We arrived on a cold Sunday morning. Definitely much colder than expected. During the first moments of my three weeks on a different continent, I worried I had not brought warm clothes to last. After my friends and I managed to find the hostel, though, we ate some breakfast and the climate became just slightly warmer. And so, we were off.
We started our trip off with a little bit of Judaism. We sought out the "New Synagogue," which was an ironic name for a synagogue that was actually kinda old. When people named synagogues back then, they must not have thought with the hindsight that it might still exist today. It was mostly a museum now, though, and I learned a lot about the Berlin Jewish community before World War II. That community might have actually been one of the most liberal of its time, trying to mingle into society before anti-Semitism became a major threat to their very existence. There was an organ in the synagogue, and I even read about a female rabbi (although she was not allowed to give sermons).
Afterwards, still tired from a bad red-eye flight (they served breakfast at the start of the overnight trip and the seats did not recline!), we opted for an early lunch. Then we heard about a company that would improve our entire time away from the U.S. and Israel. Sandeman's New Europe is a European tour group that offers free tours in many European cities. These tours are tip-based, and they allowed us to watch our budget while setting an entire tone for a few of our city visits!
During the tour, the idea settled in that Berlin is a city that had taken part in some of the greatest history of the world. As the capitol of Germany during both World Wars, and as the center of the Cold War, one can argue that Berlin was the most important city in the 20th century. Twenty years ago, the Cold War ended, but instead of running away from some sad history, the city seems to have embraced it.
Berlin realizes the evil of its country's ways during World War II, and therefore the city remains real cautious towards the Jewish community. In front of the synagogue we earlier went to, there was a guard stationed 24-7. And the same was true for every Jewish establishment in the city. The city also hosts the largest Jewish museum in Europe, detailing much of our people's plight in the continent and explaining Jewish life to all visitors. Meanwhile, there is a relatively new Holocaust Memorial that stands prominently on a big square of ground. Berlin's Holocaust Memorial is a bunch of large, black blocks of different sizes in the sloping square. As I walked through the memorial, I was prompted to think of how the Nazis refused to differentiate between the Jews they killed. Victims came from all sorts of life, from different levels of wealth and different levels of talent.
The Nazis' evils started within, though, and not with Jews, when arson probably destroyed the parliament building. The Reichstag was rebuilt with a new crystal dome so viewers can look down and watch politicians debate from above, symbolizing the ideals of democracy that first materialized for Germans in the failed Weimer Republic earlier in the century. Because of the country's even greater evils, Berlin got bombarded during World War II, which set the city up to stand center-stage during the Cold War. They thrive on this history. There is a church that has its pulpit lower than the normal ground - they kept the hole there that a bomb created. The three places where the Berlin Wall still stands remain, and a couple turned into spots for artists of different sorts to show their talents. Some of this became such a trend that graffiti is a normal and an even beautiful art-form to view in the city.
But Berlin's love for history did not start in the 20th Century. The two most recognizable landmarks of the city are covered with historical significance. The Victory Column was built to commemorate victory in the Danish-Prussian war. The Brandenburg Gate is a great structure that has stood for centuries, and Napolean stole a statue from it before it served as a Nazi symbol, and before multiple United States presidents spoke in front of it discussing the Cold War.
Our tour guide also told us that Berlin has more museums than Paris, London, or Manhattan. (This might be a product, in part, of Germans being prominent in archeology once upon a time.) We also had a day trip to the nearby Potsdam, where a good handful of German kings and emperors had lived.
Berlin was a city with history at its core, but twenty years ago the city was released from the harsh grasp of history. The city loves its history, though, so it continues to cling to it. This clinging is not like a person who cannot move forward in life because they are too attached to their old life, however, because the city also grows. The clenching to history, therefore, reminds me more of a person that realizes their past makes them who they are. Through their growth, Berliners have managed to still produce good architecture, good beer, and a liberal sense of history, just as they often had. And yet they grow so much - Berlin might look very different the next time I go there. But no matter how different the look may be, I feel certain that stories of the past will still sit everywhere still. What a wonderful time it was, and what a wonderful time it will be next time.
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