-party customer service representative (whom I was finally able to reach) told me that because I "skipped" the third leg of my flight to Berlin, my entire ticket was invalidated. WHAT?! Luckily, the Lufthansa representative was super understanding and was able to book me a flight for tomorrow morning and set me up in a hotel tonight. I notified my family of my new itinerary, figured out how to get myself to the hotel (via train and then tram), and made it there by about 8 a.m. And I promptly took a LONG nap. While I am bummed about not being on my way home yet, I was granted the opportunity to explore a new-to-me part of the city. The big white building in the first few photos is Schloss Köpenick (Köpenick Palace). It is on the banks of the Dahme River and was constructed in the Baroque style between 1677-1690. It was commissioned by Friedrich I, who later became King of Prussia. It’s now an art museum, but I didn’t go inside and instead just wandered the beautiful gardens and riverbanks and explored the “old town center” of Köpenick. I guess "missing" my flight was just a sign that I needed one more day in Berlin.
This was an amazing experience, and I cannot wait 'til next time. Now, though, I'm ready to head home.
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Note: for many more photos, please check out Instagram or Facebook. This morning, we went to the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Straße. This was fascinating: it's a stretch of wall that shows exactly how it appeared during the division of East and West Berlin, including its original double-walled construction, heavy fortifications, and intimidating guard tower. All throughout Berlin, there are markers where the wall once stood. The first photo shows an image of me and my friend on either side of the wall. The first photo shows the guard tower; more than 100 towers like this kept a close eye on the wall. There was even a watchman in a nearby church steeple. In some places, the East German border guards were locked in their surveillance rooms to prevent their own escape. In the second photo, you can see the light brown space between the two walls: this is the death strip, an obstacle course of barbed wire, tire-spike strips to stop cars, and other “diabolical devices.” For instance, the next photo shows metal-spike gratings, an obstacle designed to severely injure potential escapees when they jumped down onto them; West Berliners sometimes referred to these as “Stalin’s lawn.” The death strip was continuously patrolled by East German soldiers with German Shepherds. The outer wall was 12-feet tall (you can see its height compared to me), 96 miles long, capped by a rounded pipe to discourage grappling hooks, and made of concrete and rebar. The inner wall (that you can see just past the watchtower) was reinforced with barbed wire and, in many places, signal wires. The next photos show the drastic difference between the wall in East and West Berlin. In East Berlin, adding graffiti to the wall likely would have resulted in one’s death, whereas the wall was heavily tagged in West Berlin. While I don’t have a photo of it, this memorial site also includes markers to Flucht Tunnel 57, which commemorates the route of 57 escapees from East to West Berlin. Graduate students in West Berlin wanted to free their friends in the East so dug a 35-foot hole in the floor of an abandoned bakery; continued digging 150 yards under Bernauer Straße (the road you see in the second picture), the wall, and the death strip; and, five months later, surfacing behind a nondescript building on Streitzler Straße. Can you even imagine?! There were interactive exhibits at the museum. I especially loved the “Berlin Handshape” – two strangers meet, connect, shake hands while holding a clump of clay, and tell their stories. These molded clumps of clay are strung together at the memorial. After we went to the Berlin Wall Memorial, we went to Platz des 9. November 1989, a memorial at Bornholmer Straße, which was one of the first border crossing sites in Berlin. At 11:30 p.m. on November 9, 1989, passport controls were stopped, and thousands of East Berliners took the opportunity to go to West Berlin. I think my favorite photo from today is this one: this is a photo of me with my roommate, Elena. She grew up in the Soviet Union (now Russia), so when we were little girls – just 33 years ago – this photo could not have happened. And speaking of that, while I was alive when the Berlin Wall fell (albeit just a kid), I was sorely ignorant of this history – and I learned so much during this trip. And I made lifelong friendships while doing so.
