First, I’m a bit bummed to be leaving Berlin. It was certainly one of my favorite stops
thus far, as I suspected it would be.
Carla and Johannes were amazing hosts to us and we had a lot of fun with
them. We also really enjoyed hearing
their perspective on the things we were learning and hearing their tips on what
to do. Concordians, Carla and Johannes
say hi!
The War
Instead of mentioning sights in the order we saw them, I
think I’ll go by chronological order of the history that each of the sights we
saw were referring to, starting with World War II. Probably the most World War II history we saw
was in the Berlin Jewish Museum (it seems most of Berlin focuses more on the
Wall, which I’ll talk about in just a bit).
The Jewish Museum actually recounts ~1600 years of German Jewish history
of which the Holocaust, or Shoah (the Hebrew word used to refer to the
Holocaust), is only a part. Parts of the
museum focus simply on daily life, which likely applied to not just Jews but all
Europeans of that age, but the museum also tells about movements of Jews based
on where laws allowed them to live. One
recurring theme, it seems, is being invited into towns specifically to become
bankers and moneylenders. This happened
because Christians were forbidden from collecting interest on loans to other
Christians, which ended up leaving towns needing people to fill these
roles. However, even though this was
specifically a role they were given and not one that they really chose, Jews
were disliked for this role in society, stereotyped as miserly and many times
kicked out of the places where they had established their lives. The museum also addresses success stories,
but it is in the context of this recurring persecution that the museum handles
the Holocaust.
Some of the most powerful stories from the Holocaust are
actually not in the main part of the museum but in the basement leading into
the main part of the museum. Here, there
are exhibits of people’s personal items, letters to family members, etc. Another part shows the work of the artist Bedrich Fritta, who was in the concentration camp/ghetto Theresienstadt, a
prisoner employed to create positive propaganda about the camp. On the side, though, he created drawings
regarding his time in the camp that were at turns sardonic and haunting. One of the most touching parts of that
gallery is a book of cartoons he drew for his son who was turning three in
1944. His son would survive the camp,
though the artist did not.
An adjacent room has an art installation called “Fallen
Leaves.” It is a room whose floor is
scattered with different sizes of welded iron faces with their mouths gaping
open. The room is meant to be walked
into, though in order to do so you have to step on the faces. The harsh sound of the metal faces clinking
against one another is an intentional part of the installation.
Another part of the museum is the “Garden of Exile,” where
huge concrete columns rise at a slight tilt out of the ground, which is also
tilted. It commemorates the Jews who
escaped the Holocaust by moving all over the world. It’s a quite effective monument – because of
the tilt, walking between the columns throws your equilibrium off and
disorients you; plus, you never know what’s around the corner and can only see
in one direction at a time. The audio
guide had the architect mentioning how this was intentionally supposed to
mirror the experience of the Jews who had fled.
A very similar monument, but much larger (2700 concrete
columns instead of 16) lies in the heart of Berlin just next to the beautiful
Tiergarten park: the Holocaust Memorial.
It is similar enough that we wondered if the artists had meant it to be
that way. One major difference other than scale, though, is that whereas the columns in the museum were square, these are rectangular, reminiscent of a grave plot.
A final acknowledgment of the events of the second World War came not in the form of a large monument, but in the form of small engraved metal blocks integrated into the sidewalks, like the one pictured right here. These commemorated not only where they lived but when and how they died. These were perhaps the most powerful, if the most understated, reminders of the Holocaust.
So, Mom, you mentioned you’d like to hear “Germany explains
Nazism.” It seemed to us that the tack
taken in Berlin was not one of attempting to explain what happened, but rather
reflecting in a somber way and, especially in the case of the Holocaust
Memorial, in a very public spot. There
is no text on the Memorial, just the implicit reminder of what happened, as if
it were warning all to be wary of history repeating itself.
The Wall
As you might remember, after the war, Germany was a country
divided between the Soviets and the western powers (the US, Britain and
France). Berlin in particular was quite
literally divided with a wall separating West and East Berlin. Our first stop on the wall was Checkpoint
Charlie, so named because it was the third checkpoint after Checkpoint A
(Alpha) and Checkpoint B (Bravo) using the NATO phonetic alphabet. It was one of the most well-known checkpoints at which people could attempt to cross between West and East Berlin, marked with the army checkpoint (below) and the sign warning you that you are leaving the American sector. By the way, in addition to the American sector, there was also a French sector and a British sector. Nowadays, as you can tell, it’s quite the tourist destination, complete
with a McDonald’s across the street.
The wall next to the Checkpoint, and throughout the city, is
now marked by a line of bricks (below).
Checkpoint Charlie turned out to be a fortuitous first stop,
as it had a big informational exhibit that basically reviewed everything I had
forgotten from AP European History about what happened in Germany after
WWII, and by extension, the entire Cold War – things like the Cuban Missile
Crisis, the Marshall Plan, the uprisings against Soviets in Hungary and the
Czech Republic, and the Vietnam War.
The Checkpoint was particularly important as it became the
main way that people attempted to get from East Germany to West Berlin (and
from there to places far and wide). The
Checkpoint told the stories of hundreds of people who fled East Germany in that
area, successfully or unsuccessfully.
Anyone who attempted to flee was considered an enemy of the state
. People got
creative – creating hiding spaces in cars, procuring US Army uniforms that
would allow them to cross, falsifying documents, etc.
After brushing up on our history, we stopped by the
Brandenburg Gate. The Gate, built in the
18
th century, became a lasting symbol of Berlin. It was famous enough to get the attention of
Napoleon during his reign, and apparently important enough to not be destroyed
during the division of Berlin. The Gate
was just next to the wall on the East Berlin side, and there was a checkpoint there that theoretically allowed people to pass between. During Reagan’s presidency, he is famously
known to have given a speech on the gate, commonly quoted as saying “Mr.
Gorbachev! Tear down this wall!” Apparently Obama recently visited Berlin and
also spoke on the gate, but his speech was declared distinctly not as memorable. Oh well.
A bit south of the gate lies Potsdamerplatz, a plaza full of
modern buildings and a few pieces of the wall still in their original
spots. The entire plaza had been
engulfed by the wall system (which, I should say, encompassed not just the one
wall, but a whole militarized zone between two walls that allowed the East Germans to keep a very close watch on who crossed from East to
West). Potsdamerplatz, then, represents
a bit of a phoenix rising out of the ashes, and that is why all of the
buildings there are so modern.
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One of our last stops in Berlin was to see the East Side
Gallery, which is the longest remaining section of wall, still in its original
position. Both sides are heavily
graffitied, but on the Eastern side of the wall the walls are covered in murals
from when the wall was being dismantled and forward. Many of the murals refer to peace,
liberation, etc.
One of the most famous
panels depicts Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German President Erich Honnecker kissing (which, by the way, was painted from an
actual picture)
The Wall was one of the things I was most excited to see on this trip. It’s a piece of history I was actually alive for, something that affected people I actually know, like Carla and Johannes and their families. Though they were quite young when the wall fell, it was really special to learn from them about what living in Berlin since then has been like. In our next post, we’ll tell you what we learned about what it was like to live in East Berlin.
Despite the sightseeing, pastry-eating and Bastille-storming, though, I don't think either of us felt like we could really do Paris justice. We were happy when the day came to fly home. Somehow appropriately, on the night before we left, we happened upon this restaurant, pictured at right:
Despite the sightseeing, pastry-eating and Bastille-storming, though, I don't think either of us felt like we could really do Paris justice. We were happy when the day came to fly home. Somehow appropriately, on the night before we left, we happened upon this restaurant, pictured at right:
