Yesterday we left rainy Edinburgh for a two-hour flight with a school group of excitable teenagers who kept on bumping into the back of our chairs. After we landed in Berlin we took a taxi to our hotel downtown. The taxi driver, a third generation Turk, was very happy having been born and raised in Berlin. He reveled in the multi-cultural character of his city and practically gave us a guided tour as he drove us from the airport.
Berlin is a city with a lot of tragic history, which it honestly embraces, like a parent embracing a child after being sorry for hurting it. I love this city because of that. We first went to the Berlin Wall Memorial on the Bernauer Strasse. This street was in the French zone; the apartment buildings on the south side were in the Russian zone.
When East Germany put up the wall, in August 1961, they bricked up the apartment street entrances while people were still living in them. On August 22, 1961, Ida Siekmann became the first recorded casualty of the wall by trying to jump from her apartment window, three stories up, down into the street where she lived. She did not survive. An extreme and poignant illustration of the cruel silliness of building walls to stop people from living where they want to live, and still very relevant in today’s politics.
Next we went to the Brandenburger Tor. I had fond memories of visiting it three years earlier. The monument used to be right on the border between the East and West zone and was a symbol of German division. After German reunification, you could finally walk all around the Tor again, and many interesting historical plaques about its history were erected nearby. Imagine my disgust when we arrived and found the entire site roped off for a giant TV screen to follow the European soccer/football championships, sponsored by Coca Cola. I have nothing against soccer or Coca Cola, at least not until now. Crass commercialism at its worst, and I do not understand how this could have been allowed. The monument looked much more dignified under soviet control. Boycott Coca Cola!!!
Next we went to the holocaust monument. When I first visited it, three years ago, I did not know what to expect. As soon as I saw it, I was very moved. It immediately conveyed the magnitude of this monumental tragedy. Art at its best. These pictures say it best, no further comment needed.
We finished the day with a boat tour on the river Spree, giving a nice overview of the city.
Photographs © 2016 P.J. Gardner. All rights reserved.