Europe Part Three: Berlin

I really don't like night trains. They're noisy, crowded, the toilets get nasty, and it's not a restful experience. Plus, the cheapie compartments (where touring high school kids and their teachers end up) have six bunks in them, three on each side, stacked vertically. This overnight train journey didn't start out well because our group had four of the bunks booked, but the two bottom ones were occupied by a couple of unknown teenage girls. And they didn't speak English. Nor did they speak French, German or Spanish (and at that point we had exhausted all the language skills of our group). Eventually we discovered that one did speak a smidgen of English and that their native language was Polish, their grandparents were in the next compartment, and they wanted very much to be with their family--not with us. (Apparently the bottom bunks are considered the choice spots and people book them first, but this time they weren't pleased with their roommates--us.) So, an exchange was made, our other teacher and one student ended up with four Poles and my compartment was filled with me, three girls and two boys from GPHS. (I teased Rene and Eddie that they could go home and tell people they slept with three girls--or even more frightening, a 51 year old woman!) Based upon my experience last year, I was not looking forward to trying to sleep on a train, but I actually did sleep a few hours, and I was thankful.

Because....in the morning we arrived in Berlin and were expected to be functional enough to explore the new city. We started out with a tour by guide Kevin Kennedy, and he was the best guide we had all trip. Berlin is a beautiful city, but very different from London and Paris. Since for many years it was actually two major cities, Berlin is very spread out, with the major sites quite distant from one another. You can't see everything on foot; you must go by bus or subway. More than once Kevin mentioned the tragic history of Berlin and it's true--you see something beautiful and then just around the corner, there is a reminder of something horrific. It must be difficult for a people to live with such a dichotomy.

One of the biggest parks in the city was completely demolished after WWII as the people were forced to cut down all the trees for firewood. Today, it is lovely, and one thing I will always remember about Berlin are it's Linden trees. They bloom and smell delicious. The scent is everywhere, wafting through the entire city. It was something very special.

The Brandenburg gate, which Reagan stood in front of for his "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech, was beautiful--gigantic and impressive. Nearby, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was a stark gray remembrance of genocide. It's a city block filled with stone rectangles of varying heights. Pathways run between the blocks, but it's totally gray and cold and somehow dead. Visitor are left to interpret the memorial in their own way, but it feels menacing. I learned that when building it, they found bunkers belonging to some of Hitler's henchmen, and they know that Hitler's own underground bunker is nearby, but they keep those locations secret to prevent them becoming Neo-Nazi shrines.

We also visited the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building. In front are 96 slate slabs, placed vertically in the ground (it actually looks kind of like a bicycle rack) each with the name of a parliament member who was sent to his death for opposing Hitler. Each also notes the concentration camp where the man died and his death date. A quiet memorial to Hitler's first opponents, those with the courage to speak up in the German parliament during the 1930s.

If you go to Berlin looking for the wall, you'll be disappointed. Twenty years after the fall of communism, all sign of the Berlin wall is pretty much obliterated. One section remains, and we did see that, but the no-man's-land, guards and guard towers are long gone. You can get a good feel for it all at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum though. So many people concocted ingenious schemes to escape communism. It was impressive, and depressing--especially the stories of families who tried but failed to escape. Afterward, the government would often take away their children to be raised by "good" communists.

In the evening, we met up with Kevin again for a walking tour in the trendy Prenzlauer Berg district. Most of the buildings have been renovated, but every now and then you see a row house that remains in a state of disrepair. Kevin explained that after World War II, when the communists took over, they owned everything. Then, when communism fell, the huge task of determining who originally owned the buildings began. Many buildings had belonged to Jews, whose entire families perished in the concentration camps. Finding descendants has been a major problem, and now, 60 years on, the ownership of some properties remains in dispute. He said other countries, such as the Czech Republic handled things better, placing a deadline on property claims, after which, land and buildings were sold on the open market. But, Germany didn't do that, and disputations linger. In any case, the neighborhood, in former East Berlin, is lovely and we also got to see the only synagogue in Berlin to survive the war. Apparently some important Nazi leaders lived in the area and burning down the synagogue would have placed their homes in danger, so it was saved.

We ended our evening in one of Berlin's oldest beer gardens. It was cool and green and shady and they did serve soft drinks so the Mormon girls and underage teenagers were welcome, too. Plus, we found some yummy ice cream just around the corner. (Ice cream became one of our quest foods--we ate it whenever and wherever we could find it.)

On Monday, we participated in the Domino Project, an activity designed to memorialize the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. After an interesting tour and explanation about the fall of communism and the wall, our students painted a design of their own creation on a giant block of canvas--about 7 feet tall, three feet wide and two feet deep. It was in reality, a giant domino and many of them will be lined up in front of the Brandenburg Gate this November, then knocked down, like a row of dominoes, to commemorate the fall of the wall 20 years ago. Part of the background information was a history review of the events of 1989. I had remembered that Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Albania and Romania (I think those were all the eastern European countries under Soviet domination) broke free as the Soviet Union collapsed, but I had forgotten that the protests in China occurred at the same time. Sadly, China chose a violent, bloody "solution," while Europe embraced freedom. I think the other Soviet satellites were gaining their independence then, too--Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbajan and all the -stans that I can't remember. I also learned about previous attempts to throw off Soviet domination. I knew that the Hungarians had tried in 1956 and the Czechs in 1968, but I didn't know that the people of East Berlin also staged a revolt in 1953 (so, apparently, they were the first). It, too, failed, but you see again and again how determined people were to gain their freedom. In most of the countries, that freedom has led to peace and prosperity (Yugoslavia being the main exception), and it was fascinating to learn more and actually be there.

Speaking of being there--I tried to explain to Kara how amazing that simple fact was to me. When I was growing up, Americans did not visit East Germany or Czechoslovakia or Hungary, yet there we were. When I was her age, Russians patrolled those streets, and secret police spied upon and oppressed the people. Today, East Berlin still has a Karl Marx Strasse, and a park with statues of Marx and Engels, but Lenin and Stalin are definitely out. In fact, with the wall gone, the best way to tell you're in the former East Berlin is the streetcars. West Berlin got rid of them, but they remained in the East, so if you see tracks on the street, you're in East Berlin, otherwise, you're in the West. The pedestrian lights at intersections also used to give it away--in the east you had Ampelmann who wore a derby hat, while in the west, you just saw a plain green man when it was time to cross--and they had planned to change everything to the more utilitarian west-type signs, but people loved Ampelmann too much. So, now he helps people cross in both the east and west and is a beloved symbol of the entire city of Berlin. By the way, there are Ampelmann stores all over the city and you must bring him home if you go there to visit. You can find him online if you search, I'm sure.

My main regrets regarding Berlin are the two museums I missed. I really, really wanted to go to the Pergamon Museum and see the Ishtar Gate (I saw it in my college Humanities book and have wanted to see it ever since--it's a giant, blue, tile gate from the Middle East, stunningly beautiful), but it was closed on Monday and that was our main day in the city. I also missed the Jewish Museum, said to be the finest in Europe. We had a missed connection and a shortage of time, and it just didn't work out. I doubt I'll get there again, but maybe someday......

And so, on we went. Our travels next took us to Dresden, Germany; a show-place concentration camp called Terezin; and the beautiful city of Prague. More in the next installment.....

By the way, if you missed London and Paris, just keep scrolling down in my blog and you'll find them.