Note: for many more photos, please check out Instagram or Facebook. Today we went to the Bavarian Quarter in Schöneberg. Currently, the neighborhood is fairly upper-middle class, but many students live here because it’s not super expensive. Prior to WWII, many Jewish professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, lived here. Now, though, it is drastically different. To illustrate this disparity, in 1993 local artists Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock put up 80 placards that have an image on one side and a brief summary of one of the Nazi’s antisemitic laws on the reverse. They originally did so without context, however, which caused outrage among neighbors, perhaps because they thought the installation was encouraging such legislation. The artists took them down, added context, and reinstalled the pieces on lampposts around the neighborhood. The decentralized memorial is intended to engage local neighborhood inhabitants: “This is why your neighborhood population is so different than what it once was.” The Bavarian Quarter was a really beautiful place, inspired by places in Bavaria and the Alpine region, and was Berlin’s original “hipster” neighborhood, home to “youthful, alternative flappers” around the turn of the 20th century. Famous intellectuals like Albert Einstein, Billy Wilder, and Erich Fromm had homes here. Unfortunately, it was hammered by bombs during WWII because, after they forced the many Jews out of their homes, several high-ranking Nazi officials moved in. On June 26, 1963, John F. Kennedy famously proclaimed, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” from the steps of city hall. Interestingly, this translates to “I am a donut.” After, we went to an interesting place. (I don't feel like that's the right word, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what is.) Know that the images may elicit some very conflicting emotions. On one hand, the images of the building and the gardens are absolutely gorgeous. On the other hand, what can be considered the most disgusting, the most horrifying, the most evil conversation took place here. This is the house of the Wannsee Conference, the site where 15 of the highest-ranking Nazi officials created the “Final Solution to the Jewish question” — essentially, where they discussed the genocide of an entire population. I think the juxtaposition of beauty and evil is very important. One of my peers noted that Hitler wasn’t some green-scaled creature from outer space, nor did he plot atrocities from a creepy dungeon. He was human, just like us. Oftentimes evil doesn’t lurk in darkness but out in the open, in beautiful (and/or everyday) spaces. We must remain vigilant, ready to interrupt it before it escalates, gains momentum, etc. But back to our visit: the house was a lakeside villa, built in 1914-1915, and provided a calm, comfortable, secret, and nearby place for the National Socialists to conduct their meeting; it was supposed to take place in December 1941 but was postponed to January 20, 1942, likely due to Pearl Harbor and the United States’ involvement in WWII. The men who attended the Wannsee Conference were highly educated – over half of whom held a doctorate, nine of whom were lawyers, and all of whom who knew mass murder had already begun. In the protocol (the meeting minutes), they used many euphemisms; for instance, they did not mention outright murder, nor did they talk about gas chambers and crematoria. After all, they know the law and did not want their written words to get them in trouble later. (Interesting fact: only one copy — out of 30 initially prepared — remains.) After the scheduled part of the conference ended, a few of walked through the Tiergarten – and passed through the Love Parade, a gigantic EDM/techno festival that originated in 1989 as a political demonstration for “peace and international understanding through love and music.” The Victory Column, a large monument located at the Großer Stern (Great Star), was at the center of the parade. Originally (in 1864 when it was constructed to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Second Schleswig War), the monument was at Königsplatz (Platz der Republik), but as part of his plan to create a Greater Germanic Reich, Hitler moved it and also added another 21 feet of height. At the end of the Battle of Berlin, Polish soldiers adorned the Victory Column with their flag, and in the allied victory parade, the French hung their flag from atop the Siegessäule. As a reminder, the Tiergarten was constructed to be the hunting grounds for the King of Prussia. Much like Central Park in New York City, it is now an expansive green space (519 acres) surrounded by the city. Many of the trees were planted post-WWII, as the park was heavily damaged by Allied bombs, and German citizens needed to use the wood for fuel, heat, etc. And, for some reason, it’s been home to a very strange Michael Jackson memorial (seventh photo) since 2015.
