A Day Of Thought Provoking History

Today for our last day in Berlin, we headed out for one last dose of history, starting with the East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall.  The East Side Gallery is a 1.3km long section of the wall which was covered with paintings by artists from all over the world after the wall was taken down, turning it into a international memorial for freedom.  A lot of those paintings have been destroyed by erosion, graffiti, and vandalism, but there is a major restoration project happening this year, in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the “Fall of the Wall”.  At the time we saw it, not much of the restoration had been complete, but the paintings we did see were interesting and the East Side Gallery was definitely worth a visit!

When we finished at the East Side Gallery, we took the subway back to Potsdamer Platz to pick up movie tickets for Angels and Demons in the evening.  Paul has been anxiously waiting for this movie to come out and this is opening weekend here, so he looked up where we could go to see the original English version (as opposed to one that has been dubbed over with German voices) and found that the Sony theater at Potsdamer Platz shows all movies in original versions.  When we bought our tickets, we were happy to discover that they do assigned seating at the theatres here, so we could go about the rest of our sightseeing without having to worry about getting in line early to get seats for the movie (the way we do back home for opening weekends)

After eating some impressively good vietnamese fast food at the shopping center where we had Salomon Bagels yesterday, we headed off to the Topographie des Terrors, an extensive open-air display of information about the Nazis and their reign of terror.  The displays are located on the site of what used to be the headquarters of the Nazi regime (the buildings were destroyed by Allied bombings in 1945) and the information provided is very comprehensive and interesting, but we didn’t have time to stay there all day reading it, so we did a brief walkthrough and moved on.  Fortunately the entire display is available for download at the foundation’s website http://www.topographie.de/en/index.htm so I’ll be able to read it at my leisure .

From here we headed to Checkpoint Charlie, the most well known Berlin Wall crossing and now one of Berlin’s top tourist attractions.  During the Cold War, the Soviet Union blocked people from emigrating out of East Berlin because of the effects of “brain drain” (the emigrants tended to be young and well educated).  When the Berlin Wall was erected to completely restrict movement in and out of East Berlin, Checkpoint Charlie was designated as a crossing point for foreigners and members of the Allied Forces to enter East Berlin.  Many Germans tried to smuggle their way out of East Berlin via Checkpoint Charlie – some were successful but most were not – and today there are a number of displays at Checkpoint Charlie dedicated to the memory of these people.  For me, seeing Checkpoint Charlie was another reminder that our world’s not so distant past contains many important lessons – and judging by some of the events going on in the world today, we haven’t all learned our lesson!

We finished off our sightseeing with some time at the Memorial for Murdered Jews, which is quite close to Potsdamer Platz.  We had passed by it yesterday, but only saw the concrete slabs outside which cover 4.7 acres to form a symbolic sculpture that aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.  Today we headed into the museum part, which is found underground on the east side of the Memorial.  The displays inside were the most touching bits of information I’ve read so far and it gave me insight as to what the Jewish people of Europe had to suffer under Hitler’s reign.  Like most people, I’ve seen movies and read history books about the suffering of the Jews during World War II, but seeing real people’s letters and hearing their stories made all the atrocious things the Nazi’s did seem more horrific and unimaginable.  How did one person ever get so much power?

Our last day in Berlin was probably our best, and I’ll never forget the things I learned today.  I wish we had spent more time at these memorials/museums, but our time in Berlin is up!  It has been a great city to visit, with a good combination of history and moderness.  Personally, if I had to move to Europe right now, I might pick Berlin!