Berlin and the Fall of the Wall

This past weekend I went to Berlin and on Monday there was the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall. I left Thursday night with my friend Espen and we took an overnight City Night Line train, which was pretty cool. We got there early Friday morning and had met a guy who is Eurorailing for two months and he is from New York! I love meeting people when I’m traveling. We were able to stay in Espen’s friend Steve’s apartment, which was nice and we didn’t have to worry about a hostel. There is so much to see in Berlin and we didn’t know where to begin.
On Friday we wandered around the city a lot and saw a bunch of the land marks in Berlin. The weather was so beautiful, it made the city seemed so perfect. The buildings are very short for a big city, but it was really nice. The city is very spread out, which is nice and frustrating at the same time. Since we had a lot of time there I was able to see most of the things that I wanted to, but there is so much more that I wasn’t able to see. One of the first things I saw was the Fernseher Turm, TV Tower. It really stood out because it is so tall. There is viewing tower on the top and a restaurant that rotates on the top, but we didn’t have a chance to go up to the top. The street lights have different figures on them, which is left over from East Berlin. They are called the Ampel Mann and they look different for green and red lighs to signal walking. I found it interesting to see this left from East Berlin. We went past Museum Island where there are many music, art and history museums in the same area. Then we went to Humboldt University where many famous people had studied, such as Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Otto Von Bismark and many more. It was crazy to be at a school where so many famous people had studied. Then we ate at a cute German restaurant near the University. Afterwards, we walked to the Brandenburger Tor, which is in East Berlin and stood next to the wall when it used to stand. There was a lot of work being done in preparation for the celebration on Monday, but it was still really nice to see. All of the Embassy buildings are right along that street and I got to see the American Embassy. Then on the other side of the Bradenurger Tor was the Reichstag, which is the giant Parliament building and some memorials. The Jewish Memorial is there and when I saw it I knew what my tour guide in Prague was talking about. There were stones of all different heights and the ground was uneven; it really did remind me of the cemetary that I saw while I was in Prague. Then we walked a little and stood over where Hitler’s bunker was. The bunkers run under a now parking lot and then under the memorial. The bunkers are not very publicized because they don’t want it to be a huge tourist attraction, but there is a map and information written near where the bunkers are. It was strange to have a realization that I was standing where Hitler once stood. We walked towards Potsdam Platz after that and that area is all newly rebuilt within the past 20 years. It used to be empty space and now there are tall and modern buildings all over the square. The Sony Center is there and it’s very futuristic with blue lights and cool buildings under a dome. That night I walked around the city and saw some of the city life in Berlin and then we found a few bars to go to.
The next day we couldn’t decide what to do and decided to go to a cafe to get breakfast first. Then we decided to go to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, which is in Oranienburg, about 45 minutes outside of Berlin. It was an unforgettable experience and I’m really glad we made the trip, even though it was an emotional one. In May 1933, the SA troopers took over a vacant factory building in the middle of the town on the road to Berlin and the Oranienburg Concentration Camp was the first concentration camp in the state of Prussia. It was closed in July 1934. The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was built in the summer of 1936 and was the first new camp under Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler. This camp was designed as a model camp for future camps. Over 200,000 people were imprisioned in the camp and tens of thousands had died of starvation, disease, force labor, matreatment or murder, in addition to thousands who died on death marches afte vacuation in April 1945.
Going to the memorial and camp was a very intense experience, but I’m glad I did it. A lot of the original buildings are still there and it was a bit overwhelming walking into the bunkers where the prisoners stayed and the jail. The barbed wire is still there and walking through the gated entrance gave me a bit of an uneasy feeling. It’s hard to imagine what was going through the heads of all of the people who have walked through those gates. I was pretty tired after my day, but we went out for sushi and then to hang out with some people.
Sunday was less of an intense day. We went to the Charlottenburg Schloss and it was a really nice castle with a huge garden. Then we went to the Tiergarten, which had a beautiful park and the trees were the definition of Fall if you were to look it up in the dictionary. There were also a bunch of monuments, such as one of Otto Von Bismark and a tower to overlook the city. We also got to see Schloss Bellevue, where all of the people were staying for the celebration on Monday. The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche was also really interesting. It was a Protestant Church bombed in 1943 and the remains of the foyer of the church still stands as a memorial with giant holes in the top of it. The new church is built right next to where the old one used to stand and looks a bit strange from the outside, but has stained glass covering the walls. There is a lot of symbolism in the church and memorials of those who died by the Nazi’s. That night we went to the Berliner Dom and saw a few more memorials, including the WWI memorial and a memorial of the book burning memorial. The Berliner Dom is a beautiful Protestant Cathedral and is Berlin’s largest church. I think that one of my favorite memorials was the one about the book burning in front of the Humboldt University Library. During WWII students of the University gathered all of the books that did not agree with Nazi perspectives, aline with their ideals or were written by Jewish authors and burned them on the square in front of the library. Now there is a hole in the ground which is illuminated and there are empty book shelves, symbolizing the books that have been burned. We walked over to Checkpoint Charlie and there are large billboards that are covered in historical information about the wall and Checkpoint Charlie. Charlie is letter C in the military alphabet and this checkpoint was checkpoint c along the wall, hence the name Checkpoint Charlie. The pictures of the American and Soviet soldiers are illuminated and there is a large sign saying entering and leaving the American Sector. The place where the wall used to stand is now marked by a line of bricks 2 wide throughout the whole city where it used to stand. I put one foot on each side of the line at one point and it was crazy to realize that I was able to straddle the line, while people only 20 years ago were separated from their families and friends by the exact same line.
After this we met up with some friends, went out to dinner and then the standard irish pub that seems to be everywhere.
The next day was the 20th anniversary and we went to see the East Side Gallery, which is 1.3 km long and is part of the wall that still remains standing. There are about 100 paintings on the wall and it is always being repainted. It was amazing to be able to get so close to the wall. That night was the celebration of the 20 Jahre Mauerfall (Fall of the Wall) and there were thousands of people were there to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. World leaders and ordinary people gathered to remember this histoic day and I still cannot believe I was there. There were people such as, Angela Merkel, Mikhail Gorbatrov, Hillary Clinton, and Bon Jovi, along with other world leaders present for the celebration. There were 100,000 dominos that were decorated by students in Berlin and they were a symbol of the wall. Starting at 8 pm after the ceremony had already began, they pushed the dominos over and started to symbolize the falling of the wall on Nov 9, 1989. I cannot believe that it was a simple 2 words, “ab sofort” (meaning, with immediate effect), that were not meant to be said, during a press conference had such an impact on the falling of the wall. With these two words, not only did it become easier for people to cross into the west from the east, but the gaint barrier of the wall had fallen. I’m really glad that I was able to be at this celebration and witness the commeration of the falling of the wall.
I had a really good weekend and I was able to learn a lot while at the same time enjoying my time in Berlin. I’m looking forward to going back at some point to see more of the city and take advantage of all that I was unable to.

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