Note: for many more photos, please check out Instagram or Facebook. Warning: this will be a tough post to read and see. Today, we went to Sachsenhausen, the first concentration camp built under Heinrich Himmler (in 1936) and one of the last to be liberated. While this was constructed as a labor camp, intended to “wring hard work out of prisoners,” as opposed to a “death camp” for mass murder, at least 30,000 were killed, and numerous others were transported elsewhere to be murdered; in 1942, for instance, many were taken to Auschwitz. Another 10,000 were killed by SS on a death march. Most of the prisoners here were political enemies, asocial individuals (those who did not conform to norms), journalists, social democrats, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. In 1938, though, 6,000 German Jews arrived after the Novemberpogrom 1938 (Kristallnacht). Sachsenhausen is about 20 miles north of downtown Berlin – but is right next to a residential area, where people lived during the war and still live today. One reason it was so close to the neighborhood was to intimidate people, to show them “what happens” if you do not follow orders. (I have heard so many times that “we knew something was happening but didn’t know what,” and after today, that “collective amnesia” seems to be utterly fabricated.) In addition to intimidation, the camp’s proximity to the capital gave it special status as the place to train camp guards and test new procedures. The shoe industry, for instance, tested products on prisoners: they would force prisoners to put on a new pair of shoes, often far too small, and run up to 25 miles a day on different ground material to test the durability of different types of soles. Companies are still benefiting from these tests today. These same prisoners were also victims of medical experimentation, including a drug that kept individuals awake for days at a time – which was intended to benefit the military in submarine missions. Below, you can see the layout of Sachsenhausen: because it was a triangular shape, the entire camp was visible from the main watchtower. The first photo below shows the main watchtower today, and the second photo shows an image from the same vantage point from the Holocaust. The next two photos show images from the kitchen. The top floor currently houses artifacts from the camp, such as a prisoner’s uniform, different devices used to torture prisoners and transport bodies, and a wealth of information about what happened here. The basement, though, is preserved like it was in the 30s and 40s. I was the only one there when I descended the stairs, and I cannot begin to explain how haunting it felt. Next, there are images from the dormitories. Sachsenhausen was designed to hold 10,000 prisoners, but it housed more than 38,000 at a time. You can imagine how these dormitories (including the bathrooms and the washroom) must have been. The up-close image is of a charred dormitory. In 1992, Neo-Nazis set the Jewish dormitory ablaze (and destroyed out a permanent exhibit) one day prior to Rosh Hashannah, two weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin visited the camp. I think this image is particularly important: while we think of the Holocaust as something that happened “long ago” (despite survivors still being alive today), antisemitism is alive and well across the globe, and we must remain ever-aware, ready to combat such intolerance, hate, and evil. Below, you can see photos of the camp’s prison. It might seem strange that there was a prison within a prison, but it served as a threat to other prisoners: do what you are told, or you will end up here. This was also a place where “special prisoners” were held. Yakov Dzhugashvili, Joseph Stalin’s eldest son, was held here as a prisoner of war; he died here as well, but the cause of his death (either suicide or murder) is contested. The three vertical poles was a torture device. Guards would tie prisoners’ hands behind their backs and would hang them from these poles via their wrists. This is just one of the many, many horrifying images I saw and words I heard that morning. It was such a hard visit. What I write about below was the hardest part of the camp for me, and I included detailed descriptions, so please be mindful of this before reading further. Again, Sachsenhausen was listed as a labor camp rather than a death camp, but at least 30,000 – likely many, many more – were murdered here, particularly in Station Z, which you can see here. (Note: while it’s easy to get bogged down by and immersed in the details of numbers, I think it’s important to remember, too, that we are talking about individual people. As you read this and reflect on other things I’ve written, please keep in mind the lives, the stories, the families, the hopes, the dreams, etc. of the individuals, not simply the drastic number of victims.) The third photo shows the site where prisoners were brought to a “medical facility” and lined up against a wall to measure their height; through an opening in the wall, a captor would shoot them in the back of the head. This exemplifies one way that Germans made murder easier: they did not look at the humans they slaughtered. The next picture shows the execution trench and the mortuary cellar. The next three photos show another system of mass murder: the undressing room, the “doctor’s room” (where SS soldiers marked prisoners who had gold fillings), another “neck shot” facility, the gas chamber, the cremation ovens, and the ash bunker. The final photo shows one of the sites (in Station Z) where ashes and incinerated remains are now interred – after they were discovered in ash bunkers in the area. I am going to be very honest: I had to turn my ears off through part of this tour. My heart could not handle it. Humans are capable of such horrific evil. It was an indescribably hard morning. But I have to remember the words of Anne Frank: “I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”
Note: for many more photos, please check out Instagram or Facebook. This evening, we went to a Shabbat service at Pestalozzistraße Synagogue. First, I want to note that there’s police presence at every spot of Jewish significance in Berlin: the state recognizes the atrocities committed against this group and wants to protect it at all costs. Second, when we pulled up to the site, it looked just like an apartment building — until we walked into the courtyard and saw the actual site of worship. This unique construction kept the synagogue relatively not destroyed during the pogrom of November 1938 (previously known as Kristallnacht): because of its proximity to other buildings, it was not entirely set ablaze. A wall hanging in the synagogue notes its destruction (albeit relatively mild) during the pogrom and its subsequent rededication in 1947. It was an absolutely beautiful cantor-led service: I couldn’t really understand much of the languages (Hebrew and German), but music sure speaks to everyone. (Also, I so wish I could’ve taken photos in the synagogue, as it was stunning. But, we were asked to hold off since it was a time of worship. Try to Google to see some gorgeous pics.)
