Wednesday 8/22/12 Berlin

This is our second full day in Berlin and we had a guided tour with a wonderful, sensitive, knowledgeable woman named Billie Pittke. Billie is an art historian and expert on Berlin who was contracted through our wonderful Rochester travel agent, Judy Shafer. We began our tour in the Gendarmenmarkt right next to our hotel. "Gendarmen" means police and "markt" of course is market. They only have markets there in the present time at Christmas, but it once was a market square. Here we see the Music Hall we toured yesterday, flanked on either side by domed churches, one German Lutheran, the other French Huguenot. This plaza is located in the former East Berlin area and almost all the buildings in the area were destroyed by Allied bombing raids, but have now been restored.


From there we went to Babelplatz (the former Opernplatz or site of the Royal Opera) where we saw Forum Frediricianum - Frederic the Great's Forum of the Arts. Many of the buildings now are used by Humboldt University. The Forum, planned as a center of science and arts, is the Platz or Plaza where the Nazis did the infamous book burning of May 10, 1933. We stood beside, and then on, Micha Ullman's memorial to the event - "Empty Library." It consists of an underground sealed room which contains empty shelves that can be viewed from above through a glass pane. One can stand on it and through the scratched and dirty glass barely make out the empty shelves while thinking about the fragility of freedom of speech.


After driving through more of East Berlin, we stop at the Pergamon Museum to see the reconstructed historic Pergamon Alter and Gate of Miletus from Turkey and the reconstructed Ishtar Gate and Processional Way, originally built by Nebukadnezzer II in the 6th century BCE at the entrance to the city of Babylon.






Final stop before lunch is at the Berlin Wall. A portion of the wall has been left standing and internationally recognized artists were invited to decorate it.


After lunch we see the former site of Hitler's Imperial Chancellery and the park in front of it where Peter Eisenmann constructed the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe" which Eric and I had visited yesterday. A second viewing and an in depth discussion with Billie about how children should behave in the monument (and what the artist intended for that behavior to be) leave me still conflicted, but more accepting of the children's behavior.

Next stop is the Brandenburg Gate in Pariser Platz


and the remarkable architecture of Frank Gehry's DZ bank building


We end the day with a trip to one of the newer museums and outdoor displays - "The Topography of Terror." Built on the site of the Gestapo headquarters, the outdoor exhibit, created in front of a portion of the Berlin Wall, is a timeline of Nazi oppression.


The indoor museum recounts the Nazi horrors, with a section devoted to each group that was persecuted - the Jews, the gypsies, the homosexuals, the mentally and physically impaired, etc. It has been an exhausting day, and this is a mentally and physically challenging way to end it. I wouldn't have left a single thing out, but I can't take it all in either! It's too much death, too much persecution, too much evil.

To switch up our moods, dinner turns out to be a lovely event. In addition to the two couples with whom we came to Berlin, we make contact with another Melton couple that has been visiting Berlin - David and Barbara Mushin from Melbourne, Australia. Although the Mushins have never met us before, it's as if we are old family friends as we share a wonderful meal, wonderful stories of how are families emigrated from Eastern Europe, and how our children (and grandchildren) are continuing the lines that Hitler tried to end.

Enough for now. Tomorrow is another day with Billie, so there will be more discussion, more history, and more to tell.

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