Tuesday morning dawned early, though we had decided to allow ourselves a little bit of sleep in time to make up for the very wet nature of the night before. We ate a late breakfast at a cute café across from the hostel and I finished my hot chocolate and Tom his yogurt while we walked towards Bernauer Street, the location of the Berlin Wall Memorial. Like many places in Berlin, the wall on Bernauer Street ran along the sidewalk on one side, separating families, neighbors, and in this case a congregation from its church and a cemetery from the relatives of those buried there. The wall progressed in stages, from bricking in windows to destroying the buildings on the boundary line – including the church. It was ordered destroyed, and all that now remains is the cross from the top, twisted and bent. This is the only place in the city where you can still see how the death strip would have looked, the area between the east and west that was guarded by watch towers, dogs on lines, and rows of trenches or barbed wire. There is a memorial museum across the street, and a platform you can climb to see across the wall and onto the death strip. (You can also see the restoration work they continue to do on the cemetery that was cut by the wall.) Inside the museum are countless documents and photographs from all the different stages of the building of the wall. It was very interesting to be able to compare the foreign coverage with that of East Germany. The museum was very well done, there were even headphones where you could listen to some of the propaganda songs produced by the government, quite ridiculous things about the blue sky over the wall and the glory of the East German government. Was enough to make you sick when the next thing you read were the stories of those who died trying to escape.
From the museum we walked towards Checkpoint Charlie, passing through a great area of restaurants and fun shops. For lunch we got baguettes at one of the million little bakeries, and I had to get a pretzel too. We took pictures at Checkpoint Charlie and spent a while walking up and down reading all of the information on the area, but while I knew I wanted to go in the museum Tom wasn't so sure, so we agreed I would go later in the week and we would head through the center to go up inside the dome of the Reichstag building – Germany's Bundestag is its representative body, and the Reichstag is its home. It was late afternoon, which worked perfectly since we had wanted to go up in the dome when it was dark out. We had to wait for a while, but knew that the free trip up the elevator would be worth it. When we got to the top we were given audio guides, mine in German and Tom's in English of course, and they must have been super-smart-audio-guides or something, because they would tell you to stop and look in one direction, and interrupt themselves to ask you to stop again if you had kept on walking. Quite incredible. The city was beautiful at night, and we were proud of how much of it we had already covered and could recognize. The dome is open at the top, so it was a little chilly, but luckily the rain had relented. I absolutely love the design of the dome, you can see into the chamber below through a system of mirrors in the center, the transparency it represents is a great concept and it also is just very interesting architecture. Next time I am in Berlin I will make it a point to sit in on a session of the Bundestag, definitely. We got a little cold up in the dome, and what better way to warm up than margaritas and nachos?! Even in Germany? We thought we would give it a try. We had been eating at small café-type places so far, and decided we could splurge a little for one dinner after a great couple of days. And the nachos at the Mexican restaurant not far from Potsdamer Platz didn't disappoint at all! Afterwards, we debated going down the giant snow-slide that the Austrian state of SALZBURG (sorry, couldn't resist the capitals) had sent to Berlin, but decided we would rather just watch other people slide screaming down it on inner-tubes. It was late already, and Tom had an early flight to Dublin the next day, so we had a drink at the bar at the hostel and headed to bed.
The next day was Wednesday, and I began the day with a delicious cup of coffee on my way to the Museum on Checkpoint Charlie. The museum was absolutely packed to the brim with papers, photos, artifacts, and videos. It was especially exciting because I could now read many of the signs from East Berlin that had been written in cyrillic, the Russian alphabet. The museum documents the building of the wall, largely from the perspective of the Allies, and then pays special attention to the many different types of escape attempts tried by the citizens of East Berlin. The restriction of freedom of movement is a concept I have often come into contact with in Russia – during the Soviet time you only had a right to free housing in the city in which you were born, and the registration system in this country continues to be absolutely ridiculous, if you are in any city for 3 days you must register with the police – and it was clearly the key issue for those who suddenly found themselves behind the wall. Compartments barely large enough were placed almost anywhere you could think of in all different kinds of cars, one woman sewed two suitcases together than cut a whole in the fabric so she could fit inside, others built a tunnel, and still others tried to fly or swim out of East Germany. Truly incredible. I could have spent all day in the museum, but eventually all of the photos and articles and artifacts become overwhelming and I needed some fresh air. I got a pretzel and wandered around the area for a little while, before deciding to head to the Jewish Museum which I knew was open until late so I'd have plenty of time. It, too, was jammed with artifacts and things to read and learn. It is largely about the history of the Jewish people in Europe, and I learned an incredible amount about their history, culture, and traditions. I loved being able to be a dork and read all of the signs explaining all of the artifacts since I was by myself. Though not expressly about the Holocaust, there is an extensive collection of documents – including many letters and official documents – about that most-infamous period of Jewish history, as well as the Holocaust Tower, a void in the structure lit by a tiny opening at the top. The architect left many 'voids' in the structure, another such space is called the Memory Void where a modern art sculpture stretches to the seeming horizon and the empty space above somehow is incredibly oppressive. I spent almost the whole evening in the museum, and it took almost the whole trip back to the hostel to process everything I had seen and read during the day. I'm not sure there are words to describe my inability to analyze and understand the things I had learned, but I was grateful for the long walk back to the hostel and the opportunity to realize that some things can never be grasped, unless you have experienced them. I was grateful to Berlin, her streets, her museums, and her people, for allowing me a somehow very intimate glimpse into different worlds in which I had no part.
To be continued…
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