Note: for many more photos, please check out Instagram or Facebook. This morning, we went to the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park. I didn’t really know what to expect and really appreciated the space. This is just one of three major monuments erected post-WWII to honor the Soviet soldiers who liberated Berlin. And while one might not expect this space to still exist today due to Germany’s tumultuous past with the USSR, the monument is well-cared for: “The sacrifice of 80,000 soldiers [during the Battle of Berlin, April-May 1945] to free Europe from Hitler is still respected.” There was an agreement after the war that Germany would maintain Soviet cemeteries in Germany, and the USSR would maintain German cemeteries in their country as well. Treptower Park was chosen as the site for this particular memorial for a few reasons. First, there was space: it was a popular park for working-class people. Second, there was already a cemetery on site. Now, it is a mass grave for 7,000 Soviet soldiers – buried under the hill as well as the lawn to the sides of the memorial. (They cannot be buried in what look like the plots in the center of the memorial due to the high water level, as the park is near the Spree River.) The park is full of symbolism. For instance, the five symbolic graveyards in the middle represent the five years that the Soviet Union was at war with Germany. On either side leading to the main monument, there are eight giant stones etched with images that tell the story of the war; these represent the 16 Soviet republics. (In the images, there are no Germans depicted in human-form; rather, they are symbolized with tanks and with planes. After all, this is a memorial to Soviet soldiers, not Germans.) There are two soldiers on either side leading up to the expanse, one young and one old, representing the age diversity of Soviet combat soldiers. (Interestingly, though, both soldiers are male, and both are of European – rather than Asian – descent, despite females and people of different ethnicities fighting in the Red Army.) The female figure toward the beginning of the park represents grief and mourning, and she is flanked by an aisle of weeping birches, which symbolize the same. The main monument is called “The Liberator,” and it is a well-known figure across what is now the former Soviet Union. He is standing in a defensive pose (as to offensive/attacking) because this is a monument to the victims of the war. He is holding a child, and he is crushing a swastika with his boot. (Originally he was going to be crushing an eagle, but the artist wanted to symbolize being against fascism rather than against Germany/German people.) He is atop a mausoleum that is on top of a kurgan, a grave hill that was used in ancient times in the Soviet region. We were there on a rainy, dreary day, which set the perfect mood for such a heavy memorial. It was peaceful, beautiful, and moving. We were supposed to do a walking tour of Berlin, but because it was so rainy, we did a bus tour instead. (My sore feet were very thankful!) I didn't take many pictures because honestly, I had already done the tour on my own during the solo part of my trip.
That evening, I went with a few friends back to Brandenburg Gate (it looks super cool at night), and then we went to a super cool street food market and a heavy metal venue. It was a fun adventure! Note: for many more photos, please check out Instagram or Facebook. Note: some of these photos are disturbing, so view at your own risk. Our first stop after the conference hall today was the Topography of Terror, a memorial that is at the site of what was, during the Nazi regime, the SS Reich Security Main Office — the headquarters of the Sicherheitspolizei, SD, Einsatzgruppen, and Gestapo. Essentially, this was the “nerve center for the Gestapo and the SS – the most despicable elements of the Nazi government.” Heinrich Himmler controlled these agencies and was the primary architect of the Holocaust. While the actual buildings no longer exist (see note below), in his guidebook, Rick Steves notes, “Seeing this sprawling bureaucratic [area] gives you a sense of how much mundane paperwork was involved in administering Hitler’s reign of terror in an efficient, rational way.” Additionally, “While the Nazi leadership was captured and prosecuted at the Nürnberg trials, the majority of midlevel bureaucrats who worked in this building – and who routinely facilitated genocide with the flick of a pen – were never brought to justice.” Is that terrifying and unimaginable, or what?! Note: the only Nazi-era building that remains is the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (Former Air Ministry), which is nearby. I must say how frightening it was to see so many parallels between the horrors of this exhibit and what has been happening in the US the last several years. Below are some photos from the Topography of Terrors — both the Berlin Wall (check out how it was reinforced!) as well as ruins of Himmler’s buildings. Next, we walked to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The word “murdered” in the title was purposeful (and important): Germany, as a nation was admitting to a crime. This memorial consists of 2,711 blocks of cement, placed on “wavy” ground. The artist describes the piece as “no meaning,” instead leaving the interpretation open to the viewer. Is it “a symbolic cemetery? An intentionally disconcerting labyrinth? A symbol of how the senseless horror of the Holocaust didn’t adhere to rational thought?” As Rick Steves notes, “Like death, you enter [the memorial] alone.” Like with other memorials, this one has had its share of controversy. First, it’s not constructed on a place of persecution, so some wonder if it’s the “right place.” Second, the anti-graffiti paint on the blocks was created by a company (can’t remember the name) that was involved in the gas chambers. Third, because it is so open to the public, it has “invited” others to pose in interesting manners. I encourage you to check out the project “YOLOcaust” — specifically the Google Images connected to it. Note: the words on these images are really, really hard to read. They are also the only photos I took in the actual “museum” part of the memorial, as it was much too heavy. But I felt the need to read and be a witness to these individuals’ own words. And I wanted to share some with you, too. In the museum, a continually running soundtrack recites victims’ names. To read them all aloud would take more than six-and-a-half years. As you read the words on these photos, please consider this idea: “The road to Auschwitz was built with hatred but paved with indifference.” It was a heavy day, to say the least.
