Berlin Day 6

WARNING:

This is a very long posting. I tried to edit but all of it needed to be recorded. For those who have neither the time, interest nor inclination to hear about all the details of our day, I am providing a condensed version and you will have no need to spend several hours reading.

We left the apartment early.

We met a private guide for a four hour walking tour of Jewish Berlin.

We saw many memorials.

We saw some very beautiful restored courtyards.

We ended the tour at the holocaust memorial.

We did a lot more walking.

We ate dinner and got lost finding the theatre for our performance.

We got back to the apartment without incident.

Because we did not have another very late night, we were able to get out of the apartment early this morning. It helped that we decided to have breakfast out. It meant no cleaning up of the kitchen.

Today we had arranged for a private walking tour of Jewish Berlin. We were not interested in being taken to sites we could visit on our own. We wanted the back story of places and the history. We used Milk and Honey, a company that does Jewish tours all over Europe. Our guide was Atalia, a native Israeli who wanted to distance herself from Judiasm. She had lived in London for a number of years and then came to Berlin for a three month visit in 2007. Not only is she still there but she has married a Berliner who is very involved in the Jewish community. Ironically, the tours she provides is on the opposite end of the spectrum of distancing oneself from Judaism.

We started at Alexanderplatz. This area was all part of East Berlin and has undergone an enormous transformation. Because of the bombing by the Allies, very few of the historic buildings were left standing. Standing in the square, it was easy to identify the soviet contributions, grey, rectangular concrete buildings without any ornamentation or frills. The post unification buildings were warmer looking, many of them in a Bauhaus kind of style. Lastly, there were the heritage buildings which have been restored to their past resplendence by rebuilding in the same footstep and as much as possible using the materials salvaged from the post war rubble.

The Jews came to Berlin in 1269. They did not live in one neighborhood but according to historical documents, had a working relationship with the Christians. There is a street quite close to Marienkirke (St. Mary's Church) called Judenstrasse. However, there are no signs of that community there and we did not walk over to it. Atalia told us that the Jews had been invited into Berlin at that time because of the widespread connections they had. The Viennese Jews who had been expelled were very wealthy and were invited to stay 20 years. They lived under some stringent laws to ensure that they would not multiply. For example, they were allowed to have only one child. Other children born would have illegal status. Obviously the plan did not work.

Our next stop was a small park in the Hackshener Platz. The edge of the park had housed a synagogue but it was highly damaged during the November 9 pogrom (Krrstalnacht) and then totally dismantled by the Soviets. There was not even a plaque, but the park was a sculpture by a survivor who returned to Berlin after the war. It had images of distraught men, women and children behind barriers, mothers sheltering children and one Jewish symbol, the menorah. The sculptor had memories of not being allowed to sit on park benches as a child. This was the inspiration for a bench with one figure seated at the end, its arm stretching across the back of the bench that had room for several people. I had guessed that the empty spaces marked the Jews who were no longer alive. Further down Rosenstrasse, was a structure used for posting notices. It had been used to vilify the Jews during the Nazi era. It is curious that the 'Jewish' street in Paris has a similar name, Rue des Rosiers.

Many of the imposing doors throughout the city provide entrances to Hofen (courtyards). One that had been bombed during the war was still standing but refurbished after reunification. It now consists of a complex of seven courtyards housing high-end shops, apartments, restaurants and a theatre. The walls of all the buildings surrounding the hof have been restored to the grandeur of the early twentieth century. Before the war, about 30% of the residents were Jewish. Today only one Jewish establishment remains, Levy's, a toy store that also sells Judaica. Unfortunately, it was closed.

Continuing through the area, we found another hof that had not been restored. The wall were covered in graffiti and we saw the inscription 'Dor shaynee', the second generation. The main building in this courtyard was Otto Weidt's workshop for the blind. Otto was a German who had learned to make brooms and brushes when he himself became blind. He hired blind Jews to work there. Once the Jews were being eliminated from Berlin, he hired even more Jews to work for him. Some he hid when the Gestapo would come to inspect. He managed to keep the workshop open because the brooms and brushes made were being bought by the army. Therefore, he was contributing to the war effort. When some of his workers were sent to Theriesenstadt, he sent them food and clothing packages. One of the workers he managed to save now is the conservator of this small museum. She declined the offer to be part of the Jewish Museum because she felt that the actions of Otto Weidt was German not Jewish history.

Our next stop was the first Jewish cemetery. Along the route, Atalia pointed out some of the many memorials in the city. The most moving ones for me were privately commissioned by the families of those being remembered. An artist started making up small brass plaques that were set into the sidewalk. The information contained the name, the years of birth and death, when and where he or she was deported and when and where he or she was murdered. Not died, murdered. These plaques were embedded at the last known address of that person. At first this artist illegally installed a few memorials, but when people saw them, they asked him to make more to remember their loved ones. Creating the plaques is now his full time job and the practice has spread to other European cities where Jews disappeared. Once one was pointed out, we seemed to see them everywhere. Another memorial was engraved along the side of a tall building, providing the information of residents of the adjacent building that had been bombed out of existence. Beside the cemetery was a Jewish boys’ School.

