Berlin. A city steeped in a rich history. There was no way 3 days was ever going to do it justice. Not even 3 months could. But alas, we immersed ourselves in the city and were rewarded with some great experiences.
Firstly, our Airbnb accommodation deserves special recognition. A beautiful large apartment with wooden floors and high ceilings that has been beautifully & decorated with a stack of character. Complete with 2 little hounds, our Hosts, Mats and Jakob were super friendly & helpful. And the bed, so cost & comfortable, it was hard to get up each morning!
We arrived off the train from Paris sleepy & hungry. A taxi to the apartment & hauling our bags up the 4 stories of stairs, and we were ready for dinner. Google maps informed me there was a pizzeria a few kms away that had gluten free pizzas. We jumped on the tram and Steph was delighted to down a gluten free beer as well! The pizza did not disappoint at all and there was even tiramisu for dessert. What a great start Berlin!
On our first full day in the city, we went on the free walking tour. This started at Brandenburg gate and was a good opportunity for photos of this monument.
We continued on to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, commonly called the Holocaust memorial. There is not a lot of information about the memorial and the designer has left the interpretation of the sea of concrete blocks (of various heights) up to the visitor.
Next stop was the site of Hitlers bunker, now the most photographed car park in Germany. The bunker is where Hitler spent most of the war, married his long time girlfriend and they took their lives the very next day. The bunker was filled with concrete after the war and a car park now stands atop.
We stopped by the Luftwaffe (airforce headquarters), a great example of National Socialist intimidation architecture, and then by a remaining part of the Berlin Wall. The Wall enclosed West Germany and was intended to stop people from the East fleeing to the West. The idea of it now seems absurd, given the freedom we have to move around in today's world. Prior to the wall going up, East German's could go to the West, be given a West German passport and never return to the Socialist East. People were migrating by the thousands to the 'better life' they could see on the other side. Essentially, the initial Wall went up overnight, and with it leaving hundreds of people stranded for the 28 years. If you were on the wrong side that night, you were not going home for a long time. Our guide told us a story of a young couple who left their baby with grandparents in East Germany for the night. That little boy did not see his parents again until he was 30 years old!
We next stopped by Checkpoint Charlie, the French cathedral and German Cathedral. For the rest of the afternoon, we went back to have a closer look at the section of remaining Wall and read though the information on the installation there. The Topography of Terror museum - which documents the central institutions of the SS and the Police of the Third Reich, as well as the crimes they perpetrated throughout Europe.
We also went into a large panoramic display in a specially built rotunda which depicts life a divided Berlin in the 1980s. A great artistic visual medium that we definitely appreciated after all the reading & learning we had already done that day.
Day two saw us up early, Steph not happy about this, and heading out to Oranienburg with a packed lunch. We were here to visit the site of the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Sachsenhausen was intended to be a model for all other concentration camps, both in it's design and treatment of prisoners. It was also a training facility for SS officers. Sachsenhausen was classified as a 'work' camp and not a 'death' camp however 100 000 people are believed to have died here as a result of executions and the effects of their imprisonment. A somber day indeed. Walking around the grounds and reconstructed buildings, the horrors that took place here is sickening and unconscionable. The camp is located close to a town and the locals knew of its existence but nothing of the conditions or treatment inside. Sachsenhausen was also the site of the largest counterfeiting operation, probably ever. The Nazi's forced Jewish artisans to produce forged British and American currency as part of a plan to undermine both economies. Over 1 billion pounds in counterfeited banknotes was recovered. The camp was then used after the war by the Soviets to hold German prisoners of war and Soviet citizens, those likely imprisoned by the Nazi's, awaiting return to the Soviet Union.
We left feeling exhausted and overwhelmed and also very grateful for the freedom in which we live our lives and all the basic comforts we enjoy.
On our last day in Berlin, we took a morning to relax and sleep in. The next 4 cities are going to be a little hectic, with only 2 nights in each. We headed out around midday, first stop, the East Side Gallery. This is the largest remaining section of the Wall and is used to display street art. 1.3km in length and a wide variety of graffiti, art and political messages. The best pieces were located at the western end. A quick lunch stop and then off to the DDR museum. What awaited us was an interactive exhibition of life in the former East Germany. Everything was A great way to learn without having to read too much. Certainly a highlight, was a display on how popular nudism was among the East Germans. The model house and acts were also pretty cool!
Next door was the Berliner Dom (Cathedral) and a nice park in which to observe. Bevan took the opportunity for photos. We next jumped on a bus and went down to Brandenburg Gate for a walk a rest in the Tiergarten. And to finish our stay we went back to Simmela Finest Food for more pizza, beer and tiramisu. Ah, this is the life...
Berlin, you were pretty damn awesome and we already can't wait to come back someday.