Note: for many more photos, please check out Instagram or Facebook. Today’s adventure started with Berlin’s Jewish Quarter, which is in the city center (part of East Berlin). We split into four groups and had a guided tour, stopping by many important sites and learning SO much. First, we talked about the Stolpersteine (the stumbling stones), which are not just found in Berlin — and not actually just in Germany but in several countries across Europe. There are more than 50,000 total, 8,000 of which are in Berlin. These stones serve as a memorial to Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust — somewhat in lieu of a gravestone at a cemetery since, as you know, those do not exist for the millions murdered under the Nazi regime. Regardless of the country, each says the same thing (in the country’s language): “Here lived ______.” This is followed by when the person was born, when they were deported, and where they were murdered. Each Stolperstein represents one person, so four people lived in this home. You can do the math, though, and realize that only a fraction of Jews murdered by the Nazis are memorialized with Stolpersteine. (In Berlin alone, there are 47,000+ without a memorial.) This is because someone must pay for these to be installed — it started as an art project and turned into a business. This is just one reason the stones are controversial. Some also believe that it is disrespectful to have the Stolpersteine on the ground — where people literally walk over victims’ names, throw cigarette butts (as you can see in the photos), etc. Others say, though, that one must “bow” before the victim to read their name and information and that one does not “stumble physically but rather with their head and with their heart.” Additionally, the more one touches the stone, the shinier it gets, which makes it all the more visible to passersby. Additionally, the artist stated that he honors those murdered by crafting each Stolperstein by hand: “To show respect for the victims, it must be done by hand,” he says during a brief cigarette break. “The Holocaust was so systematic. What they invented as means of mass slaughter, it was more or less automated. We don’t want anything like that.” One of our next stops in the Jewish quarter was the oldest Jewish cemetery in Berlin. From 1672-1827, thousands of Jews were buried here, including Moses Mendelssohn, the first Jewish author in Germany to publish in German (which, at his time, was very controversial). His gravestone is engraved in German – facing the walkway – and in Hebrew on the reverse. In 1943, this cemetery was destroyed by the Gestapo, and most of the gravestones were absolutely demolished. Some of the originals were salvaged but are no longer where they are supposed to be and are instead against the wall at the back of the graveyard. Even Mendelssohn’s is at an approximate location of where he might be buried. During the last battle in 1945, this cemetery was used for countless Nazi and Soviet soldiers as well. It felt so heavy walking along this path. Outside of the cemetery, there is a sort of plaza that has two memorials: the first is the actual plaza (the absence of a memorial) that you see in the first photo, and the second is the statues that you see in the second photo. The plaza is the site where 55,000 Jews from Berlin were corralled and transported to Theresianstadt and to Auschwitz; the different bricks denote the hallways and the rooms of the building. The statue is a memorial to the women of Ravensbrück. We also stopped at a spot nearby Hackescher Markt – it was a bit of an “alternative” alley but also housed Otto Weidt’s workshop. He manufactured brushes and brooms and worked to protect his Jewish workers from deportation. While he tried to save many more, he was able to prevent six Jews from being killed before his workshop was raided. In 1971, the State of Israel named him a Righteous Gentile. The next photos are from Grosse Hamburger Strasse, what was known as the “street of tolerance” for 200 years (because the Jewish community donated land on which Protestants could build a church). But, as I said earlier, Hitler turned it into a “street of death,” bulldozing 12,000 graves and turning a Jewish nursing home into a deportation center. The first two photos are of a memorial called “The Missing House.” Our tour guide mentioned that this is where “there should be something, but there is nothing,” one of the many voids left after the air raids. An entire building should be between these two yellow buildings, but it was destroyed by bombs. The plaques on either side represent the families who lived in the “voided” space, and as you might be able to see, Jews and Gentiles lived in the building together. The next photos show that many buildings still have marks of destruction: “wounds” that shrapnel left in them. The nets up above are to catch pieces from potentially falling on pedestrians. Then, there is a photo of a church in the neighborhood. Here, in 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr., preached: “A symbol of the divisions of men on the face of the earth. For here on either side of the wall are God’s children and no man-made barrier can