So Day 2 in Berlin began early! Joy was heading off to meet her parents in Prague today and Nome and I were to change hostels. So after an all you can eat buffet (waffles, muesli, fresh brown seeded bread with cream cheese and ham and veggies!), we headed off. Now it wasn't raining but by Jesus it was cold!! About 6 degrees so I was wearing eveything I own again (at least 4 layers) and we were lamenting that fact that we didn't bring gloves or beanies). We successfully navigated the u-bahn although lugging the suitcases up and down stairs wasn't fun until we got to hauptbahnhof (the central station). We dumped our bags and raced into the U-bahn to Brandenburg Gate. We were hoping catch the Berlin free walking tour. Only 20 mins late and we caught them! So Brandernberg Gate was one of the gates to the city of Berlin back when Germany was part of Prussia. It has a statue on top that represented Peace. However during Napoleon Warsl Napoleon brought his troops through that gate to invade Germany. He was defeated and left through that gate. So the Germans renamed the statue Victory and the square that it stands in after the French. Thus they have a frequent reminder of a German victory over France!
The next stop was the Jewish memorial. This is a collection of blocks of ranging sizes in the centre of Berlin. Is deceptive because the ground also slopes so some blocks are bigger than they seem and can tower over you. The designer of the memorial didn't explain his design preferring instead for people to make their own interpretations, it is an arresting sight and very thought provoking. It is a stark reminder of the 6 million Jewish deaths during WWII.
From there we went to the car park over Hitler's bunker where he committed suicide. Then to the site of the 1950s protest of construction workers in east Berlin that ended with the army tanks killing 55 protestors. We saw remnants of the Berlin wall and heard about the history behind including the infamous attempted escapes into the west. After viewing the tourist trap that is Checkpoint Charlie we headed back in time to French square and it's significance in the Thirty Year War. As a place of terrible atrocities from the Swedish soldiers, the leader at the time needed incentives to get people to move into the area, luckily for him the Huguenots had just been expelled from France so as present to them he built them a cathedral. And not to upset the current German residents he built them a cathedral as well opposite the French one but with the German spire just a little taller! Both were heavily bombed during the war and rebuilt to the same size.
Next we saw the Royal library, heard of the adventures of King Frederick the most lived king of Prussia and saw the memorial to the 20,000 books burnt at the beginning of the war. We also stood in front of Humboldt University that produce the likes of Lenin, Marx, Brothers Grimm and a mere two dozen Nobel Prize winners (oh and Einstein lectured there). Our tour finished in front of the Royal Guard House which is now a memorial to the victims of war and tyranny. As I'm sure you understand by now Berliners will never forget. If there is a space in the city then they will find another reason to make a memorial.
Post the walking tour we found a German cafe and had beer, aperolspritz (some sort of liqueur drink that Nome is drinking), applespritz (what Joy has, it's not beer!), currywurst and deep fried Camembert cheese. I would feet quite fat if I moved to Germany!
We then queued for quite awhile for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which is underneath the Jewish memorial. It's a free information and display area and it was definitely worth the long wait queueing in the cold. It chronicles the history of what the Jews of Europe endured from losing their public transport rights, to bring made to wear the Star of David, to bring housed in ghettos, to work camps and then the many horrific and senseless ways they were murdered. This centre has provided photos and excerpts from people's diaries, letters, postcards of Jewish people and what they felt and knew of their situation. Wherever possible the centre described stories of Jewish lives pre war from all over Europe and then what happened to them post war.
The whole experience is heartbreaking but it's a poignant tribute to these peoples lives.
After that we put Joy on a train to Prague and checked into our new hostel. Not being quite done with WWII we visited the Topography of Terror in the ruins of the SS headquarters. Through propaganda and newspaper articles it's shows Hitler's and the Nazi party's rise to power and the campaign ofalies and terror that they used to bring about the war. It was fascinating and horrific to observe with hindsight the web of terror that they weaved to achieve all that they did. More info was given about the Gestapo and the SS and by the end of that exhibition Naomi and I were ready for a drink!
We went to a excellent German pub outside of the city centre which boasted a beer list of over 100 beers and lovely German food. We finished the day with delicious apple strudel!
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