Berlin

East Side Gallery mural

East Side Gallery mural

East Side Gallery mural

Berlin Wall

Shell of a bombed out church left standing as a reminder of the war, they still held services inside during the war even after it was bombed out.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews

Sharon showing Bearlin her affection for it - these guys were everywhere

Kai, Andy and Julie on a train track going nowhere

Andrews dash for freedom

Memorial in "Book Burners Square" - if you cant tell its an empty library underneath the Square. The SS stormed the University and burned 20,000 books that were deemed anti political or pro jewish or lots of stupid ideas they had in one night .

We spent the next ten days taking in Berlin. Germany’s capital city was amazing; it has so much interesting history and amazing architecture to go with it. We stayed with friends we met in NZ, Julie and Kai in Julies little flat in her parents basement. They showed us around for the first two days till we were orientated and then left us to explore ourselves which was great.

In the centre of town we saw different remains of the Berlin wall and read all about its messed up history outside in the blistering sun, it is crazy to think that it was only twenty years ago! It was good to read about and really made everything we had learned in history at school all so real. We spent a good couple of hours poring through the Jewish memorial museum reading about Jewish life and death in the Second World War which was very moving. It had some post cards thrown out of the trains by Jewish people on their way to the concentration camps one of which really moved me. This one was a little boy writing to his father who was not going with him and his mother to the camp. He wrote along the lines of, “I don’t want to die daddy but they won’t let us live. I don’t know why but we have got to die.” We all had a very heavy feeling after leaving the memorial.

Another day we headed off to an open air museum (once again in the intense heat of the day) and spent a good three hours reading ‘the topography of terror.’ This museum is located on the sight where the old SS offices used to stand and where they made all the decisions concerning the murdering of the different ethnic groups for ‘Ethnic cleansing.’ This sight had also contained the jail where political prisoners where kept and tortured, so once again a very moving memorial. It is hard to comprehend all that went on and how these men could make these decisions over a cup of tea.

On our last day in Berlin we headed out for another historical experience, visiting the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. This was the most horrific place I have ever seen in my life. They had thousands of stories on different aspects of life in the camp and personal accounts of the terror that the prisoners lived under. The camp also contained the ashes of the thousands of cremated prisoners, the old sight of the crematorium, gallows, gas chamber and shooting pit, body dissection rooms, ‘hospital’ where the doctors conducted experiments on prisoners, old kitchen, work buildings where prisoners where forced to labour for long hours, guard towers, camp prison, and two remaining dorm rooms. All of which had their own stories. This camp was hard to explain it brought up so many emotions; anger, sadness, tears, and lastly relief that this was over. It was so hard for one to comprehend and even more so that people actually survived these camps to tell their story. Death was even wished for by many prisoners as an escape from the terror, horror and brokenness they faced each living day.

The German history is on display all around the city and they have such a good attitude. They are ashamed of parts of their history but they put it out there and don’t hide or deny it. They show you all that happened to remember those that where lost and to make us question what we are being told and what is going on around us so that something like this will not happen again.

On a lighter note we really enjoyed spending time with our friends and their families just spoiled us. We were invited out to dinner four different nights and fed up on good German cuisine, including sauerkraut, strange sticky mashed potatoes, different types of worst (sausages), purple cabbage with apple, cucumber served in many different ways, roast pork, schnitzel, and different creamy deserts all very yummy! Many German people have little garden plots within the city with a little bach on where they go and live for the summer. It’s a little kinda 600m² plot jam packed with colourful flowers and vege gardens with a tiny house with a bed in the loft. They are really cute and nice retreats from the city right within the city.

Julie’s mother really looked after us and many mornings we woke up to find that he had sneaked in early with a cooked packed lunch. We also enjoyed visiting antique markets, Andrew loved the beer (thanks to an old King and a still existing beer purity law!), seeing the sights, people watching, walking in parks, meeting new people (was really cool to meet Francine May James wife’s sister), trying new things and also having some time to just chill out.
Berlin is a fun and varied city with a lot of history!