obliterate that fact. Regardless of the barriers of race, creed, ideology, or nationality, there is an inescapable destiny which binds us together. There is a common humanity which makes us sensitive to the sufferings of one another.” Finally, you can see the Neue Synagogue, the Jewish icon of Germany. This was opened in 1866 and with 3200 seats, was the largest synagogue in Europe. It had a beautiful sanctuary that no longer exists. While it survived the pogroms of November 1938 (commonly known as Kristallnacht”), it was destroyed by Allied bombs in 1943. Our tour guide said that now it is more of a “community center with a synagogue inside.” After all, the Jewish community in Berlin is decreasing at a rapid rate: seven times the number of Jews are dying as are being born. I believe our tour guide said that there are only 9,400 Jews in Berlin today. I cannot even tell you how wonderful this conversation between Alexander Wolff and Joshua Hammer was. Wolff’s book “Endpapers” has been so impactful in my understanding and navigating of my own family’s history, especially in regard to Third Reich Germany. Our last stop as a group today was the Jewish Museum. Y’all, this museum was probably the most disorienting building in which I have ever stepped foot. And, it was intended to be that way: it is packed with symbolism. Upon entering the museum is a plaque that reads the following about Daniel Libeskind’s design, Between the Lines: “Feel the effects of the architecture. The floor is on an incline, the walls are slanted, and there are very few right angles. The floor plan of the upper stories follows a zigzag shape interrupted by empty spaces called voids.” It is so confusing. There were times where I felt almost seasick and other times where I was completely lost – almost having a bit of anxiety as I couldn’t find the entrance/exit from each exhibit. The fourth photo shows the three hallways from which we could choose: Axis of the Holocaust, Axis of Exile, and Axis of Continuity. The Axis of the Holocaust ends in the fifth picture, a tower that “slopes gently upward and ends at a heavy door to an empty space 24 meters tall.” It is not climate-controlled and “is only dimly, naturally lit by a narrow window. Muffled sounds can be heard from outside. [...] The sense of loss is especially palpable here.” The next couple of pictures show the Garden of Exile. It is a square, and “as you walk through it, you lose your balance because all its lines run at odd angles: the ground, the columns, and even the cobblestones. [...] Exile meant rescue and safety, but also uncertainty.” It was so, so wild. The last photo is the “Memory Void.” The empty shafts running through different parts of the building symbolize destruction, loss, and absence, and this one is full of an installation by an Israeli artist, Menashe Kadishman titled Fallen Leaves, dedicated to innocent victims of war and violence: more than 10,000 faces made of heavy metal cover the floor. For additional photos, specifically from the different exhibits, be sure to check out Facebook or Instagram.
After, a few of us went to the Brandenburg Gate and then had dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant. (Fun fact: Berlin's food scene is super diverse!) Note: for many more photos, please check out Instagram or Facebook. After eating breakfast at the last possible moment (seriously, I think I was grabbing food while they were cleaning up the buffet), I left my hotel and headed to (former) West Berlin to another hotel -- and Centropa's Summer Academy. First, I met my roommate, Elena, a woman who grew up in the Soviet Union (Russia) and who now lives and works in Israel. She is awesome, and I can tell that we'll be fast friends. We then had a wonderful day learning from Michael Brenner (German-Jewish historian, author, and professor) and Centropa staff. I especially loved, though, meeting 70 educators from Europe, Israel, and the US — fourteen nations are represented in our group! I’m going to learn so much. We have most evenings free for exploring the city, which is pretty nice -- especially because I really wanted to see the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche before the conference started today, but I opted to sleep in instead. Luckily, I was still able to see this remarkable site when a group of us hit up the town after the workshop. This church is much like St. Nicholas’ Church in Hamburg: it was heavily destroyed by bombings in WWII and left as a reminder of the destruction. (As you can see, a new modern addition has been constructed as well — the original structure serves as “a memorial for peace and reconciliation, commemorates Berliners’ determination to rebuild after the war, and is a place of contemplation.”) You can also see a “crack” in the sidewalk that stretches from the church to Budapester Straße. This commemorates the December 2016 Christmas Market terrorist attack that took the lives of 12 people; the victims’ names, along with some flowers and photos, are on the steps. After just half a day of learning and an evening of exploring with my new friends, I can already tell that this is going to be an incredible week. I am so thankful to be here.
