Spring Break Part 3 - April 1

Early on the 1st we left Prague - it was so cold it was snowing - and took a train to Berlin.  By noon we were there, but it wasn't much warmer.  We started walking around the city once we had checked into our hostel, situated on the third floor of some apartment building set apart in the middle of a plaza near a train station.

What I noticed about Berlin, and what made me love it, was the fact that more so than anything else the city as a whole stands as a monument to owning up to your mistakes.  There are monuments dedicated to every minority group that was prejudiced against in the Holocaust, and they redesigned the Parliament house for government transparency.  When the Reichstag was rebuilt after being burned down in the 1930s (supposedly by Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe in five different places at the exact same time) it was later rebuilt in the 1960s and completed in 1990 with a new addition - the dome above the meeting room of the Bundestag is a glass dome which people can walk in.  This is for two reasons: the first is to literally make the gears of government transparent, the second being as a reminder to the members of Parliament exactly who they work for, the people.  As you can see below, the German people are very open about their dark past and subsequently don't beat around the bush.

"Monument to Sinti and Roma Murdered in the Holocaust"

The biggest leaf in the "Germany Knows Exactly What It Did" book is the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe." This monument is actually just a few acres of variously placed cement slabs on a varying landscape.  You don't know this is for the murdered Jews of Europe unless you stumble onto the information kiosk midway on one side, and the architect has been silent on what it means.  Many people ask what it means, what it's supposed to signify.  Most people see tombstones, some see cattle cars, but a tour guide (more on him later) gave us an interesting take: as you walk through the monument the blocks grow and the ground falls beneath you, until such a point as you are in a veritable forest of cement slabs that block out all the noise and sights of the outside world until you are alone with nothing but the path in front of you and occasionally seeing someone else to your left or right only for them to disappear perhaps never to be seen again as long as you live.  Maybe the "point" of the monument is for us all to understand what it was like to live through the Holocaust, to be cut off from all that we've known and loved, by giving us our own personal Holocaust.

The Brandenburg Gate from Afar

Fun fact about the Brandenburg Gate, it's a remnant of the original Palace of the German kings, and originally had a goddess of peace being drawn by horses on top.  However, when Napoleon marched in he stole it, and when it was taken back it was given a scepter with the iron cross and an eagle and became the goddess Victory.  Some of the original meaning has been lost, and it's a nice reminder of how Germany was a nation of power and good intentions that was ultimately corrupted.


Now that we had most of the touristy stuff out of the way, we could actually enjoy Berlin.  This involved my living almost exclusively on soft pretzels; I got sick and it was worth it.  When not eating salted bread we also went to some German restaurants - there is no "authentic German food" in Berlin so we were told - but we got by with some goulash and German beer.  I know it will make my German ancestors turn in their graves, but I didn't see the hype about German beer, it still tasted like some Gulag ration.  But hey, the city awaits; more to come.