Berlin

Berlin was such a momentous stop. There is more to see and do and experience in that city that anywhere I have ever been. Berlin is a business hub, home to the German Parliament, a burgeoning artist community, thriving music scene, and a complex of museums known as Museum Island. But perhaps greater than all the rest is Berlin’s history. The most notable historical events of the last 100 years were based largely in Berlin. It was from Berlin that the Nazis operated their campaigns of horror and terrorized the world until the end of the Second World War, when it was split into West Berlin and East Berlin, the wall was erected and then the wall fell down.



War ravaged pillars slowly being replaced



Our hostel couldn’t have been located in a better spot. We stayed at CityStay, roughly three blocks from Alexanderplatz (with the famous TV Tower) in one direction and Museum Island and Lustgarden Platz (where Hitler famously marched before thousands) in the other.

We’d been recommended a specific tour guide, Terry, by others who had been to Berlin, so we hunted him down on our first day in town. His tour was ten hours of history, insight and first-hand stories. Terry had worked for the British foreign service in Berlin after the war helping East Germans immigrate (read: escape) to West Germany. When the wall fell, he rode a kid’s bicycle along the top of it, and pointed out to us his old place of employment, the Palace of Tears, where family members from the West would have to leave their Eastern relatives behind. His guide skills are so good the Allied troops once used him as their tour guide.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of the Holocaust

Terry showed us all the major sights of Berlin as well as the lesser known places of historical significance. We went to the famous Jewish synagogue, which was saved from Kristallnacht rioters by one police officer who had the courage to turn them away. Behind the synagogue he took us to a dilapidated old building which, he explained, used to be a Jewish school for girls, until the Nazis raided it one night and shipped all the girls to a concentration camp.

(Sadly, all these years after their persecution by the Nazis, the Jews of Berlin are still not safe. Police are stationed around the clock at all major locations of Jewish significance, protecting them from a newer sort of enemy: Islamist extremists.)

Section of the wall bordering the former Gestapo headquarters

We walked past the city’s famous art galleries and later, apartment buildings occupied by starving artists who decorate the street with brightly-coloured strips of cloth. We stood on top of Hilter’s bunker and Terry pointed out just how close the Soviet tanks where when Hitler finally committed suicide; they were less than a block away. We walked past Checkpoint Charlie to the former headquarters of the Gestapo, which has been turned into a museum in the past few years where photos are displayed along the building’s foundations. It felt like I lived 80 years in a single day.

Aushwitz inmates

Our second day in Berlin, we went to the German Historical Museum for a special temporary exhibit on Hitler and the German citizens. We stayed for close to six hours and only made it satisfactorily through half. It explored a question so many of us have asked ourselves when studying WWII and the Holocaust: how could the German people have let this happen? What role did they play and how did they get there? The exhibit delved deep into the activities of Hitler before he became Chancellor as well as his better known activities after.

I had always assumed that the best way to survive such a government would be to keep your head low and avoid trouble as well as involvement. I learned that this was not an option with the Nazis. They had organizations set up for every segment of society: boys clubs, girls clubs, mothers organizations, clubs for families wishing to take holidays, young boys who wanted a job, etc. If one was not a member of any club, others would be suspicious, but one would also be severing oneself from social interaction and community. All organizations were taken over by Nazis: churches were only allowed to teach Nazi-approved lessons and unions were outlawed and then reformed as Nazi organizations. It was impossible for the German citizen to escape from the Nazis, and once they had you, they worked you. The exhibit was excellent, and I felt I learned more lessons on the relationship between citizens and their government in those six hours than I did over four years of political studies.

Our activities during the days exhausted us and we ended up in bed earlier than usual, so we never encountered the famous Berlin nightlife. Of all the places we visited, Berlin is the city to which I would most like to return. I feel I only scratched the very surface of what this city has to offer.

Lustgarden Platz, near our hostel

Lustgarden Platz. Hitler is the one marching with his arm outstretched in the centre.