Note: for many more photos, please check out Instagram or Facebook. Today will be very heavy on Soviet-era East Berlin. I started by walking the opposite direction as I did yesterday, deeper into former East Berlin. My first stop was Haus des Lehrers (House of the Teacher). This is the Communist-era Ministry of Education, and while it’s just a normal building, it is topped with a massive mural, entitled “Unser Leben” (“Our Life”), that encircles the entire thing. Created in 1964 and composed of 800,000 tiles, this mural was inspired by Mexican artists but serves as propaganda of the state. I mean, just look at how happy everyone is – what a utopia, what a way to live. Rick Steves commentates that it “is a parade of idealistic scenes celebrating the occupations and accomplishments of a peaceful and modern socialist rule,” and while the DDR believed in a well-educated populace, they only believed it about topics they deemed appropriate. Next, I stopped by RAW Gelände, and wow, was I overwhelmed. On Sundays, the area is a massive flea market, so there were people EVERYWHERE. (Seriously – my pictures don’t do the crowd justice.) It was really cool, but I was honestly a bit worried about my sandals and all of the broken glass on the ground (and my already shredded feet) that I didn’t get to enjoy myself fully. I didn’t know much about this area before I came: I saw it on a YouTube video and knew I needed to check it out. I just learned a bit more while doing this write-up. In 1867, during the economic boom that boosted Berlin to the fourth largest city in the world at the beginning of the 20th century, the area housed the Royal Prussian Railway Workshop Berlin II, and the plant quickly expanded to offer more services. It continued doing so throughout the Weimar Republic and the beginning of the Third Reich, but the industrial area was heavily demolished (80%) by air raids in 1944. The plant basically shut down altogether after Germany was reunified, so art and culture activists began using the area for workspaces, educational facilities, and more. It is the “largest contiguous, permanently culturally used area in Germany and the last industrial wasteland within the S-Bahn ring in Berlin that has not yet been modernized.” Currently, it has everything: a skate park, a climbing wall, a circus school, ceramics and drawing workshops, radio studios, nightclubs, flea markets, concert halls, galleries, snack shacks, gastropubs, and more. The East Side Gallery is one of the things I was most looking forward to seeing, and it did not disappoint. This is the longest continuous portion of the wall still in existence, and at nearly a mile long, is the largest open-air gallery in the world. I absolutely loved the images and the messages of peace and harmony that artists from around the world painted onto the wall, a symbol of division and terror. I didn’t take very many photos today because I opted to rent a scooter since my feet hurt SO much, and it’s pretty hard to take pics while riding, and I was already nervous regarding traffic, stopping, starting, etc. so opted for a photo-free ride. (Despite several scooter rides, I still managed to somehow walk 8.9 miles today.) I went through Kreuzberg, which is known as Berlin’s “Turkish neighborhood” (Berlin is the largest Turkish city outside of Turkey) or its “edgy multicultural district." It has its roots in the Industrial age and its Turkish guest-worker boom of the postwar years, but as with most such areas, intense gentrification has ensued in recent years. Buildings were demolished by WWII bombs, and during the post-war era, Kreuzberg was in West Berlin but was surrounded on three sides by the Berlin Wall. Owners, fishing for government support, refused to invest in repairs, which caused further dilapidation and made it quickly turn into the least desirable neighborhood in West Berlin. It then attracted “draft-dodging alternative-lifestyle” punks who squatted in the tenements as well as lower-middle-class-immigrants, and now rapid gentrification has turned it into one of the most diverse and exciting parts of town. But at what – or whose – cost? Next, I stopped by Checkpoint Charlie. I originally wasn’t going to go here because, as Rick Steves says, “It feels like a Cold War theme park with kitschy communist-themed attractions.” I would agree with him, but I ended up stopping because it was on my way and I really, really needed some water. This symbol of the Cold War is where people crossed between East and West Berlin. But, only people with documentation (i.e. foreigners and Allied officials), not East Germans, were permitted to do so. On the Soviet (East German) side, it was heavily fortified with the Berlin Wall, a watchtower, concrete barriers, barbed-wire fences, and a garage where vehicles were checked for smuggled goods and people. On the United States side, there was just Checkpoint Charlie – a “humble shack for document-checking GIs.” (You can see some of this in the original photos in this post.) It got the name “Charlie” because it was the third in a series – Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie – and was the scene of some dramatic historical events. For instance, in 1961, a car sped up Friedrichstraße, crashed through East German barriers, and made it to freedom. In the same year, 10 US tanks faced off here against 10 Soviet tanks before cooler heads (and negotiations by Robert F. Kennedy) prevailed. And in 1962, Peter Fechter tried running to the West through no-man’s-land, got tangled in barbed wire, was shot, and was left there while he bled to death with the whole world watching. Despite living through this (albeit in my very young years), this is history about which I am extremely ignorant and have learned so much over the last several weeks. I still have so much more to learn. Next, I saw the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate), which is THE symbol of Berlin. It was constructed in the late 1700s and was Berlin’s first Greek revival building, inspired by the gateway to the Acropolis in Athens. It was one of eight gates leading into the city but is now the sole one standing; it is 85 feet high, 215 feet long, and 36 feet deep. The statue on top – the quadriga driven by Victory – was stolen by Napoleon when he and his army took Berlin in 1806. Eight years later, it was returned and placed back atop the Brandenburg Gate. The Brandenburg Gate, like with much in Berlin, has a troubled past. There are some harrowing images of it during the Third Reich (feel free to Google), and during the Cold War, it was stranded in no-man’s-land between East and West Berlin: close to both but off limits to all. It stood as a symbol of division but then, in 1989, as one of reunification (definitely check out those images). Ronald Reagan gave a speech in Platz des 18. März, on the backside of the Brandenburg Gate; this is where he famously said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Pariser Platz, in front of the Brandenburg Gate and where I’m standing in the photos, once had a number of important government buildings, but they were “bombed to smithereens” in World War II. Now, the plaza is flanked by several embassies, including the United States, Britain, and France. I continued my tour and saw three separate memorials: first, the white crosses are in memory of those who died at the Berlin Wall. Second is a memorial honoring the Roma and Sinti. (Sadly, I could not get a great photo of the memorial because the area was closed, likely due to the VeloCity bike race.) Roughly 500,000 Holocaust victims identifed as Roma and Sinti, the main tribes and politically correct terms for the group often called “Gypsies.” While I know that these individuals were targeted by Hitler, I did not realize that they lost the same percentage of their population as Jews did. Finally, there is a memorial to Politicians Who Opposed Hitler. These 96 slabs honor 96 Reichstag members who spoke out against Adolf Hitler, National Socialism, and the rising tide of fascism. They were the last people who could have stopped him and were subsequently the first persecuted and murdered. Their lives are commemorated here, next to the Reichstag, Germany’s capitol building, where they “worked to defend democracy in their country.” Each piece of stone has their name, birthday, political party, and date and place of death. I spent quite a bit of time sitting on the grass in front of the Reichstag this afternoon – where I talked to my mom, ate a pretzel, drank two bottles of water, and got a wicked sunburn. But I also got so exhausted that I decided to go home almost immediately after instead of sticking around another few hours for my reservation to go up to the dome. I was so looking forward to it and just had to call it a day – and I’m glad I did because I’m exhausted. The Reichstag is basically the Congress or the Parliament for Germany – the individuals who write legislation. Individuals can go inside the glass dome ( a spiral ramp leads to the top) and look down on lawmakers: the message is “that there will be no secrets in this government. Look inside.” While the view of Berlin is supposed to be spectacular, especially at dusk (when I booked my reservation), according to Rick Steves, “For Germans, the best view from here is down – keeping a close eye on their government.” This was a target for Allied bombs in WWII, and damage still exists. But “to many Germans, the proud resurrection of their Reichstag symbolizes the end of a terrible chapter in their country’s history.” The Chancellery, a huge white building near the Reichstag, is the head of the executive branch (I imagine it to be equivalent to the White House). But as Rick Steves says, “To remind the chancellor who he/she works for, Germany’s Reichstag is about six feet taller than the Chancellery.” I so wanted to go inside this building. But, I guess I’ll just have to come back to Berlin. Now, it's time to rest up. Tomorrow, I end my solo travels and meet up with other educators from Centropa's Summer Academy -- the real reason I'm in Germany. I can't wait.
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