Around the World in 330 Days: Brian's Fulbright Journey in China and Elsewhere: Day 326: Berlin, Day 1--Brandenburg Gate, Pariser Platz, Memorial to Murdered Jews, Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted under Nazism

We got up kind of late today, but we did manage to do some sightseeing on our first full day in Berlin. We got much more accomplished than on our first day in Prague, when we were so tired from the flight delay and (still) sick that we pretty much just slept in all day.

I began by trying to get us an online reservation to visit the famous dome at Reichstag, but there were no available reservations. So our future plans are just to admire it from afar. Alas. When we finally got going, we walked about 15 minutes to the Brandenburg Gate, which is, according to Rick Steves, "the last survivor . . . of the 14 original gates in Berlin's old city wall." It represents the former division between east and west, and has great social and political importance to Germany. It's a beautiful gate, too: a chariot on top (won back from Napoleon, who initially placed it in Le Louvre) and classical architecture all over (including a beautiful Athena statue on one side). Near the gate, there's the Room of Silence, where people can go to meditate "on the cost of freedom," as Steves puts it. It's a very small room where people just go and sit. It was kind of nice, actually: it was deliberately created to be non-denominational. As we were leaving, the receptionist kept speaking to us in German, even though I said, "Ich vehrstehe nicht." Kerry figured out that she wanted to know if we could hear the music that was playing outside in the room, just from her gestures to her ears.

On the way to the Gate from our hotel, Pariser Platz is located: it's a square with a lot of people milling around, vendors, and more moden buildings. On the other side of the Gate, there's a beautiful park called Tiegarten, bisected down the middle, leading to a Victory Column (the walk was too long, so we didn't go see it). Instead, at Steves's suggestion, we looked at Pariser Platz some more. It includes the US Embassy, the DZ Bank Building (with modern architecture in the lobby...although the guard wouldn't let us in), and the Hotel Adlon, where the movie Grand Hotel was shot!

Next we headed to the Memorial of the Murdered Jews in Europe. It's quite a display: many different "coffin-shaped pillars" (Steeves) of all sizes--some standing lying down, but as you get further back in the labyrinth, some are standing up. It's easy to get lost in them. Maybe that is part of the point: maybe you're supposed to feel lost like the Jews did in the concentration camps. We also explored their "Information Center," which turned out to be a small museum. It took us awhile to get in; we had to get in a line and go through security. But it was free! One thing that was interesting: as one information guy was making announcements, he said to the entire crowd, in English, "Do all of you speak English?" Everyone nodded. It's so interesting to note that English is sort of the "default" language in most places we go here, not German.

Once we got in, first we saw, on a wall, a short history of Nazi occupation. This led to pictures of six individuals who died in the Holocaust, and then to a room with letters from people who were saying goodbye to their loved ones. One that impacted me the most read, "Dear father! I am saying goodbye to you before I die. We would so love to live, but they won't let us and we will die. I am so scared of this death, because the small children are thrown alive into the pit. Goodbye forever. I kiss you tenderly. Yours J." That was from a twelve-year-old girl. We also saw histories of families destroyed, and one dark room described histories of individual people one by one (on audio), some of them only 10 or 20 years old. It was a moving tribute. It was interesting to me how much Germany was willing to acknowledge the past of the Holocaust and not bury it.

This was also true with the next memorial we saw across the street, the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted under Nazism. It's a 3-D concrete hexahedron building that has a window, through which one may see a movie playing on loop of male and female homosexuals kissing. Someone had placed a rose in front of the screen. We saw many people stop there, which surprised us. One gay couple stopped. However, when one family went by it, I heard a little girl ask her father, "What's that?" "You don't need to know about that," he replied. It made me a bit sad.

We walked back to the hotel after that. But first we stopped for some food. I had my second currywurst of the day: the first I imbibed right before we got to the Brandenburg Gate. And, of course, I needed water. We walked back to the mall we briefly went to last night: went to the grocery store for snacks and more water. (Sadly, our hotel room has no fridge, so our big bottles of water will get warm!) We stopped at the McCafe: Kerry had some cake; I had a Sprite slushie (just because).

It wasn't very warm today, so that helped. Nothing like the heinous 95 degree weather in Paris, only about high 70s today. We plan to do a bus tour tomorrow.