There were only a few gravestones in this Cemetery. Most of the markers had been desecrated and the ground was a patchy lawn. In recent years, the grass was all replaced by ivy and the place looks very lush. The third generation of Moses Mendelson's tombstone stood in its original place. The other stones there have been arranged in a viewing area not in their original locations. At the entrance was yet another memorial. It was a sculpture in front of the cemetery depicting a group of women. In 1942, about 2000 Jewish men were rounded up and placed in a detention centre in the Hackschener Mart. The women wanted to find out information about their relatives, so for10 straight days so they demonstrated in front of the building and brought food parcels to the men. The Nazis tried to disperse them, but the women’s persistence paid off. Goebbels allowed all the men to be released. Unfortunately, most of them were rounded up during other selections and became victims of the Nazis once again.

Beside the cemetery was a Jewish Gymnasium, now in use again, named in honour of Moses Mendelsohn. It was disconcerting to watch the German Police monitor the area. Further on, we passed a great synagogue, with a very Sephardic architecture. It had escaped destruction during Kristalnacht. However allies' bombing had destroyed most of it by end of the war. It was found that back end had been totally destroyed, but with the facade reconstructed, it now functions as a museum. Because we were short on time, we moved on.

Our last stop in the area was a Jewish girls’ school. Its original use was noted by a plaque. Today, it houses a very high end restaurant (graceful chandeliers and a rocket missile as decor) and a number of private art galleries. We are going to try to spend more time there before we leave Berlin. At this point we got onto the U Bahn to the Brandenburg Gate. We looked around the hof but hurried on as our time with Atalia was quickly flying by. This area of East Berlin had been totally destroyed by bombing. During the reconstruction, strict rules had to be followed in order to maintain the city plan. Each building had to occupy the original footprint andhad to maintain the same height. A certain percentage of the front had to be constructed of limestone. The American museum and a bank designed by Frank Gehry were pointed out. Again, we will try to revisit the area for a closer look.

We had now arrived at the memorial for the Jewish victims of Europe. It is a large square filled with row upon row of concrete steles (blocks) of varying heights. There is a slight tilt to some of the blocks. Walking through it you feel you are caught in a maze, although the way out of each row is clear. The height of the blocks dipped down towards the middle. People were wandering through, while children played tag running through the rows. According to the architect, there is no wrong way to appreciate this structure. Although not as moving as Liebeskind's Garden of Exile, it was interesting that both memorials were made of concrete blocks, but had very different affects. Liebeskind's made me nauseous, actually physically sick. This one made me feel dwarfed and insignificant. Before leaving us, Atalia pointed out the Reichtag dome that has a wonderful view of all of Berlin and in another park, the location of the memorial to the murdered homosexuals. Yet more sites to come back to on our last day in Berlin.

We headed down to Checkpoint Charlie once again. Gila had bought more time for her phone but it wasn't working. We were going back to the purchase place. We should have taken a bus or subway. Although it looked quite close on the map, we walked more than half an hour. My feet had just about had it. The clerk was very busy and dealt with paying customers in between Gila's questions. It turned out that she had inadvertently locked the SIM card. All she had to do was call the hotline and quote another number on the SIM card packaging. Yeah right. I tried a number of times and either was told I was calling an unassigned number or there was no answer. Rather than letting frustration get the better of us, we found a place to eat and relax.

We had tickets to an acrobatic show in the evening. We had some time to kill before the performance so we went into a Starbucks to check e-mail and surf the net. In retrospect, we should have set out for the theatre then and spend any extra time close to the venue. We left an hour to find the theatre. I was pretty confident that it would be easy since we had been there earlier in the day. Yeah right. I should know better than to trust my memory. First, because of inattentiveness, we missed our stop and ended up at the end of the line. When we finally got to the right station we did not know which train or tram to transfer to, so in a moment of total insanity we decided to walk. Gila was kind. I got us very lost, but she insisted that it was a pleasure not to have to lead. I just felt annoyed and embarrassed that I had made much more than one wrong turn. Needless to say, we were late for the performance.

                                     

This is the lovely Hof where we saw the show Beyond.

The show was called Beyond and was classified as a modern circus. The acrobats mixed humour, agility, strength and incredible skill in their almost magical feats. These are people who have no limiting joints. The show was very riveting and allowed me to come down from the tension I had felt trying to find the theatre. All too soon the show was over and I was faced with the daunting task of getting us back to the apartment. Leading certainly is not a privilege for me. However, with a few timely questions of passers-by and little wandering, we found our way back without any misadventure. Gila has some unique ideas for our last day here, like going for a massage. Again we will be faced with the dilemma of more places to see and not enough time.